September 28, 2013
Anglers –

With the fall season now officially here we have seen a substantial increase in anglers arriving in the Los Cabos area. After the near miss of Hurricane Manuel last week conditions have now settled down, though still very tropical, high humidity and scattered cloud cover threatening rain squalls at times, it is that time of year when we see local tropical weather patterns develop in the afternoon, often raining in areas north of the airport, while the rest the region just swelters in the muggy conditions. Despite the day time temperatures being in the 90s the early mornings are now cooler and some north winds are starting to make their presence felt.

Strong ocean currents persist, predominately from the south, water temperatures have ranged from the upper 70s on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas to an average of 85/86 degrees in the direction of the Sea of Cortez and towards Los Frailes. The majority of the sportfishing fleets have been concentrating efforts on the fishing grounds where the warmer water is present. Large schools of baitfish are spread out on the offshore grounds, plenty of food sources for attracting gamefish. Commercial bait supplies were scrambling to find new resources, as during recent storm activity and full moon phase the bait became scarcer. In recent days pangeros were traveling as far as La Ribera to obtain sardinas for the fleet, selling fresh dead bait and limited supplies of live sardinas. Squid were no longer being found in local waters, but were plentiful off the East Cape region. Some anglers are finding some early morning action for bolito, which are making great trolling baits, though have not been easy to catch once the sun rises.

The most consistent action recently has been found from La Fortuna, Iman, San Luis and Vinorama, this is where anglers have been drift fishing with strips of squid and either live or dead sardinas, catching good numbers of yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 15 pound class, anglers have had better success using sardinas in recent days, compared to the squid. These is a lot of pressure on these grounds now, increased local crowds, as well as the East Cape Fleets were traveling the long run to get into this same action, where their abundant supplies of live sardinas have been enticing the tuna into a feeding frenzy. Using lighter leaders of 25/30 lb. has resulted in greater number of strikes.

The larger yellowfin tuna are still lurking on the Gordo Banks, though this past week for anglers did try to hook into a cow, they did not have success, we only heard of one yellowfin of 120 pounds being taken off the Gordo, this was on Thursday, trolling alive bolito. There were many sailfish and a few striped marlin, but the tuna did not want to cooperate, with the swift current and concentrations of bait on these grounds, these tuna have plenty to eat, hard to say what is going on, though the tuna are not seen feeding on the surface either, perhaps hanging deeper, escaping the currents and preferred cooler depths. We are anticipating seeing these giants become more active soon.

Dorado have been found in good numbers, though most of them are smaller fish and only a small percentage are topping the 15 pound mark, remember to release as many of these juvenile fish as possible so that they can have the chance to mature and reproduce.

Still no consistent action for wahoo, these elusive fish are in the area though, normally they become more active as water temperature lower into the 78/80 degree range. A handful of wahoo in the 25 to 35 lb. class were landed, many of these were taken incidentally while drift fishing for tuna on straight mono leader, though when anglers added wire leader then these fish would not strike the same baits.

Rounding out the action were limited numbers of bottom structure species, including amberjack, grouper, barred pargo, bonito and dogtooth snapper, not many of these fish were encountered in the strong currents, though some impressive specimens were accounted for. Also some rainbow runners being found, these jacks congregate on the high spots and prefer the warmer water temperatures, scrappy fighters and good eating, ranging up to 15 pounds.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 126 charters for this past week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 5 striped marlin, 18 sailfish, 8 wahoo, 9 amberjack,18 rainbow runners, 15 bonito, 3 dogtooth snapper, 8 barred pargo, 6 grouper, 715 yellowfin tuna and 320 dorado.

Good fishing, Eric