Hurricane Rosa off to the West, Tuna and Wahoo Bite ~ September 29, 2018

Anglers –
September 29, 2018

We saw light crowds of anglers arriving this week, though ocean conditions remained decent through the weekend. Active tropical conditions now being closely monitored, with category four Hurricane Rosa spinning over the Pacific several hundred miles off to the west, following a northern track, expected to impact northern areas of Baja before dissipated over Mainland Mexico and into the U.S. There were some isolated showers felt locally, particularly on Thursday night when Cabo San Lucas experienced heavy flooding in the lower lying areas. Swells increased to three meters, but winds were light and anglers were able to reach the normal fishing grounds. Presently we are watching a newly forming tropical system off of Southern Mexico, expected to become Hurricane Sergio, but also is forecast to follow a similar path as Rosa and remain safely away from any impact with Southern Baja, so hopefully these forecasts remain actuate.

There continued to be supplies of sardinas near the PLC marina entrance, this was the main bait now being used. Heavy pressure coming with the fall season, hard to say how the baitfish supply will hold up, there should be some control on how much brined dead bait is allowed during the upcoming high dollar tournaments, this always puts a major hurt on local bait supplies.

With clean blue water now within a mile of shore and ocean temperatures averaging close to 85 degrees, fleets have not had to go far offshore to find fish. Most consistent action recently has been found between the Iman and San Luis Banks. Main species has been the yellowfin tuna, with the full moon passing these fish became a little more finicky than they already had been, but still there were quality yellowfin being landed every day, average size fish were in the 50 to 70 lb. range. Some days they would bite early, other times it was a late bite, hot spots would vary each day, early in the week San Luis was best, then Iman, then to the inside off of La Fortuna. With persistence anglers were able to land one or two, up to four or five of these tuna per day.

Over last weekend the wahoo started to bite, first on the Iman Bank, trolling Rapalas and other lures, not necessarily only early in the day either. For the few boats that got into this action, they reported having multiple strikes and landing as many as four wahoo, weights were to over 40 lb. This action slowed way down on the Iman Bank, but there were new reports from further north off of Vinorama where wahoo action was very good as well, this is longer range, but hopefully these fish will move on to our normal closer fishing grounds.

Not much going on with dorado, just a handful of mostly smaller single fish being encountered. There were opportunities for billfish, this week there were striped marlin, blue marlin, black marlin and sailfish all found, no big numbers, but these fish are in the area and some impressive blues and black to over 400 lb. were reported. Slow trolling larger baitfish like white skipjack or football sized tuna showing the best results on the local high spots for hooking into a big marlin.

Not much bottom action, a few snapper, cabrilla, amberjack, not many people concentrated on this. We did see one dogtooth of close to 60 lb. Also a 50 lb. amberjack, so there are some impressive fish in the area.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 53 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 2 blue marlin, 2 black marlin, 9 dorado, 17 wahoo, 92 yellowfin tuna, 22 bonito, 12 red snapper, 4 dogtooth snapper, 1 mullet snapper, 1 roosterfish, 4 amberjack, 18 barred pargo, 1 sculpin, 2 surgeon fish, 8 cabrilla and 70 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Rain and more Rain, then more Tuna Action ~ September 22, 2018

Anglers –
September 22, 2018

This week was shut down for sport fishing by Monday afternoon due to a broad low pressure Topical system that slowly followed a path directly towards the Southern Baja Peninsula, north through the Gulf of Californian, drenching mainland Mexico and then in the South Western U.S. states. Hard to predict what a particular low pressure system might develop into, this latest storm left more rainfall than anything else, certain locations received as much as 15 inches of rain and there was moderate to heavy flooding to deal with. There were some isolated wind gusts to over 40 mph, for the most part the wind was more like 20 mph with. persistent rainfall, very intense at times. The Port was shut down form Monday afternoon until Thursday morning, though most fleets did not start back operations until Friday. So this was a shortened week.

Once back operating, fleets dealt with slightly off colored water conditions and some strong currents. Put as ocean conditions settled down, water temperature was back averaging close to 84 to 85 degrees, lots of yellowfin tuna were being seen on these grounds, the tuna were mostly in the 50 lb. to 80 lb. range, but at times were very shy in taking any hooked offerings from anglers, through with persistence anglers could catch two or three during a morning trip. This action was all on bait, with live, or dead sardinas, strips of squid and some on live chihuil, which were not a sure bet trying to catch. So despite the yellowfin tuna action being sporadic and a bit finicky, this was still the best opportunity presently for catching quality gamefish. On Friday a private sport fisher out of Puerto Los Cabos reported landing a yellowfin tuna off of the Gordo Banks that was estimated at 280 lb. This is the first real super cow we have heard about from these grounds this season.

Other action was limited, some bottom action on the same grounds, but not a sure bet option, highlights were a handful of grouper and dogtooth snapper, these fish were hanging around the high spots, though trying to hook and turn these fish away from the rocks was a completely different story in itself, even on locked down 80 lb. tackle these fish will quickly terminate the battle by cutting lines off.

Only an occasional dorado being seen, a few reports of missed wahoo strikes or free jumping fish seen, on Saturday a handful of wahoo up to 40 lb. were landed while trolling rapalas and other lures around the Iman Bank,this time of year there are times we see minimal variety of fish. Coming up in the fall season we do anticipate a great season, looking forward to more wahoo and dorado showing back up in the daily fish counts.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 35 charters for this storm shortened week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 2 striped marlin, 1 sailfish, 2 blue marlin, 5 wahoo, 3 dorado, 58 yellowfin tuna, 17 bonito, 6 red snapper, 3 dogtooth snapper, 4 cabrilla and 18 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Yellowfin Tuna on Iman & San Luis Banks ~ September 15, 2018

Anglers –
September 15, 2018

We are starting to see the first wave of early fall anglers arriving, still only moderate numbers, but more people than we have seen in recent weeks. This is now the four year anniversary of when Hurricane Odile devastated the Los Cabos area. This week the weather has been calm, last week we saw some isolated unpredictable thundershowers that did bring some fairly heavy rainfall amounts in some areas. No new storms that we see presently on the forecast, but tropical systems can develop rapidly this time of year, another few weeks of the normal storm season, so we will be watching closely. Meanwhile the Philippines is now enduring the battering of a Super Typhon and the East Coast of the United Sates is dealing with Hurricane Florence. All is quiet in the Eastern Pacific at this time. Winds were very light this week, swells were moderate, supplies of sardinas were sufficient and anglers were enjoying great ocean conditions, though days were still very warm and humidity is high, as it normally is during the month of September.

Anglers were using both sardinas and strips of squid, some chihuil also now being caught for bait as well. Yellowfin tuna were found from the Gordo Banks to Iman and San Luis. Smaller football tuna mainly being found on the Gordo Banks, though on Iman and San Luis the yellowfin tuna were avenging 50 to 70 lb. Finicky at times, lots of patience and persistence needed, drift fishing while chumming, dealing with lots of triggerfish and needlefish stealing baits. At times tuna could be seen boiling and jumping out of the water, but proved to have lock jaw, but then would go on the bite sporadically, some days early, sometimes much later in the day. Anglers were doing well to land one, two or three of these quality tuna.

Only a few dorado being found, most of these were under ten pounds, most of these a bit closer to shore than where the tuna were schooling. Wahoo were very few and far between, though every few days we heard about someone catching one. Only a few small roosterfish found close to shore. Off the bottom we did not see any consistent action, though a couple of nice cabrilla in the 40 to 50 pound class were accounted for. A handful of red snapper, bonito and a couple of dogtooth snapper in the 20 to 30 lb. range.

Heard of great striped marlin action on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, our local grounds produced scattered billfish action for sailfish, striped and blue marlin.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 62 charters for this week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 9 striped marlin, 3 sailfish, 2 blue marlin, 3 wahoo, 14 dorado, 105 yellowfin tuna, 16 bonito, 2 barred pargo, 14 red snapper, 2 dogtooth snapper, 12 cabrilla and 75 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric