July 6, 2012
Anglers –

This Month has started off with very light crowds of tourists, summer weather has been relatively mild into the first week of July, though by mid week it was beginning to feel more like normal weather patterns, high temperatures around 95 degrees, mostly clear sunny skies, some scattered tropical clouds, lows in the upper 70s. Humidity was up some, as there was Tropical Storm Daniel building strength over 500 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas, following a westerly path, only affect anyone will feel from this latest system will be warmer muggy conditions and some increased ocean swells that are predicted to reach up to six foot. Pacific breezes have been prevalent in the afternoon and have helped keep conditions more comfortable.

The unusual strange ocean conditions continue, early in the week the Pacific current pushed in the direction of Los Frailes and water temperatures dropped into 72 / 74 degree range, then winds resided and currents were moving inshore waters from the direction of the East Cape back south to Cabo San Lucas and Inshore waters from about 3 to 6 miles offshore were averaging in the 80 to 84 degree range, while offshore the water was cooler, averaging 74 to 78 degrees. The green plankton rich water conditions have been reaching to 30 miles offshore, but just in the past couple of days the clarity north of Punta Gorda, in the surrounding areas near Iman Bank, was reported to be much improved and even bluish, apparently the current has been swifter offshore than closer to shore, this why cleaner warmer waters are now found inshore, this is what we have been patiently waiting for, so the fishing action can get back on track of normal expectations.

The main supplies of live bait recently have been for caballito and mullet, only source of sardinas has been found off of the East Cape region, supplying fleets from Los Barilles and Buena Vista. Bolito schools have been scattered due to unfavorable currents, we do expect these baitfish to start schooling over the local fishing grounds once again as conditions do finally stabilize.

For the past week now the only consistent action for the fleet launching from San Jose del Cabo has been found close along the shoreline for roosterfish or far to the northeast, 20 to 30 miles, this is where a series set buoys, 4 to 8 miles offshore, have been attracting schools of dorado and in recent days some yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 20 pound class were encountered. Sizes of the dorado ranged from 5 to 50 pounds. Fish were striking on caballito, mullet, small skipjack and particularly on sardinas, for anglers that were able to purchase them, which was only for fleets from north of Los Frailes. Trolling with hoochie skirts worked well as well. Crowds of boats was a problem, since this area was producing the only consistent action, fleets from Los Barilles, Buena Vista, San Jose del Cabo and even from Cabo San Lucas all were making the unusually long runs to get into this bite. This is a lot of pressure for a handful of buoys, these are set lines for commercial shark pangeros, more often than not it was the first boats to the individual buoys that encountered the hungry bull dorado, some of them in the 30 to 50 lb. class, then later as more boats arrived it was mainly the smaller schoolies that provided action. The limit on these popular acrobatic gamefish is two per license, apparently many of the East Cape boats have not been informed of these regulations, or perhaps the authorities just do not have the personnel in order to enforce these rules on the East Cape, they strictly abide by the two dorado limit rule out of the Los Cabos area. Many local charters reported that East Cape charters were reportedly seen gaffing and killing as many as 15 to 20 dorado per boat, when there were only two or three, sometimes four anglers aboard. These rules should be enforced equally, not just for certain areas. Why would anglers want to fish in one area and only be able to catch two dorado when they can go to other places that let you catch many more?

Every day we are now hearing about more yellowfin tuna being caught near Los Frailes, large schools of fish up to 20 pounds, striking on all sizes of lures, not associated with porpoise most of the time, as this congregation of fish swifts south some, they will in the range of the normal day charter from San Jose.

Some striped marlin and a few sailfish are being found trolling offshore waters, no large concentrations, but as the conditions continue to clean up, we do anticipate a late season run on stripers.

Roosterfish up to 60 pounds were caught this past week, even though most charters were concentrated on the dorado bite around the far away buoys, leaving little time to do much else. Not much action found off the bottom, mainly because the current was swift most of the time, making it difficult for anglers to make a successful effort.

The combined panga fleet out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 49 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
2 striped marlin, 1 sailfish, 215 dorado, 5 yellowfin, 8 amberjack, 3 grouper, 12 cabrilla, 8 jack crevalle, 42 roosterfish, 14 yellow snapper and 28 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

June 17, 2012
Anglers –

With Los Cabos now hosting the G20 Summit for world leaders, we are seeing unprecedented security forces operating, with safety for everyone being the highest priority. Through this week we expect traveling delays, due to heavy traffic through road blocks and various closures. With this active military presence seen throughout the area, the weather patterns were almost as dynamic, cool Pacific air flows, gusty at times, swirling from all directions, high temperatures did reach 90 degrees over the weekend ,morning’s are still cool, actually very comfortable climate, just has not been what is needed to improve local ocean conditions. With the start of summer season a week away, marine moisture is all there has been, no rainfall in sight, but plenty of sunshine.

Anglers are being confronted with these unfavorable ocean conditions, not so much cooler temperatures, greatest factor being the high chlorophyll levels that is creating greenish brown waters that just do not attract the baitfish which in turn bring in the gamefish. On Terrafin SST charts, the green water was ranging to 40 miles offshore, even there it does not even appear blue. Inshore water temperatures are averaging 70 to 74 degrees, not too cool, just the dirty current has not been what we want to see. This same pattern persists to as far north of Punta Arena, where there is a water break up to 76/78 degrees. So water temperatures are okay, there needs to be a switch in currents, to sweep in cleaner conditions, so anglers can find what they came to expect. There was some encouraging reports of improved ocean conditions outside of San Luis Bank, where on Father’s Day local panga boats were participated in an annual event, winning fish was a 36 pound dorado, a 34 pound dorado was second. Now we have heard late notice talk that authorities will be closed the Puerto Los Cabos Marina Port on June 18 & 19, we have not even officially been notified and many charters are scheduled for these dates, anglers have purchased expensive plane tickets, prepaid for all inclusive packages, rented vehicles, gone shopping, spent lots of money, all planning to fish for a day or two even more, now at the very last hour we are supposed to notify that the Port is Closer, refund all payments and say that we are deeply sorry for this poor judgment and baseless decision. This event has been planned for a year, you think local business operators could have be notified of any closures far enough in advance to not disappoint visiting anglers, hopefully there can be reversal of thoughts, otherwise we are all looking at losing more disgruntling tourists.

Not many anglers appear to be in town now, perhaps more would be ready to go fishing if recent reports were more encouraging, ocean conditions have been tough and then having to deal with traffic delays, etc…I believe many people are just hanging out at their resorts and enjoying the isolated relaxation, there are definitely more political diplomats and their entourages than normal tourists.

Early in the week there were limited numbers of striped marlin and dorado found in the cleaner offshore waters, then currents switched again, pushed in browner colored waters and progressively slowed down the action. The best chance at finding action was closer to shore, anglers were slow trolling and drifting with baits such as caballito, mullet or moonfish. Early in the week there was a good bite for amberjack right directly off the PLC Marina rock jetty entrance, especially at first light, one local commercial pangero reported landing a 80 pound amberjack, most of the ambers landed were in the 20 to 50 pound range, fortunate boats had two, three or even four of these quality fish.

During the week the common species found were amberjack, jack crevalle, roosterfish, sierra, pargo and cabrilla. None of these were numerous, but some charters did account for decent catches of three ,four or five quality specimens. Roosterfish were congregating more around the jetty area due to higher presence of baitfish, not much bait activity along beach stretches now, as inshore conditions rebound we should see a big influx of mullet.

At this time we are being told by Port Officials that we can no longer fish in this jetty area, guess that was inevitable, being that these boats are fishing where boat traffic is heavy, though now there are more military boats than anything else. It would be nice if these patrol boats acknowledged the Marina’s no wake speed limits, these turbo jet PT patrol vessels create heavy wakes, damaging dock structure and have already been reasonable for many snapped dock lines.

Heavy commercial inshore gill net operations continue on both the Pacific side of CSL and north of SJDC. This is an incredibly destructive technique, though is very lucrative for the individuals involved, systematically and indiscriminately trapping any species that swims through this particular shallow zone, including pargo, snapper, roosterfish, cabrilla, parrot fish, pompano, amberjack, sierra and many others, often snagging turtles and even mammals. When this gear does breaks off, it is often encountered drifting with decomposing fish, while continuing to kill others. These fish camps do have legal permits, somewhere up higher in the political chain there has to be someone that realizes what damage this is doing to such a fragile ecosystem, which will not be able to sustain itself much longer at this rate of decimation. When reporting this situation to local officials, of course no one wants to get involved, this form of fishery needs to be abolished all together, there are alternative methods, this should not be political, we are talking about future resources for generations to come, it is discouraging to witness such negligence.

The combined panga fleet out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 68 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
6 striped marlin, 18 dorado, 12 bonito, 39 amberjack, 9 grouper, 19 cabrilla, 12 jack crevalle, 66 roosterfish, 6 pompano, 32 huachinango, 22 yellow snapper, 20 triggerfish, 10 sierra and 5 pargo colorado.

Good fishing, Eric

Note: Next Fish Report will not be posted until the end of June.

Anglers –

The Los Cabos area is now busy reinforcing infrastructure with a heavy military presence in support of the upcoming D20 summit, where many of the world’s leaders will be holding talks in the newly constructed San Jose del Cabo convention center. So we must all bear with the inconveniences of road closures, military check points, additional delays, closed ocean zones etc…as authorities are now working around the clock to make sure this event is secure and progresses smoothly without incident. Crowds of tourists have been moderate during this late spring period, as many surfers as anglers, not much of a ocean swell this past week, but everyone is enjoying comfortable weather conditions, there was a slight cooling trend this past week, high temperatures in the mid 80s, mornings cooler, lots of marine moisture, definitely transition time. It is only a matter of time before these up and down patterns stabilize, this year it seems everything has been a bit later than normal, some seasons it has not been until mid July when conditions finally settle.

Hard to predict, or even keep track of the ocean conditions recently, has been changing rapidly, from day to day, as cool as 60 degrees off of the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, to almost 80 degrees off of Los Frailes, that is a dramatic variance within fifty miles of coastline. The current is sweeping back and forth, stirring up algae concentrations and even changing oxygen levels, at the present time water temperature is in the mid to upper 60’s off of Cabo San Lucas and towards San Jose del Cabo and to the north, the ocean has been ranging from 74 to 77 degrees, this warming trend has continued through the week, despite more favorable temperature, the current remained dirty green and even brown in some areas, not what you want to see when targeting offshore pelagic species. For a period the water was warmer close to shore and cooler offshore, opposite from normal patterns, not much of any blue water breaks to be found. Baitfish seem to scatter in these conditions as well, sardinas have not been available recently, though out of the marina area there has been sufficient supplies of caballito and mullet. The swirling current of the past several weeks really have mixed ocean conditions and has made fishing much more of a challenge.

Anglers enjoyed the all around climate, but were having to deal with adverse ocean conditions, working hard to find a fair variety of species, though very spread out and in no significant numbers. There were amberjack showing up at the PLC Marina jetty entrance and each morning a handful were being hooked into on yo-yo igs and live bait, most of these fish were in the 20 to 30 pound class, there was one 101 pound amberjack caught early in the week from another area. A few yellowtail up to 30 pounds off of Palmilla, Chelino and other areas, still striking in the dirty water, but also very hit or miss. Some various cabrillas, groupers, pargos, sharks and bonito rounded out the structure action, anglers used bait and yo-yo jigs with mixed success. Some charters accounted for up to a dozen fish in combination, while others were fortunate enough to find one or two takers.

Earlier in the week there was great roosterfish action found, at times epic feeding frenzy were encountered, particularly on the less pressured areas in the direction of Los Frailes, fish to 40 or 50 pounds were reported during the week, the current progressively turned a brown color and this slowed inshore action, even though there were jack crevalle up to 30 pounds encountered and less numbers of roosters, with some late season sierra in the mix.

Striped marlin action off of San Jose del Cabo slowed way down, but everyday there were marlin hook ups reported, an average of maybe every other cruiser charter landing a marlin, an occasional dorado found as well, most of this was further offshore and in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. A few yellowfin tuna encounters were reported, these tuna were in the 40 to 80 pound class, found between San Luis and Los Frailes, traveling with larger dark colored porpoise, a few hook ups were reported on caballito. These fish are ready to move onto local fishing grounds when conditions rebound and attract more of their food source.

So we all are waiting patiently for ocean conditions to improve and for the fishing action back return to standards.

The combined panga fleet out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 72 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
3 striped marlin, 11 dorado, 12 hammerhead shark, 34 bonito, 22 amberjack, 8 yellowtail, 8 grouper, 18 cabrilla, 4 dogtooth snapper, 18 jack crevalle, 125 roosterfish, 2 pompano, 12 huachinango, 15 yellow snapper, 24 triggerfish, 18 sierra and 6 pargo colorado.

Good fishing, Eric