Anglers –
November 19, 2016

The fall season is now starting to wind down, still quite busy this past week, with visiting anglers and sun worshipers, though not quite as crowded as it was the previous weeks. With Thanksgiving Holiday scheduled this next week, we will see more families arriving, though many people do prefer to stay at home for these holidays and from now until Christmas Holidays we will see the normal slack period for tourists, this is just not the time frame that many people are traveling, as they are more preoccupied with the approaching holidays.

We felt strong north winds through the first half of the week, then we had a couple of very calm days, before the wind picked back up late in the week, crazy weather patterns, still quite warm, reaching near 90 degrees. Ideal temperatures actually, early morning lows averaging 70 degrees. Early week there was a late season Tropical Storm Tina which formed farther off to the southwest, as fast it had developed, it dissipated, as it moved over cooler water. All around the water temperatures from Cabo Sab Lucas towards Los Frailes has been ranging from 82 to 85 degrees, three or four degrees warmer than what would be normal for this time of year. This should prove favorable for fall type fishing action to last all the way through December.

Bait options continued the same, slabs of squid, caballito, ballyhoo available from bait vendors and opportunities to catch skipjack and chihuil on the offshore grounds, for use trolling live or drift fishing as. Combined factors of swells, strong northerly winds and the full moon phase, made for several tougher days, though anglers did catch some quality fish. Most productive areas were from Chileno, Gordo Banks, 1150 Spot and Iman Bank. Most common gamefish being encountered were yellowfin tuna, wahoo, dorado, and late season black and blue marlin.

Yellowfin tuna action was good to start off the week, increased wind made it tough to drift fish on the Outer Banks, but some quality sized tuna were accounted for, quite a few fish to 100 lb. and at least a half of dozen over 200 lb. Also there was good action found a couple of days for smaller tuna found traveling with porpoise, close to shore and moving fast, strips of squid was the main method of hooking up. The larger yellowfin were striking on baits such as skipjack or chihuil, either drifting or slow troll, in the vicinity of the Outer Gordo Banks. Same grounds have been producing some billfish strikes, both black and blue marlin were hooked into. One angler had quite a story of hooking into a 40 lb. plus yellowfin tuna, then during the fight a huge black marlin inhaled the hooked up tuna and the battle was on with the marlin, as the fish was spooling off hundreds of yards of line and being chasing down by the super panga skipper, after close to 30 minutes of that the marlin heading deep, line went slack and then heavy again, but now the marlin had spit out the three and a half foot tuna, which to their amazement was still alive and continued to fight until they brought it to gaff, this whole scene took over two hours.

Wahoo was the main species being targeting closer to shore, from Cardon to the Iman Bank, good numbers of these prized fighting fish were being accounted for. Trolling with live chihuil was the most productive, ballyhoo and caballito worked as well. Also limited numbers hit on trolled lures, though far more strikes were reported on bait, versus lures. Many fish were seen following baits, but were finicky at times, other times action was fast and furious, with wahoo fishing, a good average percentage seems to be about one fish actually landed for every three strikes, many things happen, very fast fish, with hard bony jaws, slashing at baits, not just strike and swallow like most fish. Many charters accounted for two, three and even up to five wahoo, sizes ranged from 20 to 45 lb.

Dorado numbers increased toward the end of the week out of San Jose del Cabo, still only a handful of these fish being found in this area, more number were reported from the Pacific, though reports were varied from different sources. We saw quite a few dorado in the 15 to 20 pound class, though we had more wahoo in the fish counts.

Bottom fishing was very limited, only an occasional snapper and triggerfish, wind made this even harder, water temperature still warm, more bottom action when currents cool some. Commercial pangeros did catch a few nice sized yellowtail off of the Gordo Banks, so that is encouraging, maybe something will happen on this. We do expect to be targeting the tuna, wahoo and dorado through this month and next. No inshore action to report, except for a few roosterfish and sierra.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 166 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 blue marlin, 4 black marlin, 4 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 320 yellowfin tuna, 46 dorado, 165 wahoo, 11 yellow snapper,4 leopard grouper, 12 bonito, 14 huachinango, 4 roosterfish, 14 sierra,14 rainbow runner, 6 surgeonfish and 45 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
November 12, 2016

This past week was one of the busiest of the entire year, large crowds of anglers continue to arrive in the Los Cabos area and the whole town is bustling with business. Weather conditions are now typical for the fall season, early mornings have a slight chill, down into the mid to upper 60’s, daytime highs have been reaching into the upper 80s. So far winds have been moderate, with the breeze picking up predominately from the north later in the day. Ocean swells have been minimal, water temperature have dropped slightly, now averaging 84 degrees, about 81 degrees on the Pacific side on Cabo San Lucas.

Local fleets have found the most productive action from the grounds off of Chileno Bay, north to the Gordo Banks and Iman, even as far as Vinorama. The overall fishing action improved this past week, the first couple of days of the week the wahoo action went wide open on the Iman Banks, charters were landing up to five of six wahoo during a morning trip, with many other strikes also being lost, fast and furious action. The wahoo were ranging in size up to 45 lb., with the majority of strikes coming on live baits, such as caballito or even better, chihuil, which can be caught early on the Inner Gordo Bank. Some anglers had success trolling rigged ballyhoo, Rapalas or even casting bombs and yo-yo’s. This action tapered off through the rest of the week, but we were still seeing a fair amount of wahoo being brought in each day.

The most common species continue to be yellowfin tuna, these schooling fish were being found mainly on the Gordo Banks and around Iman Bank. Drift fishing with strips of squid or slow trolling chihuil proved to be most successful. Sizes ranged from 10 lb. to 250 lb. Most fish were in the 20 to 30 lb. class, but this week we saw more 100 lb. and heavier fish than during previous weeks. With the largest fish coming from the Gordo Banks.

We also started to see more dorado show up in the fish counts, still no significant numbers, but at least we are finally seeing some nice dorado, we saw bulls up to 25 lb. These fish were found scattered throughout the area, sometimes not very far from shore, where ever there might be concentrations of baitfish, with frigate birds circling overhead, that was a good place to try.

Billfish were more active around the 1150 spot, though a few were also found on the Gordo Banks and further north. A mix of sailfish, blue, striped and black marlin were all accounted for. There were reports of blue marlin over 300 lb.

Not much being found off the bottom, besides triggerfish, a few miscellaneous pargo/snapper species and an occasional leopard grouper. Inshore a few more sierra showing up, though we will see more when the water temperature cools off more. An occasional roosterfish still around late into the season, including some being found on the offshore high spots.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 240 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 black marlin, 6 blue marlin, 4 striped marlin, 7 sailfish, 720 yellowfin tuna, 42 dorado, 140 wahoo, 14 yellow snapper, 7 leopard grouper, 15 bonito, 22 huachinango, 7 amberjack, 5 roosterfish, 31 sierra, 22 rainbow runner, 8 surgeonfish and 125 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
November 5, 2016

Near capacity crowds are arriving now, as this is the peak fall season for the Los Cabos area, the influx of tourists will start to taper off by the end of this month. With the WON Tuna Jackpot being the main event going on this week, with some 169 teams competing for three quarters of a million dollars in prize money and next week there is the annual Wahoo Tournament out of La Playita, in Puerto Los Cabos Marina. Weather has been feeling more like fall now, cooler mornings and also the first predominate north winds sweeping in during the latter part of the week, making tournament conditions a bit rougher that what would be ideal. Ocean temperatures have ranged from 82 to 86 degrees, we should see a cooler trend in the coming weeks.

Anglers have continued to rely on slabs of squids as the main bait sources for targeting the yellowfin tuna, which has been the most common species now being found. As dorado continue to be scarce and wahoo have not been consistent either, though are showing some more signs of becoming more active. Other bait options were small skipjack, chihuil and caballito.

Most sportfishing fleets are concentrated on the areas from the Gordo Banks to Iman, San Luis and Vinorama. In recent days the more consistent action switched from around the Iman Bank to the Gordo Banks, though heavy boat pressure and gusty winds have made efforts more challenging the past couple of days. The yellowfin tuna have ranged from 10 lb. footballs, up to 200 lb. plus cows. Most of the tuna landed were in the 15 to 30 lb. class. Action was up and down, sometimes not until later in the day, charters accounted for catches ranging from one yellowfin to a half dozen fish.

The few wahoo per day on an average that we have seen brought to the docks have been taken on slow trolled trap hooked baits, as well as on Rapalas. Fish averaged 25 to 40 lb. We expect with cooling conditions that the wahoo should start to bite more consistently, best areas recently were near Iman and to the north.

Nothing to speak of near shore now, though we did hear reports of some out of normal season roosterfish seen off of the San Jose del Cabo resort stretch. A few more sierra starting to be seen, sure would be nice if we would see signs of sardinas moving in, but we have heard of no signs at all, this limits options, especially for the winter inshore action.

The bottom has not been producing any consistent bite either, of course there are triggerfish, but only limited numbers of pargo, snapper, cabrilla or amberjack.

We did not see much billfish action this past week out of San Jose del Cabo, this is transition period now for the blues, blacks, stripers and sailfish, these fish are in the area, but numbers are now more limited..

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 168 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 blue marlin, 6 striped marlin, 8 sailfish, 355 yellowfin tuna, 17 dorado, 23 wahoo, 18 yellow snapper, 12 leopard grouper, 6 barred pargo, 45 bonito, 35 huachinango, 2 dogtooth snapper, 6 amberjack, 1 roosterfish, 21 sierra and 125 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric