Anglers –

April 4, 2015

Easter Week is officially here, very busy time for the local residents and visitors alike. This is traditionally the time when family and friends gather, pack up provisions and flock to all of the available beaches to enjoy themselves during this holiday period. Weather conditions are absolutely ideal, clear sunny skies, with high temperatures nearing the 90 degree mark, winds and swells very moderate, very comfortable conditions for anglers.

With many fishing crew members now on extended camping excursions, also just not that many sport anglers now arriving in town, fleets have had light schedules this week. Later this month, warming weather patterns will offer sportfishing charters more opportunities and crowds of anglers will increase.

The larger swell that pushed through the region last week, has resided now, though this surge was strong enough to scatter the schools of sardinas which had been congregating near Vinorama, these preferred baitfish have now moved away from this beach stretch and we will wait patiently for the schools to return as conditions settle. In the meantime charters have been using the available caballito, chihuil, skipjack or ballyhoo for baitfish options. Ocean temperatures have ranging from 73 to 76 degrees and this is a warming trend which expect will continue. There were reports of schooling bolito on the offshore fishing grounds, this is also a great sign, as this food source will surely attract more gamefish.

Transition periods can create inconsistent and unpredictable fishing action. We had seen great action during previous weeks, unusual fall type action during the winter season. There was good action for yellowfin tuna in the 20 to 30 lb. class, then the dorado and wahoo also moved in and got in on the action, then the quality sized yellowtail started to take up the slack on the Gordo Banks, now things have changed more to bottom structure species as the surface bite has faded out for the time being. With the exception of striped marlin, which are being found straight outside of San Jose del Cabo and on the grounds to the north, not much else being found offshore now.

Local fleets have been fishing the areas from Palmilla, to the Gordo Banks and north to La Fortuna, Iman, San Luis and Vinorama. Action has been spread out, using available bait and a mix of yo-yo type jigs, anglers found species such as skipjack, bonito, pargo, snapper, amberjack and triggerfish. Most common catches were bonito, skipjack and small red snapper. The area of San Luis has held a nicer grade of red snapper, though the sea lions have been a major nuisance, as they have been relentless in stealing and majority of all fish that were being hooked up. No very little yellowtail action to speak of, a few more amberjack started to appear, up to 35 lb. No larger grouper to report, but there are some nice leopard grouper up to 15 lb., including one golden phase specimen that was taken on Thursday off of the Gordo Banks. There was also a lot of conversation about a 500 lb. mako shark that was patrolling these same banks, going from boat to boat, daring anglers to try and throw a bait its direction, no one opted to try and battle this monster.

Inshore there have been hog sized jack crevalle, as well as roosterfish, mostly smaller fish, a few pargo Colorado close to shore, sierra have been around, but not in numbers you would normally find a this time.

Still quite a few whales being seen daily, these mammals must be about ready to head north soon.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 53 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 14 striped marlin, 5 wahoo, 9 dorado, 25 sierra, 98 Eastern Pacific bonito, 16 cabrilla, 1 golden leopard grouper (cabrilla), 185 huachinango (red snapper), 18 roosterfish, 15 amberjack, 5 yellowtail, 26 jack crevalle, 18 barred pargo, 44 triggerfish and 16 yellow snapper.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –

March 28, 2015

The spring season is a great time of year to enjoy all that the Los Cabos Area has to offer. The climate is now ideal, lots of sunshine, low temperatures in the 60s and highs in the upper 80s. Winds can still be a bit unpredictable, though the persistent northerly winds are not nearly as relentless as during the winter months. Ocean conditions were improved, after going through a cooling trend and having clarity fluctuate. Now anglers are reporting very clean water and temperatures averaging 74 to 75 degrees. Still heavy concentrations of whales being seen, though with the progressively warming days, we expect that these whales will be migrating back north soon.

Fishing action has been changing from week to week, not an overabundance of billfish being found offshore now, no large concentrations of baitfish for these fish to feed on. Only a scattering of striped marlin, these fish had been found mainly 20 some miles offshore, but this past week we have seen marlin moving much closer to shore, traveling in the warmer clean currents, searching for a food source. Except around the certain high spots where skipjack have dominated the food chain. Bait sellers have been working hard to net sardinas in the surf zone near Vinorama, most days they were able to find sufficient supplies, though there were a few days where the combination of higher swells and early morning low tides made for dangerous navigation and resulted in limited bait resources.

It truly has been an unusual new season, changing rapidly, going from wide open yellowfin tuna action, then a complete dead drop off, then the yellowtail broke loose on the Gordo Banks, then this fell off and the action once again was on the San Luis Bank for yellowfin tuna and this week surprisingly good action for wahoo, who would figure that during the month of March we would be seeing more wahoo than sierra, which is the species of mackerel that we regularly find during this time. This year we have seen mixed up migrations for various bait and gamefish species, much better action for yellowfin tuna that we normally find during February and March, now with wahoo being another bonus catch. The yellowfin tuna are striking on sardinas near San Luis, ranging in size from 20 to 35 lb. Also a few dorado in the mix, we did see one bull of over 30 lb. brought in, that was an exception though, the majority of the dorado were smaller in size.

Last week it was the yellowtail that saved the day, now we are hooking the elusive wahoo, many on sardinas while using straight monofilament being targeted for the tuna, hard to entice a strike if usual the more visible wire leader material. Some wahoo were also hooked into while trolling with chiuil, caballito, ballyhoo or Rapalas. The average sized wahoo were in the 10 to 20 lb. a few smaller and a handful of larger fish, these fish are definitely a bonus, while other species were hard to find, the wahoo is a popular fish and can be hard to find even when they are in season, now they are biting, even though this is not the normal time of year when we would expect to find them.

Bottom fish action has not been dependable, though anglers targeting this action did find mixed success for snapper, bonito, pargo, cabrilla and yellowtail.

Inshore there has not been any consistent bite, not many sierra, considering this is now peak season for them, only small schools of roosterfish being found, most of these smaller sized, found along the stretch just south of Punta Gorda and towards the marina jetties.

Will be interesting to see what happens this coming week, nothing would surprise us at this stage, we have seen a lot of unusual patterns this year.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 62 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 5 striped marlin, 64 wahoo, 31 dorado, 55 yellowfin tuna, 18 sierra, 74 Eastern Pacific bonito, 17 cabrilla, 22 huachinango, 9 roosterfish, 18 yellowtail, 9 barred pargo and 14 yellow snapper.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –

March 22, 2015

We are now officially starting the spring season and progressively warming conditions are feeling actually a bit tropical. Crazy unpredictable patterns this past week, over the last weekend we saw thunderstorms develop and on Sunday there was a couple of inches of rainfall measured that fell in a matter of an hour, accompanied by heavy thunder and lightning. There was also hail storms that were associated with these thunderstorms and ice accumulated on the ground, giving people a rare chance to create ice balls. Strange to have hail falling one moment, then tropical conditions later on the same day, there were also water spouts reportedly seen offshore on the fishing grounds at the start of the week.

Last weekend the great bite for yellowfin tuna and dorado became very tough and scattered, with only a few fish being accounted for, charters were lucky to catch a few fish in combination during a morning trip. This dire situation included inshore, bottom and offshore action, things had gone from very good to slim pickings just like that. Hard to say for what reason, though the rapidly changing weather patterns and scarcity of sardinas were certainly a contributing factors. The commercial fleet were having to fight higher surf conditions along the rocky shoreline near Vinorama where the schools of sardinas were holding and on some days were not able to get any. Other bait options for anglers were caballito, ballyhoo, skipjack and chihuil. Bait situation can become tough at times, availability had been steady, now things are a bit more scattered, day to day as to what might be available..

With the weather settling back down and fleets scouting out any new opportunities, on Friday the season’s first big bite on yellowtail developed, this was on the Outer Gordo Bank, where anglers were hooking into a quality grade of yellowtail while using various from of whole and cut baits, even chunks of ballyhoo were working. These powerful jacks were all running in the 25 to 35 lb. range and testing angler’s strength, many hook ups were lost to cut lines, as these fish are known for heading directly for the rocks as soon as they feel pressure of being hooked. Some boats ended up catching as many as 5,6,7 or even more yellows.

The main species off the bottom rock piles has been the bonito, a few snapper, cabrilla, amberjack and triggerfish. Though for a few days there, the bonito did not even want to bite. There were reports of red crabs being abundant near Cerralvo Island, this created a feeding frenzy for red snapper, when these pelagic red crabs drift with the currents to the surface action can be wide open, but this can also create a situation where the gamefish only want to gorge on these red crabs and nothing else and if they do not happen to come to the surface there is no way to gather them for use as snapper bait. New season now, anything can happen from day to day, week to week, the persistent gusty northern winds seem to be tapering way down and with spring feeling now in the air we should start to see calmer and more consistent weather patterns.

Lots of whales still in the area, but with this warming trend we will probably see these mammals start to migrate back towards there northern summer feeding grounds.

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: 2 striped marlin, 4 wahoo, 24 dorado, 18 yellowfin tuna, 26 sierra, 185 Eastern Pacific bonito, 7 amberjack, 16 cabrilla, 23 huachinango, 11 roosterfish, 66 yellowtail, 15 barred pargo, 16 yellow snapper and 55 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric