GORDO BANKS PANGAS

August 9, 2020

Fairly uneventful week, with updated warnings regarding International travel risks due to Covid 19 pandemic, many people are changing plans and deciding not to travel yet. Many Resorts, restaurants, super markets and most other businesses are operating now with high safety standards, though crowds are much lighter than we would normally expect. At this time there is a newly developing Tropical Storm Elida gaining strength and momentum off offshore from Manzanillo. This system is expected to become a hurricane by Monday and is also forecast to follow a track about 250 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas, so we are not expected to feel much impact in Los Cabos besides some larger ocean swells, scattered cloud cover, increased humidity and perhaps isolated rain showers.

Though most of this past week the winds were laid down and this gave a chance for ocean clarity to improve, blue water was much closer to shore now, though on Friday south winds kicked up again setting conditions back some. Water temperature dropped back to 74 degrees along the shoreline, though 80 degree currents were still within several miles offshore. Seasonal patterns seem to be behind schedule this year, we do anticipate conditions to stabilize and get back on track within a couple of weeks.

Bait supplies remained steady for caballito, some mullets still mixed in, no sardinas reported yet. Most popular and consistent fishing grounds this week were near the San Luis Bank. Anglers using yo-yo jigs found a mix of species, amberjack, cabrilla, grouper, bonito, red snapper, yellow snapper, barred pargo and pompano. No huge numbers of any particular species and everyday would be different. We saw amberjack close to 50 lb. also a handful of yellowfin tuna were accounted for off these same grounds, some hit on yo-yo jigs, others on caballito. Far offshore some boats were venturing deep in search of moving porpoise which in turn could attract yellowfin tuna, most reports were of spotty action. We did hear a report of more porpoise activity found offshore of Cabo San Lucas, mostly small to medium sized tuna, but heard of one fish that weighed in at 180 lb.

We saw quite a few dorado moving into local waters, though the majority of these fish were very small juveniles which should be released with care in order to have a chance to mature and reproduce.

Marlin action we saw was more for striped marlin, though we did hear of the one 306 lb. black marlin taken outside of San Luis Bank during recent Bisbee event, of which a 700 lb. blue marlin won on final day.

Along the shoreline we are still saying some monster sized roosterfish up to 60 lb., late in the normal season, but for the time being these fish are remaining in the region while they are finding enough food source. Big jack crevalle also are found along same beach stretches. Local surf anglers reported some evening tripletail action, as well as a couple of nice sized snook, though more jacks than anything else.

Light crowds, good fishing, Eric

GORDO BANKS PANGAS

August 2, 2020

Much of the same patterns this past week. Light crowds of tourists arriving, greeted by warm summer conditions, no new tropical storms that we see developing at this time. Windy conditions were dominant through the entire month of July, though this week winds finally settled down late in the week and through the weekend, giving a chance for water clarity to improve and ocean temperatures were once again on a warming trend, ranging from the mid to upper 70s.

Bait supplies mainly consisted of caballito, with some mullet still found as well, no sardinas were reported yet and usually we do not see them until closer to October. The majority of local sport fishing charters were fishing the grounds from the Gordo Banks and north to Vinorama. Finding a mix of inshore, bottom and offshore action. Most consistent action was found working the shallow rock piles and areas such as San Luis and Vinorama Banks, more often in depths of 100 to 180 ft., using yo-yo jigs and bait. Various cabrilla, grouper, snapper, pargo and amberjack were hooked into, though these fish had to be worked for, no easy big numbers at this time. No wahoo or dorado action was reported

We did hear of a few yellowfin tuna being hooked into near the San Luis Bank, on yo-yo jigs and bait, these tuna were in the 40 to 50 lb. class. We hope with conditions now stabilizing that this tuna action will become steadier, the month of August is normally one of the best times of the year to find good numbers of quality sized yellowfin tuna. Other private charters were going much further offshore in search of warmer clean blue water and migrating porpoise which in turn can be associated with schooling yellowfin, so far this action was very hit or miss, especially with how the wind had been and the distance which was needed to possibly find action. Normally this month is when we find the tuna closer to shore on the high spots, just taking a little longer to develop this summer with the way ocean conditions have been.

Along the shoreline anglers are still finding jack crevalle and some very nice sized roosterfish, we are now in the late time of the season for these fish, but since we have not seen a lot of huge storm surf activity this could last for another couple of weeks.

We did not have many anglers that wanted to go looking for billfish, it is kind of in between seasons now, as the striped marlin move out, following cooler currents towards the north and then we see the black and blue marlin show up, which is now the time frame when they usually become more prevalent on local grounds. We did see a handful of striped marlin landed this past week, most of these were in the 100 to 140 lb. range.

Light crowds, good fishing, Eric