San Jose del Cabo Weather Link

Water Temperature > http://tempbreak.com/index.php?&cwregion=cb

Anglers –

We noticed a slight increase in spring time crowds traveling to Southern Baja, but still the numbers of visitors are far below normal. The latest upgrade in travel advisories to Mexico by the U.S. state department is definitely not helping the situation. The Los Cabos region is not the area that any of this cartel activity has been reportedly occurring and remains a very safe travel destination for tourists looking to enjoy themselves at one of the many world class resorts.

The weather is now perfect, daytime highs to 85 degrees, clear sunny skies, minimal winds and cooler evenings dropping to 65 degrees. Water temperatures have varied from the upper 60s off of the Pacific up into the mid 70s in the direction of Sea of Cortez, off of San Jose del Cabo.

With weather patterns progressively warming we are now starting to see some long awaited offshore action showing promising signs of breaking wide open. Striped marlin are being found in good numbers anywhere from 10 to 20 miles offshore, anglers found spots of feeders and tailing marlin. Many boats were landing multiple striped marlin per day, the majority of these fish were being hooked up on various bait fish, small percentage were striking on trolled lures. Sizes ranged from 90 to150 pounds. The fishing grounds off of the Palmilla Point area seemed to have the larger concentration of billfish in recent days.

Further north off of San Luis Bank to Vinorama anglers were finding some quality sized yellowfin tuna. No significant numbers yet, but a good sign to see some tuna in the fish counts after such a long absence. Tuna to over 100 pounds were landed, with most of the tuna being in the 20 to 80 pound class. Schools of bolito are congregated on these same fishing grounds and this has been the hot bait for these yellowfin. Anglers were jigging up their up own bolito, then using them to slowly troll the same banks. Tuna were also hooked into while drift fishing with sardinas and on yo-yo jigs. A few nice dorado were also accounted for and there were even a handful of wahoo strikes reported, though most of them resulted in lost fish stories.

Inshore action, which had carried fleets through much of the winter season as the most consistent action available, has continued off the beach stretches between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, though the action has tapered off, with average catches per charter down to anywhere from 2 to 8 fish. Nice to finally have some other options offshore opening up.

In recent days the larger sized yellowtail resumed biting on the Outer Gordo Bank, these yellows were all in the 30 plus pound range, striking on yo-yos and larger baitfish.There were also a mix of cabrilla, amberjack and snapper to round out the bite off of the rock piles.

There were more options for bait now, sardinas, moonfish, caballito, mullet, bolito, chihuil and even some mackerel on limited basis. Things are looking up, ready to bust wide open at anytime, great time to now visit this area, light crowds, ideal weather and a variety of fishing options.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 69 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of: 17striped marlin, 10 hammerhead shark, 32 yellowfin tuna, 5 dorado, 23 yellowtail, 33 amberjack, 54 pargo, 17 cabrilla, 11 grouper, 152 sierra, 15 roosterfish, 18 jack crevalle and 8 pompano.

Good Fishing, Eric

San Jose del Cabo Weather Link

Water Temperature > http://tempbreak.com/index.php?&cwregion=cb

April 24, 2011

Anglers –

Vacationers visiting the Los Cabos area are being welcomed with ideal spring time weather conditions, clear sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s. The southern winds slacked up in recent and this made for calmer seas. Ocean currents have been swift and changing rapidly, water temperatures have ranged from 68 degrees off of the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas to 78 degrees offshore in the direction of the 1150 Bank and the Cabrillo Seamount.

Anglers have been patiently waiting for offshore action to turn on, starting to see some signs of encouragement the past week, more porpoise activity, at times being associated with yellowfin tuna schools. Strong numbers of striped marlin being spotted, even though the hook up percentage was low, fish not aggressively feeding on the surface now. An occasional wahoo strike was being reported from these porpoise pods as well, most of which were the larger sized dark porpoise. At this rate of activity, if weather patterns stabilize in the coming weeks, we could be in for wide open action.

The big talk around town now from offshore anglers has been the daytime swordfish encountered the past couple of weeks. This has been mainly a deal being targeted on larger sportfishers, reports of over a dozen swords landed this past week alone, some weighing as large as 350 pounds. These fish were spotted on the surface on the fishing grounds outside of San Jose del Cabo and towards the East Cape, not that far out, 15 to 20 miles from shore. This has got to be one of the better bites on the swordfish in this area in many years, not many places in the world offer such chances at baiting up one of these elusive gladiators on the surface during the daytime. It will be interesting to see if these numbers hold up through the month. East Cape charters reported that the gamefish they are now catching offshore are plugged with medium sized squids, particularly the striped marlin. The season’s first quality sized dorado are now appearing in the counts off of that region. Squid is always a favorite food source for all pelagic gamefish, especially so for swordfish, feeding at depths during the dark hours and lazily sunning on the surface during the daytime, in the digestive mode, but still whiling to strike various available baits, like caballito, bolito, skipjack etc..

The majority of the day charters are now finding that the most consistent all around action is closer to shore. A variety of species such as sierra, roosterfish, jack crevalle, pompano, pargo, cabrilla, amberjack, yellowtail, grouper and others were being found near the rocky beach stretches. Drift fishing over the rock piles, using both bait and yo-yo iron jigs have been producing a mixed bag of species, no huge numbers, all good eating, with a handful of grouper to over 30 pounds. The Palmilla Point and Red Hill area was one of the most popular this past week, this is also where supplies of sardinas are being netted in the a.m. A few striped marlin were even hooked in this spot, within a half mile of shore, greenish waters, apparently some bait source has been attracting these billfish in close.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 66 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of: 8 hammerhead shark, 8 yellowfin tuna, 3 dorado, 21 yellowtail,11 amberjack, 76 pargo, 65 cabrilla, 10 grouper, 244 sierra, 18 roosterfish, 8 jack crevalle and 8 pompano.

Good Fishing, Eric

San Jose del Cabo Weather Link

Water Temperature > http://tempbreak.com/index.php?&cwregion=cb

Gordo Banks Pangas

San Jose del Cabo

April 17, 2011

As days become progressively longer, with rising daytime temperatures, this is transition time in Southern Baja, when conditions fluctuate from day to. There was a warming trend for a few days, then this switced to cooler winds off of the Pacific, common pattern during spring. Daytime highs ranged from 75 to 85 degrees, an ideal all around climate now. Ocean currents have averaged 66 to 72 degrees, warmer areas found offshore of the Gordo Banks towards Los Frailes. Crowds of tourists are lighter now, as spring break winds down. Though this coming week is the Easter Holiday and the local tradition of camping on the beaches will be in full swing.

More favorable ocean currents were found north of Punta Gorda, warming water to 74 degrees, encouraging with many schools of unidentified baitfish on these fishing grounds, greater numbers of striped marlin were encountered on the surface, often in groups of several fish or more, but these billfish were not showing much interest in biting. Perhaps having so much natural food source the stripers are just not hungry now and with full moon this weekend it is hard to predict what might happen.

There has been some reports of smaller sized yellowfin tuna found traveling with porpoise, Outside of the Gordo Banks and to the north, first boats on the scene were scoring. On Saturday a couple of panga charters scouted areas towards Vinorama and outside of San Luis they encountered schooling yellowfin tuna, they did account for a pair of fifty pound class yellowfin for their efforts, a couple of other strikes were lost. These tuna hit on either sardinas or bolito, which were found near these same fishing grounds. This is a bit of encouraging news and possibly will develop into something more consistent. Still a very hit of miss deal, there have been choppy conditions at times further offshore. Few dorado or wahoo to speak of either. There continued to be consistent action found for sierra along the rocky beach stretches, trolling with sardinas was the most productive method for this.

Drift fishing over shallow water rock piles with sardinas produced a mixed bag of pargo, cabrilla, grouper, amberjack, yellowtail, bonito, triggerfish and pompano. These are all great eating species, most of the fish averaged less than ten pounds, but there were a handful of grouper, yellowtail and amberjack that did top the 30 pound mark, including one 60 pound class grouper. Anglers had varying success using yo-yo style iron jigs, this was harder work, but also this produced a number of quality fish.

Schools of sardinas were concentrated near Palmilla Point, somewhat limited supplies, but available most days and fresh dead sardinas were offered by the $10 bag at the panga docking area in La Playita. No schools of mullet reported yet, still a bit early for them. This is the tail end of whale migration now, actually there have been quite a few sightings recently, but these mammals will all be migrating towards their northern feeding grounds in the coming weeks.

The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 52 charters this past week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:

5 mako shark, 12 hammerhead shark, 3 yellowfin tuna, 13 bonito, 19 amberjack, 29 yellowtail, 6 pompano, 18 pargo, 14 roosterfish, 29 cabrilla, 9 grouper and 165 sierra.

Good fishing, Eric