GORDO BANKS PANGAS
August 9, 2020
Fairly uneventful week, with updated warnings regarding International travel risks due to Covid 19 pandemic, many people are changing plans and deciding not to travel yet. Many Resorts, restaurants, super markets and most other businesses are operating now with high safety standards, though crowds are much lighter than we would normally expect. At this time there is a newly developing Tropical Storm Elida gaining strength and momentum off offshore from Manzanillo. This system is expected to become a hurricane by Monday and is also forecast to follow a track about 250 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas, so we are not expected to feel much impact in Los Cabos besides some larger ocean swells, scattered cloud cover, increased humidity and perhaps isolated rain showers.
Though most of this past week the winds were laid down and this gave a chance for ocean clarity to improve, blue water was much closer to shore now, though on Friday south winds kicked up again setting conditions back some. Water temperature dropped back to 74 degrees along the shoreline, though 80 degree currents were still within several miles offshore. Seasonal patterns seem to be behind schedule this year, we do anticipate conditions to stabilize and get back on track within a couple of weeks.
Bait supplies remained steady for caballito, some mullets still mixed in, no sardinas reported yet. Most popular and consistent fishing grounds this week were near the San Luis Bank. Anglers using yo-yo jigs found a mix of species, amberjack, cabrilla, grouper, bonito, red snapper, yellow snapper, barred pargo and pompano. No huge numbers of any particular species and everyday would be different. We saw amberjack close to 50 lb. also a handful of yellowfin tuna were accounted for off these same grounds, some hit on yo-yo jigs, others on caballito. Far offshore some boats were venturing deep in search of moving porpoise which in turn could attract yellowfin tuna, most reports were of spotty action. We did hear a report of more porpoise activity found offshore of Cabo San Lucas, mostly small to medium sized tuna, but heard of one fish that weighed in at 180 lb.
We saw quite a few dorado moving into local waters, though the majority of these fish were very small juveniles which should be released with care in order to have a chance to mature and reproduce.
Marlin action we saw was more for striped marlin, though we did hear of the one 306 lb. black marlin taken outside of San Luis Bank during recent Bisbee event, of which a 700 lb. blue marlin won on final day.
Along the shoreline we are still saying some monster sized roosterfish up to 60 lb., late in the normal season, but for the time being these fish are remaining in the region while they are finding enough food source. Big jack crevalle also are found along same beach stretches. Local surf anglers reported some evening tripletail action, as well as a couple of nice sized snook, though more jacks than anything else.
Light crowds, good fishing, Eric