Anglers –
June 24, 2017
The official start to summer season began this week, though at this time the climate feels cooler that you would normally expect at this time. With high temperatures averaging in the mid to upper 80s. The conditions for this entire past week was dominated by persistent swirling southern winds, gusting to 30 mph at times. These relentless winds have turned over the ocean conditions entirely, the week before we saw ocean temperatures reaching up to 80 degrees in the direction of San Jose del Cabo and further north, presently water temperatures in this same region are now in the 69 to 70 degree range, all the way to Punta Colorado and some fifteen miles or more offshore.
So sportfishing fleets have been searching hard, with only so many options available. The conditions on land actually felt pleasant, agreeable temperature, though until these winds patterns settle down, we will be plagued by cooler water conditions from the Pacific, as well as currents being greenish for the first few miles out, eventually things will rebound, but for now it is a waiting game and mainly fishing closer to shore for what fish species might be cooperative. Bait supplies consisted of mullet and caballito, surf conditions increased some and this made in more challenging for the bait netters to find mullet, caballito were being netted inside the marina channel where it was calmer.
With ocean water temperatures progressively cooler all week, and moving farther offshore the all-around action became more limited. Earlier in the week there were fair numbers of roosterfish found trolling baits along the shoreline, some roosters to 50 lb. were reported, also jack crevalle and a handful of sierra. A few dogtooth snapper to 20 lb. were landed, as well as various structure species, island jack, pompano, yellow snapper, huachinango, leopard grouper, broomtail grouper, amberjack, bonito and triggerfish. No huge numbers, but decent variety and all quality eating fish. As the week went on the bite fell off, cooler water shut down the roosterfish and choppy conditions made it tough to even try and fish the bottom structure.
A few yellowfin tuna to fifty pounds were landed, these from the grounds from Iman to San Luis Banks, on yo-yo jigs or various baitfish. Also limited number of dorado earlier in the week before water temperature cooled so much. A few wahoo strikes were reported as well, so these pelagic gamefish are still in the area and as conditions recover the action will surely turn back around. These weather patterns are becoming even more unpredictable and can be discouraging, but will recover soon enough, just can be very unfortunate for anglers that arrived during this time frame.
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: 2 striped marlin, 5 dorado, 13 amberjack, 9 island jack, 4 pompano, 44 bonito, 9 yellowfin tuna, 30 yellow snapper, 6 barred pargo, 12 leopard grouper, 3 dogtooth snapper, 1 broomtail, 32 huachinango, 12 jack crevalle, 22 roosterfish, 1 parrot fish, 8 sierra and 35 triggerfish.
Good fishing, Eric