Calmer Conditions, Swordfish Landed

July 10, 2022  

Tropical weather patterns and light crowds of tourists continue. Presently there is TS Darby moving far off to the southwest, much too far to have impact with land. After on and off  cycles of south wind early in the week, conditions settled down for a great weekend. Swells were moderate, water temperatures ranged from 74 on the Pacific to high of 82 degrees in the direction of Los Frailes. Inshore areas had cooled off after the south winds, also stirred up the clarity, can be a normal pattern for this time of year. This movement delays stabilizing of ocean conditions and changes the bite accordingly from day to day.
Bait supplies remained the same, with caballito located inside the marina channel and sardinas and anchoveta being found in the surf zone just north of jetty entrance.

Billfish action is now centered around the 1150 and other high spots, mainly a mix of striped marlin and sailfish, just the beginning of the season when blue and black marlin move in on local grounds. On Saturday a beautiful 250 lb. swordfish was brought into Puerto Los Cabos Marina, landing from the charter boat Hook Up, the swordy apparently was spotted on the 1150 grounds and hit on a dead caballito.

Majority of local charters are now targeting inshore and shallow rocky reef areas, this is where the more productive action was found. A mix of dogtooth snapper, pargo colorado, amberjack, grouper and others are being found. All quality eating species, better action was found to the north, using live bait, early in the day was best. Out in deeper water there were bonito schooling and striking on yo-yo jig. also a few red snappers. 

Very few wahoo or dorado action reported. Though wahoo are present in local waters, seen free swimming in small schools and spear divers have been finding good numbers, as well as cleaning up on all the breeding stock monster amberjack, dogtooth snapper and grouper, authorities seem to turn a blind eye when the majority of these spearos are also illegally selling their harvest.

Yellowfin tuna were scattered, a few nice sized tuna were hooked on the San Luis Bank, only to be lost after extended battles, only a few smaller tuna were caught from our common La Fortuna to San Luis grounds. More numbers of yellowfin were encountered far offshore associated with porpoise, fish to over 30 lb., though most of the time more than 40 miles out, not a normal charter deal, can be arranged for added fuel surcharge when the weather also is favorable.

Along the shore it is the jack crevalle and roosterfish dominated the action, also some sierra, pompano and various snapper and pargo species. Some trophy sized roosterfish of 40 to 70 lb. were landed and released.

Good Fishing, Eric





















































Storm Pass, Cow Sized Tuna Landed ~ July 3, 2022

July 3,, 2022
  
Light summer crowds now,  they enjoyed settled down weather patterns this past week. Though this next week we will be following the path of Tropical Storm Bonnie, forecast to pass even further off to the southwest than TS Celia did last week. Strange to see the name Bonnie though, since we already had the name Blas and then Celia, apparently this latest system originated in the Atlantic basin and then crossed over and is reforming over the Pacific. 

Early in the week, after the port reopened on Monday, we had a few days of south winds which contributed to cooling off and turning the water over some, as it was greenish in places, now once again we are seeing clarity improve. The most consistent action remains off the bottom and close to shore for roosterfish and jacks. There was a mix of caballito, mullet, sardina and anchoveta being found for bait. Offshore there were schools of bolito encountered and these made great bait options as well.

Main bottom species now being brought in were amberjack, yellow snapper, barred pargo, African pompano, pargo colorado, leopard grouper, gulf grouper and triggerfish. All excellent eating, a few amberjack weighing up to 50 lb.

Highlight of the week was a 290 lb. yellowfin tuna that was landed from off of San Luis Bank while drift fishing with a live bolito for bait, besides this one cow sized tuna, we only saw a handful of other yellowfin, these were under 30 lb. Dorado were also very scarce, a few wahoo were accounted for and many other strikes were missed, most of these on the same bottom fishing grounds.

Billfish action was very scattered, we did see sailfish and striped marlin, but very few. It will not be long now we start to hear reports of blue and black marlin.

Good Fishing, Eric