Anglers –
February 2, 2019
We are now into the month of February, locally known for being very unpredictable, we are hoping that with so much persistent north wind already this season that maybe things will stabilize and this month will not be as crazy as usual. Crowds of tourists remain light, weather has been very pleasant for winter time, lows of 55 degrees and highs into the upper 70s. Scattered early cloud cover, burning off later in the day, plenty of warm sunshine.
Striped marlin action is now heating up off of the San Jose del Cabo area, anywhere from 3 to five straight out from the marina. On these grounds is where schools of mackerel and sardineta are congregated, attracting good numbers of billfish. Many charters are drift fishing baits down deeper where the stripers are feeding, there have been some surface going on as well. Many boats were reporting multiple chances for marlin, these fish are ranging in sizes from 60 to 100 lb. A few dorado also coming from these same grounds. Water temperatures have been in the 70 to 75 degree range, fluctuating currents moving in and out.
Other bait options in the marina have been caballito, ballyhoo and squid. Also many of the super panga charters are catching their own chihuil on the Inner Gordo Bank. The Inner Gordo Bank is where there has been quality grade of yellowfin tuna holding, though the bite has been sporadic, though every day we are seeing a handful of these tuna accounted for by the combined fleet, these fish have been in the 60 to 100 lb. class. Anglers were having success while drift fishing with strips of squid, as well as on chihuil.
The action closer to shore off of Punta Gorda had faded out, but this week this action rebounded for both wahoo and dorado. The key was to have the live chihuil for bait, slow trolling within one mile of the point, still hit or miss, but some boats did account for multiple wahoo as well as dorado. Wahoo were of mixed sizes, some less than ten pounds, to fish near 50 lb. Most of the dorado were in the 5 to 15 lb. class, a few pushing 20 lb. Good action considering that we are now in the midst of winter and these species are not always a normal catch for this time of year.
Bottom action remain spotty, more triggerfish and small snapper than anything else. Some commercial pangeros had connections for imported red crabs and they reported some nice hauls of red snapper. Maybe we will start to see these crabs on our local grounds, the best for snapper action. This coming month we usually start seeing some more consistent activity for nicer sized fish off of the bottom structure. Hoping for improved yellowtail migrations this season.
Inshore there were a few sierra, jack crevalle and some juvenile roosterfish, still early in the year for these species, no sardinas makes it tough to find schooling sierra.
The combined sportfishing fleet out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina reported an estimated 55 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 32 striped marlin, 58 dorado, 18 yellowfin tuna, 38 wahoo, 16 bonito, 48 red snapper, 5 cabrilla, 8 yellow snapper, 4 barred pargo, 8 roosterfish, 7 jack crevalle, 28 sierra and 45 triggerfish.
Good Fishing, Eric