June 13, 2021

There seemed to be an increase of vacationers arriving in Los Cabos this past week, with school semesters now ending for summer, this gives families a chance to travel. Weather has remained comfortable, not unbearably hot yet, clear sunny days with highs in the upper 80s, a bit tropical, as there are now two tropical systems developing, one of them TS Carlos, these are far south and off to the west and are not forecast to impact Southern Baja at all. Perhaps we will see some increased ocean swells later next week and increased humidity. Local ocean temperature is in the 78 to 80 degree range, winds have been at times from the north and then from the south, but have not been too much an issue for anglers, mostly picking up later in the day, as ocean conditions have been favorable throughout the week.

Marina bait vendors have fond good supplies of healthy sized sardinas, as well as some caballito and mullet, with other options of slabs of squid and ballyhoo. Off shore fishing has been centered near the 95 and 1150 spots, mainly for striped marlin, but also a few dorado and yellowfin tuna being found as well. The majority of the inshore and bottom action has been in the direction of the La Fortuna, Cardon, Iman, San Luis and Vinorama. On the San Luis grounds there were tuna being hooked into every day, though the fish were finicky, some days better than others, anglers were fortunate to land one or two, some had four or five, also more sea lions and sharks making a presence. Most of the yellowfin we saw ranged in the 20 to 60 lb. size, though there was one 234 lb. tuna landed Friday from these same grounds. The best bet was to drift fish with sardinas, squid or slow trolled caballito or bolito, if you happen to jig one of those candy baits up.

We are still seeing very few dorado, last week we saw more, though this week there were wahoo starting to show up in the fish counts, most of these were hooked into while drifting for tuna, on sardinas, lucky with no leaders, others also hit on rapala type trolling lures. Sizes up to 30 lb., at least we are seeing a few of the ‘hoo, it has been a while.

With surface action still a bit spotty many charters are concentrating their efforts closer to shore over the rocky high spots or trolling right along the beach stretches. Roosterfish action has been slow to get going, considering this is now peak season and will be for the next month. Everything has been a different, slow to get going this season. We did see some roosters this week, one that was close to 50 lb. There were more jack crevalle than anything else close to shore, though there was still quite a few sierra hanging out in the warmer waters.

Off the bottom, in depths ranging from 60 to 200 feet, we saw a wide variety of species, even had one 20 lb. California sheepshead, as well as yellowtail, amberjack, fortune jack, bonito, black skipjack, pompano, island jack, surgeonfish, yellow snapper, red snapper, spotted rose snapper, barred pargo, leopard grouper, broomtail and pinto cabrilla and of course triggerfish, a couple of which were monsters. Most charters were coming in with an average of a dozen fish. Many of the smaller cabrilla and snapper are being released, which is a good thing, that we do strongly recommend.

Good Fishing, Eric

June 6, 2021

First week of June we are seeing moderate crowds of tourists arriving to the Los Cabos region. You could not ask for better weather conditions now, clear sunny skies, high temperature hovering about 85 degrees, little wind and wearing t-shirts early in the morning are no problem. Ocean temperature is in the 76 to 80 degree range in the direction of San Jose del Cabo and further north, though it is cooler on the Pacific, also windier. The majority of the sportfishing action is now taking place in the direction of the warmer currents.

Anglers were able to obtain good supplies of sardinas, caballito and now mullet are in the mix as well. Other options included the slabs of squid and ballyhoo. We still are in the transition period, from winds diminishing, cleaner blue and warming currents pushing in. This brings in schools of various baitfish and which in turn attract the pelagic gamefish. This whole season, through the winter and spring, it seems that weather cycles, as well as ocean currents, winds, etc… were all following unusual patterns. We are finally seeing more stabilization, though normally it is not until later in the month of July when things really start to heat up.

The billfish bite for striped marlin has still been concentrated offshore between the 95 and 1150 spots, though this week there were days when the marlin proved very finicky, seen in scores just lazily tailing on the surface, commonly in groups of four, five or six, but you had to work at getting them to bite. Fish were taken on trolled lures, but more often on cast or dropped back baits. We saw clean blue shifting again closer to shore, more of the striped marlin were also seen and hooked into on the grounds from Iman and San Luis, as well as near the Gordo Banks. We did see marlin ranging from 80 to 120 lb.

We saw a few more dorado moving into local grounds, no large numbers at all, but of the fish we did see, there were several very nice sized bulls up close to 40 lb accounted for. These dorado were being found offshore on the marlin grounds, but in recent days more are being seen on inshore areas north of Gordo. Still no wahoo to speak of, a few strikes and free swimming fish spotted, but no bite at this time.

Yellowfin tuna are also playing hard to get, spotty action found 20 to 40 miles offshore associated with moving porpoise. Tuna were also hanging around the Iman Banks, though only a few were hooked into, we weighed yellowfin up to 86 lb. this week, others of 20 to 70 lb. were accounted for, but again very few fish overall. Though over the weekend the tuna were seen coming up breezing the surface, but sere finicky and then disappeared.

The more consistent action has been coming off the various rocky high spots, from 60 to 200 feet of water, using yo-yo jigs and both live and dead baits. There was a wide variety of species being encountered, most common were the yellow snapper, red snapper, bonito, leopard grouper, amberjack and triggerfish. Some of the more exotic we saw this week were African pompano, snook, bluefin trevally and yellowtail. Along the shoreline there were still some sierra and some of these very large specimens, over 10 lb. Also big numbers of hog sized jack crevalle roaming close to shore, as well as a bit further than normal offshore, feeding on concentrations of baitfish. Some roosterfish reported towards the south, we expect a big run of the larger sized roosters in the coming weeks.

Good Fishing, Eric

May 30, 2021

Los Cabos is busy, with the International Airport seeing large crowds of tourists arriving, strange deal is that the a high percentage of these visitors are not anglers, so local sportfishing fleets are only moderately busy. Weather is now great, clear skies with highs of about 90 degrees, there are a couple of tropical low pressure areas hundreds of miles to the south now brewing, but neither are forecast to develop into much or to impact the Southern Baja Peninsula. Swells have been increasing, as is normal for this time of year, we are seeing lots of surfers, winds were laid down for most of the week, though over the weekend the breeze from the south did pick up some. Ocean water temperature has been in the 76 to 80 degree range in the direction of San Jose del Cabo and further north.

Anglers are now relying on sardinas, caballito and mullet for their bait options, offshore options for billfish have also included ballyhoo. There has been good action found offshore near the 95 and 1150 spots, main catch has been striped marlin, though a few dorado and yellowfin tuna are being found near these same grounds. The striped marlin are striking on a mix of lures and various baitfish.

Water clarity has been clearing up closer to shore and this week there were some yellowfin tuna found around the Iman Bank, not a lot of fish, but a handful were accounted for, weights ranged up to 100 lb.  So we do anticipate this tuna bite to become more consistent as weather continues to stabilize as we near summer season. Other options for tuna has been further offshore, 30 to 50 miles out, finding pods of porpoise and tuna have been moving amongst them, though this option was out of range for normal charters.

Still the most consistent action overall has been coming from the rocky high spots closer to shore, where anglers were using a mix of yo-yo jigs and baits to find a wide variety of quality eating bottom species. Most common fish were the bonito, red and yellow snapper, leopard grouper, amberjack, spotted rose snapper, surgeon fish, pompano and triggerfish.

Along the shoreline some nice sized late season sierra are still being found, along with jack crevalle and some roosterfish, even though we are seeing more mullet moving into local waters, we have not seen a large run of roosterfish as of yet, that is normally something we have more the second half of the month of June.

Good Fishing, Eric