December 25, 2011

Christmas time is here, everyone is now busy preparing for family events. Families have been arriving in Los Cabos to enjoy the holiday season, escaping the cold temperatures to the north. With winter time now having officially started local weather has also cooled off, though the highs are still pleasantly in the 70s, but with early morning lows down into the 50s, vacationers do need to remember to dress accordingly.

Ocean conditions changed rapidly this week, as currents moved in from the north and dropped water temperatures from 70/76 degrees down to 69/72 degrees. Cooling water is usually associated with greener off colored currents, and this has been the situation at this time, most areas off of San Jose del Cabo are now off colored, towards Cabo San Lucas there has been cleaner blue water, but this has not meant that this has been where the best action for anglers has been found.

With the rapidly changing conditions the fishing action has become more scattered as well. Earlier in the week there was some great striped marlin action found off of San Jose del Cabo, this is where schools of baitfish such as mackerel, sardinetas, chihuil and skipjack were congregated, attracting both billfish and dorado within several miles of shore. Fleets from all directions were concentrated on this spot, marlin were hooked while soaking baits down deep, trolling on the surface, as well as casting into feeding frenzies on the surface, which often occurred mid day and into the afternoon. As the greener cooler currents swept in, this bite slowed way down accordingly. The northern winds also kicked up, which is usually the pattern at this time of year, two or three days of wind, then a couple of days of calmer conditions, before repeating the same cycle.

On the Gordo Banks anglers found more skipjack than anything else, also plenty of problems with hungry sea lions, no yellowfin tuna to talk about this week, as dorado and striped marlin were the main surface species now being encountered. Not much in the way of bottom action, but we do expect to start scouting out more of the structure prospects in the coming weeks for some fire cracker sized yellowtail, amberjack and snapper. Along the shoreline anglers were now finding sierra and roosterfish, but this action varied from day to day, and depended on the availability of live sardinas. Dorado were also found at times right in the surf zone, there were even a reports of dorado up to 15 lbs. being landed by surf anglers near Punta Gorda, this is the time when dorado can be found closer to shore, where more baitfish are concentrated. Most of the roosterfish now being hooked into are juvenile sized, with a handful of them reaching up to 15 pounds.

A handful of wahoo were taken this past week, but most of these fish were more the sized of sierra, strange to see such smaller sized ‘hoo, wonder where their parents are? Probably heading south by now.

We are now transitioning into winter time type fishing action, typically we find quite a wide variety of species, maybe not as large as in the warmer months, but there can be great light tackle sport and most of the fish are of the good eating variety. We will anticipate improved inshore action, the time that more numbers of yellowtail should move in with the cooler currents and striped marlin should continue to dominate offshore.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 65 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 27 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 172 dorado, 9 wahoo, 12 pargo, 15 bonito, 250 black skipjack, 34 roosterfish and 18 sierra.

Good Fishing, Eric