Anglers –
September 3, 2016
We are now into the first week of September, historically the one month where there are greater chances of Hurricanes making direct contact with the Southern Baja Peninsula. Presently the weather has been stable for this past week, no rain, minimal wind, moderate swells, scattered tropical clouds, with very warm and humid conditions, early mornings continue to be slightly cooler, lows of 74 degrees, daytime high near 100 degree heat index. Most recent storms were Madeline and Lester, both following paths far off to the west, narrowly missing direct strikes on the Hawaiian Islands. Now we are closely monitoring a newly forming low pressure system south of Acapulco, forecast to strengthen in Tropical Storm Newton and head in the direction of Baja, we will hope for the best, but need to be prepared for anything that might happen. With ocean temperatures now ranging from 82 to 87 degrees, these are favorable conditions from tropical storm development.
This past week anglers found much more productive all around action than during the previous week. Majority of the charter fleets are concentrating on the fishing grounds from the Gordo Banks to Vinorama, where they have found a variety of surface gamefish as well as opportunities off of the bottom structure. There are no huge numbers of billfish now, but there is a chance at hooking into either a sailfish, striped, blue or black marlin, as all of these species are presently in local waters. We do know of black marlin landed in recent days weighing in the 350 lb. class, hooked into off of the Gordo Banks, where there has also been an occasional larger grade of yellowfin tuna encountered, so far this bite has been very hit or miss, lots of concentrations of schooling bolito and skipjack, major natural food source, fish can become finicky at times with so much food available. In recent days there was one 130 pound tuna landed. On these grounds the best bet has been to slow troll either bolito or skipjack.
In the marina area the bait suppliers have been offering caballito, moonfish and slabs of squid. The most consistent action has been centered on the Iman Bank, good number of smaller grade yellowfin tuna, most in the 10 to 15 lb. range, an occasional tuna to 50 lb., drift fishing with strips of squid has been most productive for this bite. Lots of schooling dorado arrived this week, striking on lures and a variety of baits, the majority of these fish have been under 15 lb., though we do know of one 40 pound bull dorado that was landed off of the Gordo Banks, the big ones have been scarce recently. Early in the week there were a couple of days when a handful of wahoo up to 40 lb. were landed, striking on baits and trolled Rapalas, this bite shut down as fast as it had begun.
The swift current slacked up and this opened up the bottom action, which in the past couple of weeks had produced mainly triggerfish. In recent days off of Iman Banks there has been quality action for species such as leopard grouper, dogtooth snapper and amberjack, we saw one 80 lb. amberjack and dogtooth snapper to over 50 lb. were accounted for. This is normally the time of year when we do expect to see some impressively large gamefish, though it is also the period when weather can turn for the worse very rapidly, so following extended weather forecast is a must.
Not much action reported close to shore, though we did hear of a couple of late season roosterfish, as well as some jack crevalle. Local beach anglers have hooked into a few snook and tripletail, both prized summertime catches.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 60 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 black marlin, 5 striped marlin, 4 blue marlin, 4 sailfish, 325 yellowfin tuna, 210 dorado, 9 wahoo, 10 huachinango, 11 yellow snapper, 9 dogtooth snapper, 14 leopard grouper, 75 triggerfish, 16 amberjack, 2 roosterfish and 12 jack crevalle.
Good fishing, Eric