Anglers –
October 23, 2015

Now into the third week of October, only in the last couple of days we have felt cooler temperatures into the 60s during early morning hours. Quite pleasant conditions now, actually need a sweatshirt or light windbreaker. Most sunny skies, we are expecting some more scattered cloud cover from the distant bands of Hurricane Patricia. This latest storm is turning out to be the most powerful system every recorded in either the Pacific or Atlanta. Now situated offshore of the coast, between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta, Patricia has reached category five status, has sustained winds of 200 mph and gusts to 245 mph, sounds like data from a tornado. This incredibly strong storm is following a path directly towards making landfall late Friday, sure hope everyone in the path has taken necessary precautions and evacuated to safer land.

Conditions have been fine locally in Los Cabos, only a few isolated rain squalls reported through the week. Light winds in the afternoon, more breeze and swells reported on the Pacific. Ocean temperatures are still higher than average, ranging from 84 degrees on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, to 87 degrees in the direction of San Jose del Cabo and the Sea of Cortez.

Some 121 teams participated in the world’s richest fishing tournament, the Bisbee’s Black and Blue. This season fish migration patterns are all confused, the unprecedented El Nino causing havoc. Fishing action has been far more spread out and limited, not what we would normally expect for this historically productive time frame. This year anything could happen, we might see cow sized yellowfin on the Gordo Banks during the winter time.

Local fleets have been concentrated close to shore off of Punta Gorda, with the lack of any resource for sardinas, anglers have been relying on using strips of giant squid for bait. Main species being encountered have been yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 40 lb. range. No wide open action, spotty most of the time, fish coming up in flurries, often early, then less often later on the morning. Drift fishing with the strip bait had been the most productive technique. Off the bottom in this area there was a mix of triggerfish, pompano, barred pargo and small snapper, though no significant numbers of these. An occasional dorado, wahoo, striped marlin or sailfish has rounded out the surface action.

Some charters scouted out other areas, inshore, offshore and further north, looking for possible wahoo action and others, most of these scouting trips did not produce and the best chance at getting a hook up was once again off of Punta Gorda. Most of the wahoo strikes reported in recent days were by anglers using the strips of squid off of Punta Gorda.

Blue marlin were scattered, no black marlin reported recently, a few stripers and fair numbers of sailfish, up to 100 lb. Despite limited options this past week, we do anticipate with the cooling weather patterns, that we will see water temperatures cool and a change in currents should help improve our all-around action, we look forward to a great late fall and winter season.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 128 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 14 sailfish, 260 yellowfin tuna, 18 dorado, 6 wahoo, 16 pompano, 18 yellow snapper, 65 triggerfish, 4 sierra, 8 cabrilla, 12 barred pargo, 180 black skipjack and 16 bonito.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
October 17, 2015

Fall Season seemed to arrive overnight, we are in the midst of the traditional busiest angling season. Tournaments are now underway and the largest event of all, the Bisbee’s Black and Blue is slated for next week, this is the event where teams compete for possible multimillion dollar payouts. Weather conditions have been stable since past weekend, still quite tropical for this late in the season, mornings are refreshing, though mid-day the heat index is high. Remember to bring your sunscreen, hats and sunglasses. Ocean water temperature is ranging from 85 to 88 degrees, swells have been moderate, winds very light and all around conditions very favorable, with clean water found within a mile or two or shore.

Despite such great conditions, the fishing action was more sporadic, not as consistent as we would expect for this time of year, this powerful el Nino current has all normal patterns mixed up. Bait has been scattered as well, no significant resource for sardinas now, limited supplies, caballito and slabs of giant squid have been most common options.

For much of the past week local fleets found the best action to be within one mile of shore off of Punta Gorda. This area was attracting both panga and cruiser fleets, this is where everyone congregated. Main species being encountered was yellowfin tuna, most of these tuna were in the 15 to 35 lb. class. Striking on striped squid or sardinas, when available. The yellowfin would come up to feed in flurries, often early in the morning, then slowing down, maybe with a couple of other feeding frenzies later in the morning. The key was to be at the right place when they did go on the bite. Average catch ranged from one tuna, to four or five. Not everybody was catching the tuna every day, even top skippers had tough days. Though these were decent quality of yellowfin, considering they were found so close to shore. Heavy pressure, limited bait, etc..made this bite become tougher latter in the week and now boats were again searching out more distance grounds.

Very few dorado being found, to see a half dozen for the fleet for one day was average. No particular area to find these dorado now, best chance seemed to be on the same grounds as where the tuna action was. Only an occasional wahoo being landed, other lost strikes, but these fish have not been very active at all, most likely when we see water temperatures eventually drop closer to 80 degrees, these fish will wake up.

Bottom action consisted mainly for monster sized triggerfish and some rare pompano, these fish were striking just as were the tuna, while drift fishing close to shore off of Punta Gorda. We had not seen any of these African pompano recently, they used to bite more often in late spring, very scrappy fighters and excellent eaters. A handful of barred pargo, yellow snapper and cabrilla rounded out the structure action.

We heard of more billfish action on the Pacific, though no confirmed reports of wide open action. On local grounds off of San Jose del Cabo, there were sailfish and some striped marlin, a couple smaller sized blue marlin. No inshore action to speak of now, though a local shore fishermen landed a world class 44 lb. snook off of the La Playita, el Faro stretch.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 175 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 7 striped marlin, 3 blue marlin, 16 sailfish, 345 yellowfin tuna, 29 dorado, 5 wahoo, 23 white skipjack, 18 bonito, 2 dogtooth snapper, 26 yellow snapper, 220 triggerfish, 18 African pompano, 10 cabrilla and 24 barred pargo.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
October 10, 2015

With crowds of anglers now arriving for the most popular Fall Season sportfishing fleets are now very busy. At this time we have no new tropical storms threatening from the south, only one low pressure area that is already located far off to the west, half way to Hawaii. Local weather conditions remain warm and humid, there has been quite a lot of cloud cover, threatening rain at times, last weekend we did receive significant rainfall, but we did not have any rain through the week, until this next weekend. Presently we are having wider spread thundershowers throughout the whole area, accompanied by lightning and thunder, mostly lighter rainfall, though in Cabo San Lucas they reported heavier rain than in San Jose del Cabo. Sportfishing fleets continued to operate with caution. Tropical weather patterns are persisting late into the season. So we are hoping that the weather settles, days are now starting to cool down, as we get further into October we regularly enjoy ideal weather. With ocean water temperatures still ranging in the mid to upper 80’s, all around conditions can be that much more unpredictable.

Since the passing of stormy squalls last weekend we have seen very pleasant conditions throughout this week, moderate ocean swells, no strong winds, all around good environment for ocean fishing. Action was more spread out in recent days, obtaining sardinas became harder, no guarantee, anglers using squid strip were not doing as well as previous weeks. Hard to say what the reason is for a slower week, yellowfin tuna were being seen surfacing at times in sizable schools, but were finicky, one of the main reasons being that there were no quantities of sardinas to freely chum with. The majority of the yellowfin now being found on local grounds were ranging in the 5 to 25 lb. class or in the range of 50 to 60 lb., we did hear of unconfirmed reports of a larger grade of yellowfin hanging around the Pacific San Jaime or Golden Gate Banks.

The later part of this past week did show improvement for the yellowfin tuna action, later morning bite off of Punta Gorda, sardinas were the best, fish were also hooked on strips of squid, These tuna were in the 10 to 25 lb. class, boats were accounting for anywhere from a couple of fish, to as many as ten. With more sardinas this would be a hot bite. We hope that more sardinas move into our range.

A group of local commercial pangeros were finding the 50 to 60 lb. tuna biting on strips of squid underneath moving porpoise pods on the grounds near La Laguna to Cardon, though this has been a late afternoon bite, during normal morning, mid-day hours there has not been this porpoise activity. Only sporadic catches, some charters finding three, four, five fish and others not being able to find any at all. Most consistent grounds were from the Iman to Vinorama Banks.

The action off of the Santa Maria area slowed way down, better chances were not north of Punta Gorda, still no guarantees though. Only a few scattered dorado being found and most all of these have been under 15 pounds. Wahoo were even scarcer, though they are in the area and we expect any slight cooling trend in water temperature could trigger them into being more aggressive. Other action was for miscellaneous structure species, most common being triggerfish or snapper, an occasional dogtooth or amberjack, even one yellowtail.

Crazy year, with all of the dorado and wahoo, as well as striped marlin being in the direction of Southern California. Eventually these gamefish will migrate back in our direction. Local conditions are great though and anything could happen on any given day. We do hope that we find a better source of sardinas, recently these schooling baitfish have moved into the protected zone of Cabo Pulmo National Park and bait netters were allowed to target them from these waters

Main action locally for billfish was for sailfish, no huge numbers, but most days these fish were being hooked into on the same inshore tuna grounds. We did see a private boat land a 300 lb. class blue marlin. Other anglers trolled large baits on the Gordo Banks and reported not finding any action for the larger marlin or cow sized yellowfin tuna, lots of natural bait in this area, so you never know, but there are likely be some large predators nearby on these same grounds.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 128 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 13 sailfish, 2 blue marlin, 260 yellowfin tuna, 28 dorado, 7 wahoo, 1 yellowtail, 44 white skipjack, 24 bonito, 7 dogtooth snapper, 22 yellow snapper, 7 amberjack, 75 triggerfish, 16 cabrilla and 19 barred pargo.

Good fishing, Eric