January 25, 2020
Anglers –
We once again saw more numbers of tourists arriving, winter time travelers looking to enjoy the ideal local climate. Scattered early day cloud cover, plenty of sunshine, with high temperatures ranging 75 to 80 degrees. We continued to have the cycles of north winds, though by this weekend ocean conditions were ideal, no wind to speak of, as well as improved fishing action. Water temperatures were in the 71 to 74 degree range. Early in the week there was a particularly swift current sweeping through the grounds north of Punta Gorda and this made it tougher for anglers to do much. Overall the ocean clarity improved, but at times there were swirling greenish currents encountered.
Large concentrations of baitfish now congregating on the grounds just offshore of the San Jose del Cabo Hotel Zone, mackerel and sardineta. Other bait options included, caballito, ballyhoo and slabs of squid. With all of the food source concentrated in this area there were dorado and striped marlin found in good numbers on these same grounds. This is all in very close proximity of the local marina, a seasonal event that always gets the locals excited, sometimes this will only last for a week or two before baitfish schools migrate elsewhere, we will see how this season progresses.
Inshore there were roosterfish, sierra and a variety of shallow structure species. Most of these fish were smaller in size, though this past week a handful of much larger roosterfish up to 40 lb. were reported, also sierra to 8 lb.
The action for yellowfin tuna had stalled out during the past couple of weeks, due to weather conditions and changing water, etc. This weekend as the weather settled down for a couple of days, the yellowfin tuna became active Friday on the Gordo Banks once again. Anglers were drift fishing with squid and landed tuna up to 80 lb., all of these fish seemed to be in the 50 to 80 lb. class. Earlier in the week there were a few smaller football sized tuna found scattered, but these were the first nicer grade tuna found in recent days. No huge numbers, but there was a fair chance at catching two or three of these fish.
Wahoo were scarce with the cooler water, though a handful were accounted for on the grounds from Punta Gorda to Cardon. It seems that the ocean conditions near Vinorama is now cooler and dirtier, better looking blue water now found nearer San Jose el Cabo.
The highlight off of the bottom was a 70 lb. class amberjack, also we saw a few more leopard grouper, yellow snapper, red snapper and smaller amberjack in the mix. We anticipate more structure action in coming months, as that is the normal pattern as we near spring time. We heard about reports of smaller yellowtail on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, this is usually a sign that these gamefish are eventually moving in the direction of the Sea Of Cortez, it has been several years now since we saw a great run of these sought after gamefish.
Peak season now for whales, should be easy to spot these mammals for at least another month.
The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 80 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 16 striped marlin, 148 dorado, 20 yellowfin tuna, 5 wahoo, 18 sierra, 32 roosterfish, 12 cabrilla, 4 porgy, 6 bonito, 4 pompano, 38 red snapper, 8 yellow snapper, 2 dogtooth snapper, 7 barred pargo, 8 amberjack and 25 triggerfish.
Good Fishing, Eric