December 17, 2011

Crowds of tourists visiting the Los Cabos area are now light, with the official start of winter next week, cooler temperatures from the north are reminding us that even in Southern Baja we do have seasons. A cold front has moved in this week and kept high temperatures below the 75 degree mark, more cloud cover associated with this front, but no rainfall to speak about. Winds have been averaging 10 to 15 mph from the north, less than they were at the start of the month. Water temperatures dropped into the 70 to 76 degree range, cooler off colored greenish currents are pushing in a southern direction from Los Frailes.

With the lighter crowds this past week, the supply and demand situation for the available bait has improved. Sardinas were now being found off of northern beaches by the commercial netters, but with their limited market now, not every day are they looking for the sardinas, with the easier to find caballito continuing to be found inside the marina jetty area. The schools of mackerel which had been found off of San Jose del Cabo the past couple of weeks seemed to have vanished in recent days, perhaps something to do with the full moon phase or local shrimp trawling operations. At present time schools of mackerel have returned off of San Jose del Cabo and there has been a very good striped marlin bites as well, three to found miles offshore, billfish were balling up bait and feeding on the surface.

Off of San Jose del Cabo there has not been any consistent yellowfin tuna action found, besides maybe a few fish early in the week taken off of the Gordo Banks, these tuna were in the 60 to 70 pound class, other fish were seen breezing on the surface, but they were not interested in biting. As cooler off colored water moved in there were reports of no tuna even being seen on these banks. There have been reports of football sized yellowfin tuna being encountered traveling with porpoise off of Cabo San Lucas, more often 10 miles of further from shore, but this has been spotty and there have been more consistent catches of striped marlin and dorado on the Pacific. Some charter boats were releasing as many as three or four stripers in one morning. Marlin are also being found in the direction of the Gordo Banks, but not in the same numbers as on the Pacific. Trolling lures and various baits all were accounting for marlin strikes, fish were averaging 80 to 130 pounds.

For the fleets out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos, their mainstay has been for dorado, these fish were found in good numbers throughout the week, Particularly from Punta Gorda to La Fortuna, most charters were catching limits and releasing other fish as well, lures and bait are working equally well. Sizes ranged up to 25 pounds, average dorado was 10 to 12 pounds.

Strong currents made it difficult to concentrate on any bottom action, but we expect to do more of this as winter conditions settle in. Sierra are making a stronger showing now along the inshore stretches, this action should become steady during the coming months. Roosterfish continue to be found while trolling baits closer to shore, most of these fish are now weighing less than ten pounds, a handful of large specimens, though they are strong fighters and fun sport on light tackle.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 53 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:

14 striped marlin, 285 dorado, 6 wahoo, 6 yellowfin tuna, 3 yellowtail, 36 roosterfish, 12 bonito and 44 sierra.

Good Fishing, Eric