February 10, 2013
Anglers –
This is now a great time for people to escape the cold weather and travel to Southern Baja, where there has been plenty of warm sunshine, with high temperatures of 75 degrees, variable winds, predominately from the north, light ocean swells, perfect climate to take advantage of the many available outdoor activity, whether it be golf, sailing, tennis, hiking, snorkeling, scuba diving, surfing, beach combing, whale watching and of course sport fishing. All of these things to keep you occupied, they even offer camel rides and on the extreme side, you can rent off road race vehicles and head off into the open desert.
The whale season is now peaking, as these mammals can be spotted all along the coastal regions, on both sides of the Peninsula. All mariners must be especially cautious as they navigate crafts through these same waters. Local ocean temperatures were averaging 70 to 73 degrees, with warmer currents found outside near the 1000 fathom line. Water clarity has been variable, particularly near shore where water was greenish. Conditions further offshore were cleaner and baitfish schools continued to hold on local grounds. Mackerel, sardinetas and sardinas have all been available, the sardinas are being netting off the beaches north of Punta Gorda.
The most consistent offshore action has been for striped marlin, off of the Pacific Banks, where charters were accounting for multiple catch and releases, up into the double digits. The stripers were also off of Chileno, Santa Maria and in recent days more marlin were found within several miles straight off of San Jose del Cabo. The stripers were coming up on trolling lures and also readily striking baits, sizes ranged up to 130 lb. Most people have now heard about the 987 lb. blue marlin that was landed out of Cabo San Lucas on Super Bowl Sunday, an epic battle for four senior anglers, these gentleman were just out to catch a few medium sized tuna for dinner, proves that you never know when that monster will strike.
The panga charters have been catching big numbers of sierra, as these inshore speedsters have been dominating the early morning action. Anglers had fast action while using hoochies, rapalas, casting jigs and live sardinas, did not take long to limit out. It was much harder to find other cooperative fish, some dorado are still in the area, despite cooler conditions, majority of the do-do’s were smaller sized, scattered and there was no consistent area from day to day, some fish were found close to shore, while others were offshore on the same marlin grounds. Several nicer sized dorado to 25 pounds were accounted for, most charters were doing well is they had a few dorado in the mix.
Quite few roosterfish were reported, they were even taken on the fly, the majority were smaller sized juveniles, need to be cautious releasing these fish, we did hear of roosterfish up to 25 pounds being landed.
Anglers had to deal with an invasion of too many needlefish on the same grounds where they were trying to find dorado and sierra, this can be frustrating, having to constant retie leaders and pin on new fresh baits. Sea lions caused havoc on other spots, always another factor to deal with, hard work to locate and then hook fish to have them be robbed by the pesky lobos.
Searching out various rock piles has produced only minimal results for mainly pargo and cabrilla, only a few yellowtail heard about, great conditions for these jacks to move in, this is the start of their preferred season. As days progress towards spring, this warming trend typically means more consistent fishing action, for inshore offshore and bottom species.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina, sent out approximately 73 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 17 striped marlin, 6 yellowfin tuna, 82 dorado, 28 roosterfish, 8 jack crevalle, 5 amberjack, 2 yellowtail, 17 cabrilla, 16 bonito, 28 pargo (various species) and 550 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric