Anglers –
September 9, 2017

The cleanup from the devastating flood damage produced by Tropical Storm Lidia last week continues. Most of the region has now had power, water and telephone services restored. Though many areas will never be the same after this event and recovery work will continue for months to come. So far the month of September has started off predictably unforgiving, historically always being the most vulnerable to strikes from Tropical Storm systems. Not many tourists in town this week, as local airport had been closed and many others canceled their planned trips due to concerns over conditions, others canceled because of damage to particular hotels. Weather has stabilized in recent days, though tropical cloud formations are present and have produced isolated rain showers. Ocean has been calm and sportfishing fleets resumed operations with not many charters launching because of light numbers of anglers. Good news is that no new storms are heading our way at this time.

Bait options were more limited, no sardinas so far this week, bait vendors remained local, involved in clean up operations, not enough action for them to travel long distances to scout out new resources of sardinas, with so few charters boats going out to make it profitable for them. Reports from the East Cape were that they had plenty of schooling sardinas in their area, but not many charters going out either. Local charters relied mainly on slabs of squid for bait, this seemed to work fine for the yellowfin tuna action. Trolling lures produced dorado and scattered wahoo action. Water clarity was stirred up, lots of current moving around as well. Early in the week much of the inshore zone was very dirty and green, conditions cleared rapidly, though lots of debris is spread throughout the entire region, so caution was needed when motoring about in order to avoid any collision with heavier objects.

The most consistent action found was for yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 15 lb. class near Iman Bank, drift fishing with strips of squid is what the tuna were striking on. On Tuesday there was one monster yellowfin tuna landed from a super panga while fishing on the Gordo Banks, the fish hit later in the late morning on a strip of squid and weighed in at a whopping 314 lb., making it the first official super cow landed this season for the local panga fleet out of La Playita. Other action on these same grounds produced a handful of wahoo and marlin strikes, the big tuna are definitely in the area, they had been late to show up this summer, but are lurking on these banks now.
Dorado were found in good numbers, mainly by trolling medium sized lures, once the schools were found they would readily hit bait. Sizes varied up to 20 lb., though the majority were smaller in size. Remember the limit on dorado is two fish per license, so it is always better to try and release the small fish, especially the females and hold out to try to fill your limit on a couple of better size specimens.

We did not try any inshore action this week, not really the time of year for that now. Not much bottom action found either, strong currents made that option tougher, plus just mot many charter boats were going out, most all of these were looking for species such as yellowfin tuna and dorado.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 24 charters for the storm shortened week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 striped marlin, 22 white skipjack, 82 dorado, 5 wahoo, 120 yellowfin tuna and 15 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
September 4, 2017

Late report this week. On Wednesday evening Tropical Storm Lidia swept directly towards the Los Cabos region, with wind gusts to 70 mph and dumping almost unprecedented amounts of rainfall, with up to 27 inches of rain being recorded. Main Mexico Highway 1 Bridge collapsed near Santa Rosa, wide spread flooding was felt, arroyos turned into raging rivers, it will take major rebuilding and cleanup efforts. Some areas are still without basic utilities. Our sportfishing charters are resuming operations this week, as ongoing cleanup continues, from the tonnage of debris from inside the marina, hanging on the boats slips, major mess.

Weather is clear now, but through the month of September we always have to follow forecasts closely. Surf has resided now, though who knows what the bait situation for finding any sardinas will be. Could be relying more on strips of squid, until later in the fall, when cooling currents bring back more sardinas.

Before the storm, charters were catching good numbers of yellowfin tuna, while using sardinas and some on squid, off of the Iman Bank mainly, tuna ranged in sizes up to 60 lb., most averaged in the 12 to 16 lb. class, Other anglers were trying the Gordo Banks, but not much had been going on after a flurry of action on cow size tuna during the previous week. There could be the big cows just lurking around the banks, this is the time of year, as long as the weather cooperates, we anticipate some great yellowfin action in the coming weeks.

Dorado were scattered throughout the zone, though mostly smaller sized fish, a few exception of fish over 20 lb., most were under 10 lb. Not as numerous as were the tuna, striking on trolled lures, as well as on various baits once fish were found. Only a few wahoo strikes were reported, more of the ’hoo were concentrated north in the Vinorama region. Maybe the slightly cooler water pushed in from the storm will trigger a wahoo bite.

Black marlin were being found near where the schooling skipjack and yellowfin tuna are. For the anglers that did try trolling larger live baits, many reported strikes on black and blue marlin, most were lost, some were landed through, a few striped marlin hanging around, as well as some sailfish.

Not much consistent bottom action, a few dogtooth snapper hook ups, an occasional amberjack on yo-yo, yellow snapper, cabrilla and triggerfish, but no big numbers.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 36 charters for the shortened week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 black marlin,1 blue marlin, 4 sailfish, 38 dorado, 2 wahoo, 2 dogtooth snapper, 6 yellow snapper, 210 yellowfin tuna, 45 white skipjack, 2 barred pargo, 9 cabrilla, 12 huachinango, 3 amberjack and 32 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric