June 1, 2012

The month of May is over, there were major variances in weather patterns and accordingly changing ocean conditions. As the new month begins we are feeling a warming trend once again, for both air and water temperatures. Daytime highs reached 90 degrees, variable winds were moderate, warmer current moved in a southern direction from Los Frailes and ocean temperatures are averaging 75 degrees or more through most of the areas in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, while around on the Pacific currents have been much cooler. For this reason most sportfishing fleets are targeting fishing grounds such as the 95 and 1150 high spots and north towards the Gordo and Desteladera Banks.

The swift current moving back from north of Los Frailes was warm, but also murky green, progressively this current has become cleaner with each passing day, this pattern should continue as long as west winds do not pick back up and push more Pacific waters in. The expected high swells from last weekend passing of Hurricane Bud never really lived up to expectations, it seemed like there were more surfers in town than anglers. Crowds are light now, good time to visit, fishing action is improving and weather is still not too hot.

Commercial pangeros found it difficult to net sardinas due to higher surf conditions, there have been caballito, moonfish and mullet available, also limited supplies of fresh dead brined sardinas, coming from beaches towards the East Cape in the afternoon. More schooling mullet are migrating into local waters and this has attracted larger sized roosterfish, everyday roosters weighing in the 10 to 60 pound class have been hooked into, slow trolling larger live baits close to shoreline has been the best bet from charter boats, while off the beaches hard core surf anglers are hooking into these powerful roosterfish while casting and rapidly retrieving surface popper type lures. It is that time of year, where new options can open up daily.

Anglers had faced a couple of tough weeks offshore, but things have turned around in a hurry, as anglers are once again finding good numbers of striped marlin, readily striking on lures, as well as various baitfish, most of this action has been found 5 to 15 miles offshore, nicer sized stripers were accounted for, the majority of fish were in the 100 to 140 pound class. Cruisers as well as panga charters were getting into this billfish action. Dorado action rebounded as well, though most of the do-dos taken earlier in the week were very small, by the later part of the week the big bulls had returned, particularly near the buoys located off of San Luis area. Bolito were found schooling in this same region and were particularly effective baits for the larger bull dorado. No wahoo heard of in recent days, but we expect we will hear reports in the near future, as conditions become even more favorable.

Same deal on yellowfin tuna, we keep hearing stories of lots of tuna being found out of our range, outside of Los Frailes, it is only a matter of time that these fish follow the shifting currents and food source in the direction of the Los Cabos fishing grounds.

Inshore action improved in recent days, along with larger sized roosterfish now being hooked up daily, there have been various groupers, cabrilla, dogtooth snapper, yellow snapper, barred pargo, amberjack, yellowtail, jack crevalle, sierra, pompano and even a run on sheephead, this is now the time when a wide variety of species can be encountered on any given day. Much of this action has been found while trolling baits over shallow water structure and many of the largest sized fish being hooked into are breaking line off on the nearby rocks. We did receive one confirmed report of a 150 pound gulf grouper being landed from a private boat based out of Puerto Los Cabos, this monster hit on a live caballito, I believe near the Iman Bank.

The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 80 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 12 striped marlin, 29 dorado,13 amberjack,7 dogtooth snapper, 16 barred pargo, 66 yellow snapper, 8 yellowtail, 11 grouper, 25 cabrilla, 68 roosterfish,15 jack crevalle, 7 pompano, 3 sheephead and 9 sierra.

Good fishing, Eric

May 26, 2012

Anglers –

The month of May continues to produce variable weather patterns, this week began with wind out of the southwest, pushing in cooler Pacific air, even some marine fog, sweeping cold ocean currents in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Water temperatures varied from a chilly 58 degrees on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, to an average of 64/66 degrees off of the San Jose del Cabo region, while north of Los Frailes, where this Pacific current terminates, here the ocean temperatures are holding in the 76 to 78 degree range. This is a twenty degree variance in water conditions within a fifty mile stretch of coastline.

While anglers have had to work harder and have more patience in the cooler waters, surfers put on their wet suits and were eagerly awaiting the larger swells that were being generated by Hurricane Bud, the season’s second named storm, which is now some 100 miles south of Manzanillo and predicted to leave 10 to 20 inches of rainfall in areas of the state of Jalisco, before pulling a u-turn and slowly heading back west, well south of any impact with the Southern Baja Peninsula.

Green off colored water is normally associated with colder currents, migrating pelagic gamefish seek out more favorable habitat and anglers have to have patience waiting for conditions to recover, sometimes this can happen overnight, other times the turnaround can take weeks, currents do need to shift back from the north, in order so the warmer currents off of the East Cape region can shift back in the direction of Los Cabos.

Striped marlin has been the main attraction found offshore, fish have been more scattered with recent conditions, but most charters are having opportunities, no great numbers now, but catches of one or two marlin were not uncommon. The billfish were striking on live caballito and lures, often encountered tailing on the surface, hitting dropped back bait, most of the time 5 to 20 miles offshore. Very few dorado talked about this past week, will most likely be the same scenario until waters warm back into the mid 70s.

Increased swells made it tough for the pangeros to net sardinas, supplies of caballito have remained steady. As conditions stabilize we do expect to see larger concentrations of bolito and skipjack surface on the fishing grounds. In the mean time we wait for a warming trend.

While there were no tuna, dorado or exotic wahoo frenzies to report, anglers did find some mixed inshore action, along the shoreline and off the rocky high spots. This option was not consistent from day to day, certain spots produced well one day, then the next day slowed to a standstill, while reports of great action came in from other areas, hard to try everywhere in one morning. The week started off with great yellowtail and mixed cabrilla, grouper action found off of Palmilla to Red Hill, in 100 to 150 feet of water. The yellowtail were striking on yo-yo’s, surface trolling bait, down rigger baits, rapalas and even on surface trolled marlin type lures. Nice grade of fish, averaging 20 to 30 pounds. A few amberjack mixed in, with leopard grouper to 15 pounds and gulf grouper to 30 pounds rounding out catches. Yellowtail at times were seen cruising in the swells, as do marlin, these fish appear to be on the move, unsettled ocean conditions have them scattering in new directions.

Roosterfish provided steady action for anglers while trolling live baits close to the shoreline, more of the roosters were less than 15 pounds, but there are some impressive size fish to over 50 pounds also starting to appear, the next several weeks is when we normally see the bigger roosterfish start patrolling local beach stretches, cold currents has set their schedule back.

This next week local residents are gearing up for the traditional national holiday of the “Dia de la Marina”. In La Playita there is always heavy anticipation for celebrating this event, with three days of activities, including late night dances, carnival rides, parades, horse match races, off road vehicle races and of course more than enough cerveza (beer).

The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 82 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 5 striped marlin, 3 dorado, 18 amberjack, 4 dogtooth snapper, 88 various pargo species,78 roosterfish, 19 jack crevalle, 26 cabrilla, 8 pompano, 56 yellowtail and 16 sierra.

Good fishing, Eric

May 19, 2012
Anglers –

The weather is often unpredictable during the late spring season. Normal patterns for the Los Cabos area, is that we see the ocean water temperature hold on a steady warming trend through the month of April and through the first half of the month of May, then as winds and currents shift, there is cold water that sweeps in from the Pacific, within a day water temperatures can drop by fifteen degrees. This current typically does not reach any further than Los Frailes. With the IGFA Tournament being held this week we did notice an increase of visitors. During the first two days of the tournament anglers witnessed near record paced striped marlin action, teams faced much tougher conditions on the third and fourth day, though many marlin were still tagged. Weather patterns changed on Wednesday, relentless winds from the west, shifting to the south and persisting through the week. Overnight the ocean water temperatures dropped from being in the upper 70’s to a chilly 60 degrees off of Cabo San Lucas, off San Jose del Cabo the water is now in the 65 degree range. Marine fog also moved in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, had previously been hanging over the Pacific. Some thirty miles offshore, near the Cabrillo Seamount the water temp is now about 72 degrees. Anglers will need patience for patterns to stabilize and wait for the ocean to warm back up. Could be a matter of days or weeks, hard to predict, but things can change rapidly during transition periods, we must remain optimistic.

Before the mid week weather change it was feeling more like summer, air temperatures into the 90’s, clean blue current in the 75 to 80 degree range found within miles of shore. We were starting to see a few wahoo showing, even some action for yellowfin tuna was encountered, along with some great variety off of the bottom spots and continued wide open marlin action on the offshore fishing grounds. On Thursday the wind gusted from the south and this made for a tough day with limited options. Most charters ended up trolling close to shore, where most found wide open roosterfish action, some larger sized roosters were accounted for, including one 60 pound specimen landed and released by John Hefty of Cabo San Lucas while fishing with skipper Chame Pino. Trolling with caballito was the most consistent deal for the inshore action. Sardinas had been available again, but with increasing southern swells this is a day to day situation, as to if the live sardinas will be available.

Early in the week there was great striped marlin action encountered off of the San Jose del Cabo grounds, fish were striking on practically anything, lures, ballyhoo, caballito, bolito and skipjack, multiple catches were common. Only an occasional dorado was found, a few wahoo strikes were being reported, as these elusive speedsters were becoming more active in the warmer waters. Several groups of a half dozen or more wahoo were seen slowing swimming on the surface, in shallow waters off of Cardon, these fish would not strike on anything presented to them, but one resourceful pangero rigged up a small treble hook from a yo-yo jig and successfully snagged two wahoo, we won’t mention any names, this technique of hooking a fish might not be legal, but it sure made for an exciting story.

Early in the week anglers reported tuna strikes while trolling with live bolito outside of San Luis, these yellowfin were found traveling with larger sized porpoise and were in the 70 to 100 pound class, limited numbers were landed, but other fish were lost and many strikes were missed, it was encouraging news, but now we will play the waiting game for conditions to become favorable again.

The Gordo Banks were really showing a lot of early in the week, tons of baitfish on the surface, red crabs and whale sharks cruising about, not many gamefish caught, besides striped marlin later in the day, but sure was a promising sign.

Construction on the new hotel in La Playita continues at a rapid pace, apparently no problem with funding here. We have heard it is going to be a Four Seasons Resort, do not see their sign up yet. Apparently some eighty rooms, three to four stories, all are overlooking the Puerto Los Cabos Marina.

Local Marina officials have become stricter with the commercial pangeros bait sellers, now enforcing that no netting or selling be done inside the boundary set near the channel entrance. These local are not easy to persuade into conforming to new rules, kind of like the Wild West was..

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 77 charters for the week with anglers reporting a fish count of: 28 striped marlin, 7 yellowfin tuna, 15 dorado, 2 wahoo, 28 cabrilla, 85 various pargo species, 14 jack crevalle, 2 yellowtail, 19 amberjack, 135 roosterfish, 12 pompano, 8 bonito and 14 sierra.

Good Fishing, Eric