September 28, 2019

Anglers –

Last week we were preoccupied with the progression of Hurricane Lorena, though the Los Cabos area ended up not getting hit very hard at all, as this small but the powerful system changed direction and followed a path towards the East Cape, where they felt more substantial impact. Local marinas were shut down for three days over the weekend, reopening on Monday morning. We are still seeing light crowds of visitors, though within a couple of weeks that will all change. The weather is now transitioning, noticeably cooler in the mornings, though daytime highs are near 90 degrees and it even feels warmer when you combine the humidity heat index. Ocean water temperature is now in the 82 to 84 degree range, still favorable for storm activity. Weather is now very tropical, can be unpredictable, presently we are watching a new low pressure area forming near Acapulco, which has a good chance to become Tropical Storm Narda, we will watch what happens with this in coming days. With limited numbers of anglers in town, most charters were now fishing the grounds from Iman to Vinorama. Sardinas were found off the beach stretches north of Vinorama for the first part of the week before scattering, over the weekend the bait vendors searched for sardinas schooling back near the marina jetty.

The all-around action was spotty through much of the week, as water conditions had turned over and were off colored, also there was a very strong current sweeping through. As the week progressed conditions rebounded and reports were much better for the weekend. Yellowfin tuna and dorado were the most common species, an occasional billfish or wahoo, also a mix of bottom dwellers.

Drift fishing with sardinas, strips of squid, chunks of skipjack or bolito was the main method for enticing the yellowfin, fish ranged in sizes from 15 to 75 lb. Bite was still a bit scratchy, but some charters did account for up to five tuna. Dorado numbers were down from how they had been, found in scattered schools, hard to find one much larger than ten lb., so many of the smaller dorado were released, as anglers tried to fill out their two fish limit with nicer sized specimens.

With the strong currents running that did not help the bottom action, hard to stay down, fish do not like battling that either. We did see a few smaller amberjack, leopard grouper, yellow snapper, barred pargo, bonito and triggerfish.

The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 59 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 1 black marlin, 2 blue marlin, 2 striped marlin, 145 dorado, 10 wahoo, 74 yellowfin tuna, 11 leopard grouper, 18 Mexican bonito, 12 yellow snapper, 6 rainbow runner, 8 barred pargo, 4 pompano, 4 amberjack and 35 triggerfish.

Good Fishing, Eric