April 12, 2014
Anglers –

This past weekend Southern Baja time zone moved clocks back one hour, we are now accustoming to this new schedule, days are rapidly lengthening as spring season progresses. Ideal all around climate now, last weekend a front with cooler cloud cover swept through and this week we have seen warmer clear sunny skies, high temperatures around 85 degrees, with lows of about 62 degrees, winds were lighter, more predominate from the south now, picking up later in the day. Ocean water temperatures ranged from 72 degrees on the Pacific’s Golden Gate Bank, to an average of 75/76 degrees off of San Jose del Cabo and towards Los Frailes.

After going slack, the billfish action rebounded off of San Jose del Cabo, anglers found great action for striped marlin, with a few sailfish also reported, the majority of the action was found 10 to 20 miles offshore, though on other days these fish were encountered within several miles of shore, as their food source moves, they move accordingly. Not a lot of surface baitfish activity seen and fish seem to be gorging on smaller sized squid, which apparently were now plentiful in local waters. The billfish were striking on rigged ballyhoo most often, though live caballito and trolled lures also took their share of strikes. Only an occasional dorado found in the mix offshore, more dorado were found nearer to shore, where concentrations of half beak baitfish were schooling. Anglers were fortunate to find one or two dorado in their catch, just no big numbers of these fish now, though with these water conditions, anything could happen at any time.

It has continued to be an unusual season, with both warm water species and other fish that prefer cooler currents, all in the region at the same time. Look at the wahoo for example, they never even migrated out of the area this winter, as they normally do every year, these pelagic gamefish have been hanging around, not that many are actually being landed, action has been sporadic, though most everyday a handful are being hooked into, with the majority of this action coming from the La Fortuna to Vinorama grounds. Some of the wahoo landed were nicer sized 40 to 50 pound fish. No yellowfin tuna have been seen to speak of, though on Wednesday a pair of local La Playita pangeros hauled in a yellowfin that tipped the scales at 198 lb. This was just one fish, though is maybe a sign of something to develop, this would normally be the season when we start to see more porpoise activity offshore, which can attract schools of tuna. Time will tell, with water temperature warmer than normal, things are more unpredictable.

Local panga fleets are departing at first light to take advantage of the early morning action for bottom dwellers, most productive spot was the San Luis Bank, while using yo-yo jigs and caballito batfish anglers accounted for bonito, cabrilla, huachinango (red snapper), amberjack, yellowtail and barred pargo. Early in the morning when the larger more exotic fish were taken, no huge numbers, but some quality fish to over 30 pounds were landed, as the sun came up the action shifted to mainly the Eastern Pacific bonito.

Close along the beach stretches north of Puerto Los Cabos charters found good opportunities for roosterfish up to 15 pounds, while trolling live caballito, there were reports of rigged ballyhoo also working, there were jack crevalle and sierra also mixed in, at times the baits available proved a bit large for the smaller jacks.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 91 charters for this past week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 52 striped marlin, 2 sailfish, 5 wahoo, 3 yellowfin tuna, 8 yellowtail, 25 amberjack, 44 dorado, 14 sierra, 45 roosterfish, 550 bonito, 17 cabrilla, 40 triggerfish and 56 hauchinango.

Good fishing, Eric