July 21, 2012
Anglers –
We are now into the heat of the summer, there was never any rainfall felt in the lowlands of Los Cabos from recent tropical activity, north of the International airport there was some significant rain accumulations, enough water that even the San Jose Arroyo ran off towards the ocean, under the new bridge leading to Puerto Los Cabos Marina, slight as this was, any little bit to help water tables, since there has not been much rain water seen in recent years due to extended drought conditions. Days are now mostly clear, though it is the time of year that afternoon tropical clouds develop over the mountains. At this time there are no new tropical storm systems developing to the south, conditions have settled down, warm days with little wind, many surfers in town now taking advantage of ideal surf conditions. Offshore ocean conditions really came into shape this past week, progressively clearing, clean blue water can now be found close to shore, from Cabo San Lucas towards Los Frailes water temperatures are averaging 82 to 85 degrees. Ocean currents continue to be strong, but have shown signs of weakening some.
There was an abundant supply of caballito and mullet, but no sardinas were now available south of Los Frailes. Good news was that schooling bolito were now being encountered on the local fishing grounds, these are always one of the preferred and most productive baitfish during the warm water months. This season has been plagued with swift currents, rapidly changing, at times very dirty water, green and sometimes brownish, but we do finally have blue water now and we are optimistic that this will help the fishing action to get back on track and up to Cabo standards.
There were good numbers of striped marlin now being found throughout the area and not too far offshore, trolling lures anglers have been taking strikes, as well as casting baits to tailing fish, the majority of the stripers recently have been of smaller sized, 50 to 100 pounds. Some sailfish were following warm currents into the area, as they were now found feeding on the same marlin grounds.
Counts of dorado were down this past week, not being found on the buoys as they were, most of the dorado caught in recent days were closer to shore in the Chileno to Santa Maria and were smaller in size, striking on a variety of trolled lures. On the marlin ground there was an occasional larger bull dorado being landed. Same area was producing scattered action for football sized yellowfin tuna, also striking on medium sized lures. No porpoise activity here, minimal bird activity, a few flying fish, basically just blind strikes while trolling, when schools were found it was common to have multiple hook ups. Catches were still hit or miss, day to day, charters accounted for varying numbers of fish, from one or two, up to ten or more in combination. There were reports of yellowfin tuna once again schooling in the area just to south of Los Frailes, this spot is out of range of smaller daily charters, mainly grounds where private sportfishers are able to reach when launching out of Puerto Los Cabos Marina.
The huachinango (red snapper) bite is going strong on the San Luis Bank. These prized snapper are striking on yo-yo jigs, anchovy style working best, fish are weighing in the 8 to 12 pound range. The deal is that these fish are only striking very early, so this has been more of an option for the commercial fleet, they have been departing as early as 4:30 to 5 a.m. Some sportfishing charters are also getting in on this action, you need to obtain your fishing license in advance though, but local officials who sell licenses normally do not arrive before 6:00 a.m.
Along the shoreline there have been roosterfish found, but not in as large as numbers as in previous weeks. Some amberjack are hanging around the PLC Marina jetty entrance and there is a chance at hooking a nice sized fish in this area where baitfish congregate, drifting with live caballito or moonfish has been the ticket for this, also slow trolling on the surface, even though that is a better way to entice a roosterfish. A few nice dogtooth snapper were also muscled away from the inshore rock outcroppings north of Punta Gorda, at least one specimen was over 50 pounds, up until now there has not been much of a season for the dogtooth, this is the time when we normally see these largest of snapper species start to swift locations, from close to shore to the offshore rock piles, this migration is matter of following their preferred food source.
The combined panga fleet out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 56 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 9 striped marlin, 3 sailfish, 45 dorado, 36 yellowfin, 24 amberjack, 12 grouper, 16 cabrilla, 10 jack crevalle, 22 roosterfish, 15 yellow snapper, 5 bonito, 48 huachinango (red snapper), 3 dogtooth snapper and 20 triggerfish.
Good fishing, Eric