Anglers –
January 16, 2016

Quiet week in Los Cabos, as light numbers of tourists were arriving, as we are now in the normal lull period immediately following the New Year’s Holiday. Winter time conditions are even being felt locally, as low temperatures dipped to 50 degrees and though days were mostly sunny, high temperatures were hovering around 75 degrees. Actually very pleasant climate for the midst of winter time, be hard to convince the locals though, as they are bundling up like there is no tomorrow.

The week started off with gusty northerly winds, settling down later, nice ocean conditions for anglers, besides the early morning chill. Ocean Temperatures averaging 75 degrees, warmer currents are being found on the Pacific Banks. Anglers continue to rely on the available bait sources of caballito, cocinero, ballyhoo and slabs of squid. No reports of anyone finding schooling sardinas within local range. Local San Jose del Cabo fleets continue to concentrate their efforts on the Grounds from Cerro Colorado/Red Hill to the Gordo Banks and north to La Fortuna and Iman Banks.

Really there has been no particular hot spot recently, everyday certain areas produced a mix of species in limited numbers. Very few dorado or wahoo reported, though free swimming wahoo were sighted on several occasions, not many were actually hooked and landed, same with dorado, they seemed to be taking the week off. Yellowfin tuna were holding around the twenty five spot off of La Fortuna, but with often rapid sweeping drifts created by winds, this spot was not always easy to fish. There was an ongoing problem with nuisance sea lions, waiting for their chance at an easy meal. Most of the yellowfin accounted for were under 20 lb. and were elusively hooked while using strips of squid for bait. The Gordo Banks were also attracting a larger grade of yellowfin tuna, but only a handful of these fish were actually landed, this fishery was a late afternoon deal, done pretty much elusively by local commercial pangeros, fishing the late twilight hours, reported that the yellowfin to over 100 pounds would start feeding as the sun was just about setting, makes for a late day, fighting fish into the darkness and then arriving back to the dock area in the pitch black of the moon less evening.

Billfish action was also very scattered, most common catch being smaller sized striped marlin, no larger concentrations of offshore baitfish to attract any major feeding frenzies. With all of the normal fish migration patterns being abnormal this year, we are expecting later than usual arrival of sardineta and mackerel this season, hard to predict when this will happen, it is time now, these are mostly unprecedented events that are now occurring.

Bottom action was showing encouraging signs the past couple of weeks, more red snapper, amberjack and cabrilla started to appear, then we saw stronger currents slowing down this action, we expect to see steady improvement for this structure activity as weather conditions stabilize. Winds have been more consistent than normal through this past Fall and now into our Winter season, should be time that we start having the calmer days and this will help open up more bottom opportunities.

Very little inshore action, spotty action on smaller sized roosterfish, no sierra to speak of without the preferred sardina bait source.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 56 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 7 striped marlin, 10 wahoo, 88 yellowfin tuna, 11 dorado, 1 island jack, 10 rainbow runner, 14 cabrilla, 26 huachinango, 22 yellow snapper, 8 amberjack, 2 sierra, 12 bonito, 4 roosterfish and 85 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric