July 13, 2013
Anglers –
Tropical storm season came early this year, the latest system, Hurricane Erik, was initially forecast to sideswipe the Southern Baja Region, but quickly weakened and changed direction after encountering cooler water temperatures, moving off to the west. Erik ever did impact land, though high ocean swells created red flag conditions, closing all local Port Operations on Monday, reopening Tuesday morning, as swells and winds resided.
Tropical season’s first measurable rainfall was recorded, scattered storm showers, heavier in isolated areas, enough to clean the dust off the landscape. The local climate remains pleasant, Pacific breezes, marina layer, moisture air with increased humidity, but considering its mid-July, you could not ask for any nicer summer time conditions, tropical skies, with high temperatures averaged 90 degrees.
Anglers encountered rapidly changing ocean currents, blue water was found as close as three or four miles out, for the past week the cleaner and warmer water was found 10 to 30 miles offshore, averaging 80 degrees, clear blue current, while inshore areas once again became cold and off colored. This pattern seems to have been continuing now for a couple of months, just as soon as things appear favorable, we see another cold current sweep in green murky water inshore, slowing down the fishing action, before rebounding as the water temperatures warm.
This is a time when offshore action can break loose on any given day, clean blue water of 80 degrees are ripe to attract a wide variety of gamefish. Striped marlin remain the most common fish being found offshore, striking aggressively on trolling lures, as well as various rigged baits. This past week the size of stripers seemed larger, up 130 lb. Dorado were encountered, but most of the time they were just single fish that were striking the same style of lures as were the marlin, the majority of these fish were over 15 lb., there was now a chance at a trophy sized bull dorado, as fish to over 40 pounds were reported. An occasional wahoo was now being accounted for, these fish were striking on lures trolled in the open blue offshore water.
The only reports we heard for yellowfin tuna was from schooling yellowfin that were traveling with porpoise offshore, anywhere from 15 to 35 miles out, weighing in the 10 to 20 pound class. Not a consistent option yet, but it is encouraging news after going such a long stretch without any tuna in the daily fish counts. With conditions offshore really shaping up favorably, we do expect to see more exotic species such as blue marlin, black marlin, sailfish and wahoo appearing on local grounds.
Anglers did find some excellent inshore action on the shallow rock piles from Punta Gorda to Vinorama. Slow trolling with live bait was the method of choice, catches included amberjack to 94 lb., many others weighed over 50 lb., grouper, cabrilla, snapper were also on these same rocks, though they were not as numerous as were the amberjack. Along the more sandy beach stretches the roosterfish continued to dominate the action, big fish to over 50 pounds were landed regularly, average sized rooster was over 25 pounds. Many jack crevalle were in the area, being found close to shore and offshore as well under porpoise.
Other action included a mix of quality bottom dwellers, (groupers, cabrilla, amberjack), that hit on yo-yo jigs over reefs offshore of La Fortuna, Iman and San Luis Bank, it has been a long absence where the fish just did not want to strike on these normally very effective jigs, nice to finally see this trend turning around, this can be incredibly fun and productive fishing, retrieving the iron jigs in depths averaging 100 to 160 ft., can also being a lot of work when nothing wants to strike.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 74 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 wahoo, 23 yellowfin tuna, 15 dorado, 41 striped marlin, 8 dogtooth snapper, 15 yellow snapper, 54 amberjack, 35 jack crevalle, 7 broomtail grouper, 18 leopard grouper and 290 roosterfish, (majority released).
Good fishing, Eric