October 26, 2013
Anglers –

Los Cabos is bustling now with visiting anglers and vacationers from various countries, peak fall season is now happening, with high stake tournaments being the main events. Weather conditions are now ideal, as Tropical Storm Raymond remained far to the south, heading on westward path. Southern Baja felt no effects from this system, besides moderately increased swell activity. Days have been clear and sunny, high temperatures in the mid 80s, with lows dropping into the upper 60s, there is a chill in the air early morning, so remember to dress accordingly.

Sportfishing fleets are now very busy and charters have been searching the fishing grounds in all directions to find best possible opportunities. Anglers encountered breezy conditions at times, normal fall patterns, with wind off the land early, then later switching out of the north after the sun comes up, but overall the ocean conditions were favorable, water temperatures averaging 85 degrees from the Golden Gate Bank on the Pacific, all the way to Los Frailes in the Sea of Cortez.

Bait suppliers are working overtime in order to find available bait sources for the scores of charter boats. Sardinas were now found schooling near Cabo San Lucas, limited amounts for the demand required from such large numbers of charters. There have been caballito, other small jacks and ballyhoo available, squid were not found in local waters, but some super market do stock slabs of the giant squid, this can be an option for anglers wishing to drift fish for tuna.

Wahoo went on the first real active bite of the season this past week, actually was very good over last weekend and through early this week and then tapered off towards the end of the week, that can be the story when targeting the elusive wahoo. The best spot recently was the San Luis Bank, anglers reported early morning strikes on trolled lures and then later as the sun rose in the sky, slow trolling with the larger baits was more productive, lots of boat pressure, creating a noisy commotion, which can cause these wahoo to be more finicky. Many charters were reporting landing two of three wahoo, with other missed strikes, sizes averaged from 25 to 45 lb. Rapala diving plugs in purple were one of the more productive lures for the week.

Dorado have been found on all of the same fishing grounds, on some days more than on others, catches could vary from maybe one dorado to over a half dozen, depending where the schools were found. Trolling with lures and various baitfish were working well for locating dorado, average sizes ranged from 5 to 15 lb.

Good numbers of football sized yellowfin tuna could be caught if live sardinas were obtained, even if the baits were super small, the fish were still hitting on them, particularly on the Gordo Banks and north to the Iman Bank. Though without the sardinas it was hard to get the smaller tuna to bite, a handful were taken on yo-yo style jigs and strip squid was working at times as well, but the sardinas are what these yellowfin really prefer. The cow sized yellowfin tuna are still lurking around the Gordo Banks, no big numbers of these tuna are being hooking into, but everyday there have been at least a couple of big hook ups, one local boat brought in 237 lb and 270 lb. cows on consecutive days, so it seems this action for the cows is heating up just in time for the upcoming WON Tuna Jackpot.

Billfish have been scattered recently, but as is normal during the fall season, on any given day there is always a chance at hooking into either a sailfish, a striped marlin or a much larger black or blue marlin. All of these species can be encountered on the same general fishing grounds.

With increased surface action opportunities, there was not much bottom action going on, though for anglers that did target bottom species, there was limited success found, a mix of snapper, bonito, cabrilla and pargo, though no consistent bite and breezy conditions created faster drifts, which made this form of fishing more difficult.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 176 charters for this past week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 3 blue marlin, 12 striped marlin, 15 sailfish, 36 wahoo, 1 pompano, 5 dogtooth snapper, 16 bonito, 38 pargo, 12 cabrilla, 92 dorado, 2 roosterfish and 185 yellowfin tuna.

Good fishing, Eric