Anglers –
This week we saw the first real heat wave of the season, temperatures reached into the low 90s during the first part of the week, later on weather patterns normalized and light crowds of tourists were enjoying pristine spring time weather. Winds resided and anglers found comfortable conditions on the ocean, where water temperatures ranged from 68 on the Pacific up to 72/74 degrees in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, warmest currents being found on the fishing grounds offshore of San Jose del Cabo.
Caballito were available for bait and nice sized sardinas were being netted by pangeros north of Punta Gorda near San Luis. This week there were more bolito encountered on the local fishing grounds, always being choice bait for the variety of gamefish that can be encountered on any given day. This is the time of year when reports can change rapidly from day to day, striped marlin, yellowfin tuna, wahoo, grouper, amberjack yellowtail, sierra, roosterfish and various snappers are just some of the species that can be encountered.
Striped marlin continue to highlight the action offshore, from Cabo San Lucas to the Gordo Banks, anywhere from 5 to 18 miles offshore good numbers of stripers are being found, not always in the biting mood, but with persistence charters are often accounting for multiple fish days, two to four marlin per boat was common. Fish averaging 90 to 130 pounds, striking on lures and dropped back baits, many reports of anglers seeing large groups of marlin tailing on the surface, sometimes proving to have lock jaw, while other times they would readily strike, hard to figure out. Still some thresher and mako sharks being found on the offshore grounds, this past week a 22ft. commercial panga based out of Guaymas, Mexico, north in the Sea of Cortez, made news after trapping a 20 ft., 2,000 pound great white shark in their nets, surprising what range they sharks have.
With the warmer conditions that started the week, a quality bite developed for a variety of fish off of the San Luis area. Early in the morning there were greater numbers of bottom fish caught, snapper, cabrilla, amberjack and a few yellowtail, yo-yo’s and baits both worked equally well. Decent sized sierra were caught close to shore here and surprisingly enough there were yellowfin tuna that came up to the same chum line close to shore in only 60 feet of water, spooky fish, disappearing as fast as they appeared, for a couple of day charters caught as many as four per boat for a couple of days, most of these tuna ranged from 20 to 40. Wahoo were seen and hooked into from this same area, striking on yo-yos and sardinas, more often cutting lines, but a handful of ‘hoo to 30 pounds were successfully landed. Later in the week this tuna action disappeared, but at least this was a good sign that these fish are in the area and as the conditions continue to warm and become increasingly favorable we do expect this action to bust wide open.
The Gordo Banks was now attracting more schools of baitfish, including bolito, anglers that trolled these baitfish around the banks reported striped marlin, sharks and dorado, not many dorado around at this time, but the majority being found were larger sized, up to 40 pounds. This is the normal time when we find larger yellowtail on the Inner and Outer Gordo Banks, something to try in the coming weeks, larger live baits drifted down deep, always worth trying the yo-yo jigs as well.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 63 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of: 28 striped marlin, 1 thresher, 4 mako shark, 14 hammerhead shark, 32 yellowfin tuna, 21 dorado, 8 yellowtail, 39 amberjack, 6 wahoo, 124 mixed species of pargo, 35 cabrilla, 8 grouper, 185 sierra, 38 roosterfish and 6 pompano.
Good Fishing, Eric