Anglers –

July 13, 2019

Now in the midst of the summer season we are progressively feeling warmer conditions and increased humidity. High temperatures around 90 degrees, quite a few tropical clouds earlier in the week, burning off with the heat of the day. Ocean water temperatures are now ranging from 76 to 86 degrees, warmest area offshore and towards Los Frailes. Swift currents sweeping in and causing off colored green conditions sporadically in isolated areas, changing daily, but no cold water now, 80 degrees all the way to the Golden Gate Banks on the Pacific.  Steady southern swells push in this time of year, surfers from all over the world arrive, in recent days 5 to 6 foot swells were common. Winds were variable, swirling from north, east and south, creating rolling seas, especially later in the day.

There have already been several named tropical storm systems follow paths out west, presently there is a low pressure system moving off to the west, located several hundred miles from southern Baja, is not forecast to make any impact on land, just a bit more tropical feeling.

Live bait available has been the same now for the past month, caballito, moonfish, mullet, ballyhoo and slabs of squid. On the offshore grounds there are increased schools of small skipjack and bolito moving in and these always can make good bait option for larger gamefish species.

The warmer water has also brought in larger marlin, in recent days we have heard of daily reports of blue marlin being hooked into, at least one of about 240 lb. was landed and others to over 400 lb. were battled and broken off. Still some striped marlin in the area, but most of them are now closer to Southern California searching for cooler water and their preferred mackerel food source.

Early in the week anglers found a small grade of football sized yellowfin tuna spread out in open water around the San Luis Bank, trolling small hoochies produced scattered results, time of year we see these small tuna show. Only a few yellowfin tuna to 50 lb. were reported this week, so far nothing going on larger cows being seen, the next several weeks is when things change rapidly and we would expect to see schools of larger yellowfin tuna move on to local grounds. No wahoo reported, only a handful of dorado reported, the majority small sized and being released.

Off the bottom there was on and off action for red snapper, amberjack, leopard grouper and bonito. Anglers used yo-yo type jigs, as well as various baits. This is the month when we normally see the largest amberjack of the season, this week we weighed in a 83 lb. amberjack for angler Eric Chen, from Las Vegas, he fished with skipper Chuy on the super panga Fortuna. We have not seen the run of dogtooth snapper develop yet, this is peak time for them.

Along the shore there is scattered action for jack crevalle and roosterfish to over 40 lb., though we have not really seen a significant big run of these fish this year.

The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 69 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 7 striped marlin, 3 blue marlin, 8 dorado, 24 yellowfin tuna, 3 broomtail grouper, 14 leopard grouper, 95 Mexican bonito, 52 red snapper, 6 yellow snapper, 19 amberjack, 30 roosterfish, 38 jack crevalle and 45 triggerfish.

Good Fishing, Eric