With the Easter vacation week now past and spring break holiday times coming to an end, things have quieted down locally. Actually now is a great time to visit, weather conditions are ideal, moderate crowds and fishing action has shown signs of improvement recently. Clear sunny skies with highs near 85 degrees, for the most part calm ocean conditions, with the exception of a couple of days of north wind earlier in the week.
Ocean water temperatures are now in the 70 to 72 degree range. Bait supplies have included caballito, jacks, slabs of squid and ballyhoo, no reports of sardinas showing, though there have been some mullet appearing. Most of the fishing activity has now been concentrated on the grounds to the north of Punta Gorda, Cardon, La Fortuna, Iman, San Luis and as far north as Vinorama.
Close to shore along the beach stretches there have been good numbers of roosterfish found, striking on caballito, mullet and other jack species. Most of these roosterfish are juvenile sized fish under 15 lb. Remember to always carefully release these fish so that they can grow to maturity and reproduce. Not many sierra are being seen now because of the lack of sardinas for bait.
Bottom action showed signs of improvement, even though the bonito were still the most common species found while working the rock piles with yo-yo jigs, we saw a few more leopard grouper, amberjack and red snapper (huachinango) in recent days. Also a mix of barred pargo, yellow snapper, triggerfish and others, all very good eating species.
We saw more yellowfin tuna action this week, no big numbers, but at least everyday we are seeing a handful of nice yellowfin brought in. Sizes were ranging from 20 to 60 lb. These tuna were striking on strips of squid, caballito, as well as a few on yo-yo jigs, they were found on various high spots from San Luis to Vinorama. This was an encouraging deal, since the tuna bite has been dead for some weeks now.
Scattered through these same grounds were a handful of dorado, a few of them over 15 lb. No wahoo were reported, though as the weather continues to warm we expect water temperatures will also warm up and the wahoo should become more active, as they typically do at the end of this month.
Not much billfish action reported close to San Jose del Cabo, except we did hear that some striped marlin were found on the 95 spot where charters from Cabo San Lucas were operating. Not much going on the Pacific now, as north winds were gusty and conditions were rough.
Good Fishing, Eric