April 8, 2013
Anglers –
Spring vacation is now winding down to the final days, large crowds of tourists have been arriving in Los Cabos, many college students on break and many families traveling together. They have all been enjoying the exceptional weather conditions, as winds have resided, sunny days have been warming into the upper 70s, perfect climate to get outside and enjoy all of the available activities. Beaches have been busy with crowds of vacationers taking advantage of the miles of pristine beaches that abound in this tropical desert paradise.
More anglers were in town this past week, appreciating the improved offshore conditions, calm seas for the most part, with sportfishing fleets concentrating on the grounds straight outside of Cabo San Lucas and north in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Water temperatures as cool as 65 degrees were reported outside of Todo Santos on the Pacific and outside of the Gordo Banks there were readings of 75 degree water, most of the region is averaging in the 70 to 73 degree range. Currents have been moving swiftly, cooling off and then warming back up just as quickly, lots can happen from day to day during the spring season. Baitfish schools are also moving according to their preferences, this in turn have the gamefish scattered and following their food source.
This week there were schools of skipjack, mackerel and sardinetas encountered sporadically on the fishing grounds, also early in the week there were pelagic red crabs found drifting to the surface in a masses around the Gordo Banks, this natural occurrence lasted for a couple of days and anglers, both commercial and recreational, were catching good numbers of the true Pacific red snapper using these small crabs for bait, locally known as huachinango, this was the first significant bite on these prized table fare species for the season, encouraging to see these quality fish in the area. These fish normally range 6 to 12 pounds and are very fun sport on light to medium weight tackle and of course produce very fine eating fillets.
Dorado numbers were down this recent period as well, only a handful of these fish are being encountered, some on the offshore billfish grounds and others were found near the shore, where they were attracted by baitfish activity, sizes ranging up to 25 pounds. Same deal for yellowfin tuna, not many were found this past week, many reports of large pods of porpoise being found, but more often than not these was no tuna action was found associated with them. The main attraction offshore has now been for striped marlin, good concentrations of these billfish are now scattered on the fishing grounds off of San José del Cabo and north towards Los Frailes, many charters are accounting for multiple catch and release days. These fish were encountered in feeding frenzies at times, other times they came up as blind strikes on trolled lures, readily taking dropped back baits, it is shaping up now for some wide open marlin action in this same region for the next several months, as this is typically peak season for the striped marlin.
Yellowtail action tapered off, only scattered fish being found on the various rock piles, these jacks were not being found on the surface like during the previous week. Mixed in were some nice amberjack, a few cabrilla and various pargo species. Along the shore there were sierra and this week we saw more numbers of juvenile roosterfish moving in along the beach stretches. Live sardinas became harder to obtain in recent days, as these baitfish are now schooling off the beaches far north of Punta Gorda and this has not been practical for the commercial fleet to travel these distances. We do hope that these baitfish move back within normal range.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 88 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 sailfish, 3 wahoo, 46 striped marlin, 7 yellowfin tuna, 43 dorado, 22 amberjack, 18 yellowtail, 55 sierra, 225 huachinango, 12 cabrilla, 115 roosterfish and 6 mako shark.
Good Fishing, Eric