December 22, 2012
Anglers –

While much of the United States is now feeling the freezing chill of harsh winter weather, just 1,000 miles south of the border, in the Los Cabos area, holiday vacationers were being greeted with sunny skies and high temperatures of 80 degrees. The previous week had seen cooler days and persistent north winds, this contributed to dropping ocean water temperatures into the 75/76 degree range, strong currents swept in off colored water and the Fall to Winter ocean transition period was developing.

Baitfish options included mackerel, sardineta, sardina, moonfish, bolito and skipjack. Some anglers were also using pieces of giant squid, which were imported from La Paz or purchased at local super markets. Schools of mackerel are now shifting onto the grounds off of San Jose del Cabo, this always attracts pursuing gamefish, such as striped marlin, dorado and wahoo. While anglers battled with rough seas on the offshore areas like Gordo Banks, on the inside off of Punta Gorda, Cardon and La Fortuna they found comfortable conditions and despite the off colored and not so favorable water, the fish seemed to bite just fine.

Most common species were dorado, hooked on trolled lures and various baitfish, sizes ranged from 5 to 40 pounds and many anglers were easily landing their two fish limits, while releasing additional fish. Wahoo also went on the bite in recent days, hot spot was off of Punta Gorda and live bait, especially mackerel, were taking aggressive strikes, sizes were averaging in the 15 to 30 pound class, many charters were accounting for 3,4,5 or more wahoo, this is the best it has been for a while. Depending on water conditions and the persistence of northern winds, will dictate on how long we might expect for this type of action to continue.

Yellowfin tuna action dropped way down, though at times, anglers who happened to be at the right place, did get into some quality action, areas closer to shore produced sporadic counts for yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 20 pound class, while on the Gordo Banks there were several larger sized tuna accounted for this past week, the largest that we heard of was a 226 lb. cow, taken once again by skipper Chame Pino on the super panga “Killer II”. This fish hit on fresh squid that had been brought down from La Paz, where the giant squid have been plentiful. There was problem drift fishing, very swift current due to windy choppy seas. Forecasts call for a few warmer days, this could be enough to produce a few more big tuna in the coming days.

Only a scattering of bottomfish action, a few pargo and cabrilla being the main catch, also some of the good eating bonito now showing, these are a completely different species than are the bonito found off of So. Cal., these toothy fighters prefer cooler waters, as do sierra, which are now being found in good numbers close to shore, where their favored food source of sardinas are schooling.

The combined panga fleets out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina, sent out approximately 95 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
9 striped marlin, 2 yellowtail, 505 dorado, 52 yellowfin tuna, 62 wahoo, 68 sierra, 16 roosterfish, 24 bonito, 28 misc. pargo species and 50 skipjack .

Good Fishing, Eric