March 7, 2021

As we are now only a couple of weeks away from official start of the spring season, we are already starting to feel the transitional warming trend develop and days are progressively lengthening. Local daylight light savings time will change on April 4, one hour ahead. As vaccinations are becoming more obtainable we have noticed an increase of persons making reservations to visit during the coming months, we expect it will be a slow process, but at least things appear to be swinging in the right direction.

This week started out wild, as a major wind front from the north swept through all of Baja, this had been forecast, they were not wrong, as gusts to 30 mph plus picked up Sunday night, creating dangerous ocean conditions and both local ports were closed to all navigation, included all sportfishing. By Monday afternoon the front had crazily passed on through and conditions settled down quickly, enabling port authorities to reopen activities starting later than same day.

With the conditions still persisting of on and off winds, ocean turned greenish and cooler, average water temperature in the 68 to 70 degree range, very slight swell, but there have been strong currents pushing through on the fishing grounds. Anglers found a mix of baitfish available in the marina area, caballito and a couple varieties of sardinas in sporadic numbers.

With minimal numbers of charters even going out recently, most have been fishing Chileno, Palmilla, Gordo Banks and north to Vinorama, spread out trying different areas. The better inshore action was being found towards the south, mainly for sierra, while the more productive bottom action was to the north, when weather permitted. Anglers were using yo-yo jigs and various baits while drift fishing over rocky high spots, more often in depths ranging 120 to 200 ft. There were more numbers of bonito on certain deeper grounds, especially earlier in the day. Swift currents made fishing more challenging, but with persistence some quality species such as yellowtail, amberjack, leopard grouper and red snapper were accounted for, some of these to over 30 lb. The more exotic species for the week was a golden jack, which are not very common in recent years as well as another golden cabrilla.

Did not hear of any dorado found recently, there were reports of a few stray wahoo being seen as well as a handful of yellowfin tuna, smaller fish hanging on same high spots as were the bottom species. No billfish seen on local grounds either, the green water not to their liking. We did hear of scattered striped marlin action from Cabo San Lucas. We expect that as soon as the ocean clears and warms up, as daytime temperatures increase, winds settle, that the all-around fishing action will improve significantly.

Good fishing, Eric