November 2, 2019

Anglers –

Fall season is now at its peak, as scores of anglers are arriving daily, many of them now preparing for tournaments, including the WON Tuna Jackpot scheduled for this coming week. This Sunday is the Los Cabos Iron Man event, which means many streets and Hwy. closures, adding to already congested logistics or trying to get anywhere. Fall weather patterns started off calm this week, before the north winds picked back up mid-week, even had one day where there was light scattered rainfall. Ocean water temperature ranged 80 to 84 degrees with moderate swells and at times swift currents.

Always heavy pressure this time of year on local bait resources, we are now seeing a combination of sardinas, slabs of squid, caballito, ballyhoo and some skippers able to find chihuil. Surprisingly supplies are holding up better than we would imagine, will be interesting to see how supplies hold through this month.

Charters are scouting out all directions, most local sportfishing fleets are fishing grounds from the Gordo Banks, Iman, San Luis and as far north as Vinorama.  Action has been spread out and changing from day to day, as to where the bite is best. Early week the best action proved to be for wahoo near Vinorama, finding the chihuil baitfish was the secret to success, not always easy to obtain these candy baits, more of a super panga deal, on certain high spots with specialized rigs. Not many wahoo were striking the trolled lures at this time, best chances were on slow trolled trap hooked baits and early morning before too many boats congregated. The wahoo were averaged in the 25 to 35 lb. class. High boats brought in five, other one, two or three, of course many other were lost for the normal wahoo reasons.

Dorado remained scarce and scattered, only seeing one or two fish for all groups of charter’s per day, we heard of more numbers on the Pacific, but even there the dorado were not nearly as numerous as previous months. More marlin appeared, even in the direction off of San Jose del, though the billfish were much more active towards Cabo San Lucas and on the Pacific. We even had some sailfish and at least one 180 lb. class blue marlin was accounted for. With the warmer water there are still chances at the larger sized black and blue marlin.

Yellowfin tuna were elusive, being targeted on San Luis Banks, as wells as Gordo Banks, though very few were actually landed this week, most of the tuna we did see were in the 60 to 90 lb. range, a few smaller 10 to 20 lb. These yellowfin hit a wide variety pf baits, not on lures, Drift fishing with squid or using chihuil and live skipjack produced strikes. Heavy pressure, combined with lots of nature food source, swift currents, now have these fish skittish and finicky, of course on any given day they could become more aggressive, they are definitely still yellowfin through the area.

Not much off the bottom, triggerfish, bonito, smaller sized snapper and cabrilla were the most common, swift currents have not helped that action at all.

Along the shoreline there were good numbers of juvenile roosterfish, which should always be released, also some early season sierra and jack crevalle in the mix.

The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 140 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 1 blue marlin, 2 sailfish, 14 striped marlin, 18 yellowfin tuna, 11 dorado, 52 wahoo, 4 barred pargo, 10 leopard grouper, 38 Mexican bonito, 8 yellow snapper, 2 dogtooth snapper, 8 sierra, 6 Pacific golden eyed tilefish, 4 rainbow runner, 4 jack crevalle, 24 roosterfish and 25 triggerfish.

Good Fishing, Eric

October 26, 2019

Anglers –

Busy times now in Los Cabos, peak fall tourist season, attracting hundreds of anglers from around the world, many of them participating in some of the world’s richest fishing tournaments, where pay outs can be in the millions of dollars. Weather settled down, perfect all around conditions, clear sunny skies, slightly brisk now early mornings, though days are still quite warm. Ocean swells minimal, with moderate variable breezes, shifting to the typical fall pattern, off the land, from the west early, then switching later out of the northeast, Ocean water temperature ranged 82 to 85 degrees from the Pacific and up past Los Frailes, or in the direction of the Sea of Cortez.

Sportfishing fleets and tournament participants are scouting out all directions, searching all possible options. Majority of local charters are now concentrating on the grounds from the Gordo Banks to Iman, San Luis and some venturing as far as Vinorama. Heavy pressure always means various bait options can become limited due to unavailable resource. Though this week with patience there seemed to be sufficient supplies of sardinas, slabs of squid and caballito. Sardinas were scarcer near the marina jetty’s and are now seen schooling off of Chileno, which means long back track for local bait vendors, as well as later start for anglers, if they want this bait option. Other anglers are going early, directly with squid and then some are catching chihuil on certain high spots, which proved to be probably the best chance now at hooking into a wahoo. Sardinas and the squid were best choice for finding any yellowfin tuna action. Dorado became very scattered, saw very few this week, not many billfish from the standard charters, more sailfish than others, a higher percentage of anglers were preferring to target wahoo or tuna.

Yellowfin tuna were found in recent days on the San Luis Bank, drift fishing with various baits, mainly sardinas and strips of squid. Yellowfin tuna to over 100 lb. were caught,  the majority of the tuna hooked into were in the 60 to 90 lb. class, no big numbers, but later in the week this bite did improve, some anglers later a couple of quality tuna. Only a handful of football sized yellowfin most were quality grade, of course lots of black skipjack and bonito to fight with.

Not many wahoo seemed to want the trolled lures, this week live bait proved best, particularly off of Vinorama, finding the live chihuil baitfish was not always an east guarantee. AS is the normal case, many more wahoo strikes were lost compared to actual fish landed. With the water temperature now still so warm, we expect wahoo action to be even better through next couple of months.

The a whole lot of bottom action even being attempted now, on and off currents and really nothing big happening, more triggerfish, bonito and smaller sized snapper.

The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 110 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 4 sailfish, 5 striped marlin, 88 yellowfin tuna, 9 dorado, 68 wahoo, 12 leopard grouper, 35 Mexican bonito, 19 yellow snapper, 3 dogtooth snapper, 4 pompano, 8 sierra, 6 spotted rose snapper, 12 rainbow runner, 8 Pacific golden eyed tilefish and 80 triggerfish.

Good Fishing, Eric

October 19, 2019

Anglers –

The annual high stake billfish tournaments are now on going, with the granddaddy event of them all, the Bisbee Black & Blue, scheduled for this next week. So needless to say there are large numbers of visiting anglers now arriving. Last weekend’s scattered rain squalls, turned into more like isolated monsoons, very heavy rain on and off, which did cause major flooding in low lying locations. Now conditions are clear, drying out, high humidity just now starting to relent. Over the full moon period the winds became more unpredictable in recent days, coming from the north and at the same time swirling from the south. Ocean water temperature has ranged 80 to 85 degrees, warmer currents in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. With recent squalls, winds and currents, we saw varying ocean clarity. Most sportfishing charters locally were concentrating efforts on the grounds from the Gordo Banks to Iman and Vinorama. Bait supplies consisted of sardinas, being netted in the surf zone north of the marina at first light, also caballito, slabs of squid, ballyhoo, chihuil and skipjack being used.

Local Ports was closed partially Sunday and totally on Monday due to thunderstorms, fleets were back in operation Tuesday morning. Charters began scouting out to see where the best action could be found. Overall the bite proved to be more scattered than they were pre-storm. Combined factors of being full moon, baitfish a bit scarcer, added pressure, etc…More success proved to be found while using various baits, versus trolling lures.

The Gordo Banks produced a handful of yellowfin tuna up in the 100 lb. range, though numbers of yellowfin tuna found were higher near Iman Bank, still very spotty through the week, with anglers fortunate to land one or two tuna, with the majority ranging in the 20 to 70 lb. class. Dorado were scattered on these same grounds, found in smaller sized schools, while trolling lures, rigged ballyhoo, sardinas and chihuil. Most of the dorado we saw were in the 5 to 20 lb. range, heard of some larger bulls found on the Pacific.

Wahoo action being very good the previous week, slowed down over recent rainy and full moon period. Anglers who did best were the few that were able to find chihuil for use as bait for slow trolling. A handful also hit of Rapalas and rigged ballyhoo, we expect wahoo to become more active as conditions return to their liking.

A few sailfish and striped marlin being caught on the grounds off San Jose del Cabo, we heard of more billfish action on the Pacific and during the tournament they have weighed in impressive black and blue marlin.

Minimal bottom fishing being done now, no numbers of anything but triggerfish, a few amberjack, cabrilla, pargo, snapper and bonito.

The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 90 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 3 sailfish, 9 striped marlin, 1 blue marlin, 72 yellowfin tuna, 76 dorado, 28 wahoo, 8 leopard grouper, 22 Mexican bonito, 1 broomtail grouper, 12 yellow snapper, 2 dogtooth snapper, 4 pompano, 1 mullet snapper, 5 surgeon fish, 12 sierra, 8 amberjack, 6 rainbow runner and 125 triggerfish.

Good Fishing, Eric