September 7, 2013
Anglers –

Southern Baja has recently experienced a series of tropical storm systems, in the past couple of weeks the area has felt the effects from Ivo, Juliette, Kiko and this Thursday, TS Lorena. Lorena was a minimal strength tropical storm, but nevertheless when making direct impact, can make a mess of things in a hurry. We expect to see red flag closed port conditions through Friday and most likely part of Saturday, likely that sportfishing fleets will be back in operation for Sunday.

These back to back storms have repeatedly stirred ocean conditions, just as patterns seem to stabilize, another system develops, creating stormy offshore conditions, strong currents have been rampant, pushing around dirty water, particularly near shore, baitfish become more scattered as well. Then as the weather settles this cycle can rapidly reverse, fishing action can get back on track in a matter of a day or two.

Just like the weather has been rapidly changing, so has the all around fishing action. For the fleets launching out of Puerto Los Cabos Marina the most consistent bite has been for yellowfin tuna and dorado in the area of San Luis and Vinorama. Fresh squid has been available from the commercial fleets, actually these smaller sized giant squid are now being caught in local waters during the dark of night. Using strips of these squid was producing great action for the smaller sized football yellowfin. Same for dorado, they were hitting on squid, as well as caballito and a wide variety of trolled lures. The majority of the dorado were juvenile sized, these fish should be carefully released, a handful of larger respectable sized dorado to 10 or 20 pounds were accounted for. Anglers found fast action, though most of the fish were not large sized as is anticipated during late summer.

The larger cow sized yellowfin have been taking up residence on the Gordo Banks, just starting to arrive the last couple of weeks. No big numbers of these fish are being reported, but there have been around a half of dozen cows (yellowfin tuna 200 lb. or larger) landed landed from local boats. Recent trend has been an afternoon bite, during the early hours the current perhaps has been just too strong and the tuna have been more actively feeding later in the day when the current was slackening. Hard to figure their feeding patterns, this was a scenario that occurred last September and October as well, mainly local anglers capitalizing, charter boats regularly depart early in the morning and return early afternoon.

Options for anglers were somewhat limited, surface trolling baits or lures and also drift fishing over high spots. Strong currents made any deeper bottom fishing more difficult and it was not very productive even when able to reach the depths, the fish do not like fighting the swift currents either. A few red snapper were in the mix, an occasional amberjack or dogtooth snapper, but not many numbers. We expect that once currents do reside that we will find better results off of the structure.

Billfish bite slowed through the recent storm fronts, as weather settles we anticipate improved action for all of the sought after gamefish.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 41 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 180 yellowfin tuna, 192 dorado, 2 wahoo, 3 amberjack and
15 huachinango (red snapper).

Good fishing, Eric

August 31, 2013
Anglers –

This past week we witnessed how late summer tropical climate patterns can change within a matter of hours. After enjoying relatively stable conditions for a couple of weeks, this all changed on Wednesday afternoon, as a disorganized low pressure system all of a sudden developed into Tropical Storm Juliette. Within 12 hours this storm passed directly over Cab San Lucas and continued towards central Baja. TS Juliette traveling at a rapid pace, 30 mph hour, not giving much of a chance to gain more strength, this was fortunate, as not a lot of damage was reports, normal low land flooding and some moderate wind damage, as gusts of 45 mph were steady and even higher winds of 75 mph were recorded in isolated areas.

Sportfishing fleet were shut down for last Friday and Saturday due to high swells and rain caused by TS Ivo and once again there were closed port red flag conditions on this Thursday, before reopening for Friday morning, as ocean settled down and skies cleared. The next few weeks is always a time when weather forecasts are monitored closely.

Most consistent fishing action recently has been for dorado, found scattered throughout the region, traveling in schools of various sized fish, the majority of which have been juvenile sized, though there is a percentage of much larger dorado mixed in. There have been increasing numbers of wahoo being reported, striking mainly on lures, over the traditional high spots, as well as in the open blue water. This is favorable sigh to see this many wahoo so easy in the season, as they normally become more active later on in the fall.

There was excitement on the Gordo Banks, as the season’s first large sized yellowfin tuna are moving on to these grounds. On Tuesday there were several big tuna landed, up to 250 pounds, many other hook ups were lost while battling huge tuna on heavy gear, the word traveled quickly, on Wednesday there were heavy boat pressure and the big tuna did not want to cooperate, though some of these cows were seen briefly feeding on surface. Anglers have been using various baitfish, bolito, skipjack yellowfin, chihuil and strips of fresh squid. As weather settles down we anticipate this action will only improve, everyone is tuning up their heavy gear, so that can be best prepared to battle these giants. There are football sized yellowfin tuna being found throughout the zone, sometimes they have been associated with porpoise, but often just encountered by blind strikes while trolling hoochie type lures and cedar plugs.

Inshore action has really come to a standstill, this is normal during this period of higher swell conditions, which also scatter inshore baitfish schools. Not much bottom action now due to the continued strong current, a handful of red snapper found alongside the anchored commercial fleet. Most consistent fishing has found near the surface, charters are using a combination of lures and the available baitfish. Anglers now have a chance offshore of hooking into a grand slam of billfish, as there are striped, blue and black marlin, as well as sailfish all present on the offshore grounds.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 45 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 4 blue marlin, 2 black marlin, 8 striped marlin, 5 sailfish, 84 yellowfin tuna, 162 dorado, 4 wahoo and 18 huachinango (red snapper).

Good fishing, Eric

August 24, 2013

Anglers –

For the past couple of weeks the weather was relatively calm, hot and humid, with some afternoon breezes. At this time we are bracing for a weekend of thunderstorms, forecasters predict rainfall of six inches possible over the Southern Baja. High swells to 15 feet, with winds of 30 knots will shut down sportfishing operations through the weekend. This storm, now named Tropical Storm IVO, is predicted to follow a path well to the west of the Baja Peninsula, the system is expansive, several separate areas of disturbance are joining forces, slow moving and holding a lot of moisture.

Ocean conditions had settled, we enjoyed calm weather patterns, offshore fishing action was improving steadily. Dorado were the most common catch, with large schools of smaller grade fish now present, there were still some nicer bull dorado to 30 pounds or more accounted for, lot of juveniles to deal with, these should be released to mature and reproduce, dorado are one of the fastest growing species, studies say they grow five pounds per month. Best practice is to release all of the smaller dorado and if interested in capturing your limit of two dorado for personally consumption, choose a pair of the larger catches. Anglers have been finding easy limits for dorado, anglers found these fish from within one mile of shore, to the offshore grounds, these gamefish have been readily striking a wide variety of trolled lures and baits.

Football sized yellowfin tuna have been consistently found in recent weeks, these fish were found closer to shore and not associated with porpoise, schooling on the Iman and San Luis Banks, as well on the Gordo Banks, mixed in with skipjack, finicky to bite at times, striking on strips of squid and trolled hoochies, anglers were fortunate to land several of these small tuna, some anglers did find fast limits. On Tuesday, Gordo Banks Pangas skipper Chame Pino, with angler Dave Martin, visiting from Colorado, while trolling a live bolito on the San Luis Bank hooked into what would be the season’s first La Playita Cow Tuna. While using 80 pound tackle, Dave and Chame teamed to subdue this giant tuna in under two and a half hours.. Commercial pangeros targeting huachinango on this these same grounds had reported that they had seen large tuna feeding on these grounds the previous afternoon, apparently the larger grade yellowfin are now moving into the area, right on schedule.

Billfish action has been steady, lots of striped marlin, some sailfish and good numbers of larger sized blue marlin were reported, many blues were caught and released from anglers on sportfishers. A group of local La Playita pangeros teamed up to land a black marlin that was estimated at easily over 500 lb., hooked while trolling a small yellowfin tuna on the Gordo Banks. The season is showing encouraging prospects for an excellent fall season to come. Wahoo were also more active this past week, despite warm water temperatures near 85 degrees, wahoo to 50 pounds were landed while trolling the blue water ledges, no great numbers, but good for this time of year.

No inshore action now, a few late season roosterfish by the PLC Marina entrance, bottom bite was off due to the persistent strong currents. Red snapper (huachinango are being found in good numbers by the commercial fleet, they have been anchoring on deeper areas and using cut squid. Giant squid are being found in big numbers off of the Los Frailes and East Cape area, small sized giants, under two feet in length, same food source that attracts big fish.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 65 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 blue marlin, 1 black marlin, 23 striped marlin, 6 sailfish, 115 yellowfin tuna, 250 dorado, 13 wahoo,16 roosterfish, 38 huachinango (red snapper) and 7 cabrilla.

Good fishing, Eric