Typical February patterns continue, with lighter crowds of anglers, cycles of winds predominantly from the north, cooling ocean temperatures, scattered fishing action as we wait for more stable warmer spring time conditions to arrive. Water temperature ranged from 66 to 71 degrees, warmer currents now found off of Cabo San Lucas, coolest areas in the direction of Los Frailes. Bait supplies are now limited to ballyhoo, slabs of squids and some days live sardinas being found in limited supplies around the entrance to Puerto Los Cabos Marina.
Majority of local charters are fishing in the direction towards Cardon, La Fortuna and Iman Bank, as scouting trips towards Palmilla and south did not produce much. A mix of surface and bottom action now being found on grounds towards the north. Scattered numbers of dorado striking on various lures and trolled ballyhoo or sardinas, sizes ranged up close to 20 lb., though the majority were smaller fish under ten pounds. No larger schools, mostly single fish, with charters accounting for an average of one or two fish, actually surprising that these warm water species are still hanging around in local waters. No wahoo to report, as is usual for this time frame.
Billfish continue to be more prevalent on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, only a few striped marlin being found on the grounds off of San Jose del Cabo, late to migrate in this direction this season. We did see one nice sailfish caught and released earlier in the week, an unusual catch in the cooler waters.
Anglers were still having chances at hooking into a quality yellowfin tuna on the Iman Bank, though ocean conditions were a major factor, as well as having persistent patience and sufficient supplies of squid. Drift fishing, while chumming and using strips of squid was how these few tuna were being hooked into. Sizes ranged from 30 to 80 lb. Though on an average day only a handful of these yellowfin were accounted for by the combined fleet.
Off these same grounds anglers were working the rocky bottom reefs, there was a variety of species found, though no species were very abundant and most were smaller in size. We saw a not very common California sheephead of 15 lb., leopard grouper, broomtail grouper, barred pargo, yellow snapper, red snapper, spotted rose snapper, white fish, bonito, triggerfish, porgy and amberjack. All great eating fish, we do expect to see improved bottom action in coming weeks, hoping that the season’s first yellowtail will appear soon.
With limited supplies of sardinas we only saw a few sierra now being accounted for, most of these hooked on the troll or over shallow rocky reefs. Not much talk of roosterfish being found, lack of bait and cooler water are the main reason for this.
Good Fishing, Eric