May 7, 2023
Well the first week of the new month is now past us, it was a busy week for local residents, with Mexican Labor Day held on the 1 st, then Cinco de Mayo coinciding with San Jose del Cabo being the designated finish line for two offroad races, back to back, first the Norra 1000, a five day rally, starting in Ensenada, then over the weekend in was the Dos Mares 500, an annual event held in Southern Baja, covering from the Sea of Cortez to the Pacific and back. Anyway, the downtown streets and local resorts were all very busy accommodating the hundreds of racing enthusiasts.
As for numbers of actual anglers, still lighter than we would expect for this time of year, but some encouraging fish reports from this week and all around ideal climate, we do expect to have more people visiting in the coming weeks. Day time temperatures averaging in the lower 80s, more marine layer cloud cover this past week, keep conditions very pleasant, though there was stiff wind out of the north which some days made for a tough go on the fishing grounds north of Iman Bank and especially off of Vinorama, which in recent days was showing encouraging signs of more consistent action for the yellowfin tuna.
Ocean currents were changing dramatically from one day to the next, longer than normal transition period, still waiting for conditions to become more stable, which usually would contribute to more consistent action day to day.
Ocean temperatures are slowing warming, now in the 72 to 75 degree range. Another full moon period now passing, bait options were that much more limited, earlier in the week there were sardinas available, but be the weekend they were much scarcer, caballito also vanished, there were a mix of juerlito, small jacks, as well as ballyhoo and slabs of squid.
Besides smaller sized roosterfish being found in closer proximity along the inshore beach stretches, the better fishing action was being found much further north, off of Vinorama, a long 20 mile run, which will most likely be a factor in having to impose extra fuel cost fees in the near future. Drift fishing with sardinas or the jurelito baits was best bet to entice the yellowfin tuna, as normal these fish proved finicky, often biting best very early and then other days not until 9 or 10 a.m. The yellowfin were ranging in sizes from 20 lb up to near 100 lb. Anglers were fortunate to land one or two, some people were luckier than others.
A couple of nice sized wahoo were brought in, taken over the high spots while anglers were actually targeting bottom species, as the ocean warms up, we should see more wahoo in the fish counts. A handful of dorado were accounted for as well, a few of them over 30 lb., nice size for this time of year.
Not many bonito now found over the high spots, like they had been in previous weeks, we did see some more yellow snapper, barred pargo, amberjack, pompano, triggerfish and red snapper, though this action was sporadic and depended greatly on how the morning shaped up, as with the north wind and the availability of live sardinas etc..
Good Fishing, Eric
