Anglers –
November 26, 2016

Hope everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving Holiday. Crowds of families are now visiting the Los Cabos area, last holiday vacation period until the Christmas Season, so next week the fall season will be winding down, slight break, preparing for the rush of visitors during the last week of the year. The weather recently has been typical for fall, slight chill early in the morning, with lows in the upper 60s. Daytime highs are still reaching into the 80s. Mainly clear sunny skies, some afternoon scattered clouds, the past two weeks winds have been persistent and unpredictable, mostly out of the north, which is normal for this time of year. Winds blew for several days in a row, this limited what option were available for offshore anglers, then we saw winds lay down for a day or two, before picking back up. Ocean swells were moderate, water temperature did drop some with the north winds pushing in cooler currents and water is now averaged in the 80 to 82 degree range, still ideal for the more sought after gamefish species.

Anglers found the most common fish being encountered to be yellowfin tuna, wahoo, dorado, will a few billfish as well. Not much inshore now, though surprisingly there was some roosterfish being found off of the San Jose del Cabo hotel zone, slow trolling bait for fish up to 20 lb. A scattering of early season sierra also showed up, still no signs of any sardina schools moving into the region, this is always the preferred bait for the winter time inshore action. There was some mackerel found of the hotel zone of San Jose del Cabo, early in the season for the mackerel to arrive, maybe these is a sign that water temperatures will cooler off faster than we had thought, a lot will depend on just how persistent the north winds become. Bait suppliers out of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina have been offering live caballito, ballyhoo and slabs of squid. There are some skipjack and chihuil being found on the offshore high spots, but these baitfish are never a guarantee and even more sporadic if the wind is gusty.

The bite for larger grade yellowfin tuna on the Gordo Banks became tougher through the week, with only a few tuna over 100 lb. reported for the week, most of these caught by hard core anglers specifically targeting these fish. In recent days the best action for yellowfin was closer to shore off of Punta Gorda, drift fishing with strips of squid, also some pompano being hooked in the same area. These yellowfin were in the 10 to 25 lb. range. Often not biting much until late morning, even the wahoo action was better later in the day this past week, with the best area being from La Fortuna to the Iman Bank, Slow trolling caballito or chihuil if possible. Rigged ballyhoo were also working, and a smaller percentage of strikes came on trolled lures. Anglers were fortunate to land one wahoo, though others had as many as three, sizes ranged to 45 lb. We anticipate chances at good wahoo action through the month of December.

Dorado action was good to start the week off, many fish in the 10 to 20 lb. class were accounted for, many charter had their two fish per license limits, this was from Chileno to Iman, reports from the Pacific towards Pescadero, was that the dorado were thick, sounding like reports from years past, when there were so many dorado that it could be hard to catch any other types of fish.

A few black marlin still hanging around in the warmer water, at least a couple if blacks were brought in to the La Playita docks, one of them in the 400 lb. class. No big numbers of billfish now, though a few sailfish and striped marlin were also reported. Only a handful of bottom fish being accounted for an occasional amberjack, pompano, yellow snapper, cabrilla, bonito, huachinango, dogtooth snapper and triggerfish, though no significant numbers of any of these species.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 148 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 black marlin, 2 striped marlin, 3 sailfish, 360 yellowfin tuna, 48 dorado, 82 wahoo, 14 pompano, 6 amberjack, 2 dogtooth snapper, 14 yellow snapper, 6 leopard grouper, 16 bonito, 18 huachinango, 18 roosterfish, 16 sierra, 10 rainbow runner, 4 barred pargo, 2 hogfish,8 surgeonfish and 75 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric