February 26, 2023

Winter time crowds of tourists continue to arrive, enjoying the great weather now prevailing in the Los Cabos area. As much of the west coast of the U.S. endured cold snap this past week, with snow levels recorded in regions rarely seeing any snow fall. Locally we are starting to feel the first signs of springtime, not quite as cool early in the morning, scattered cloud cover throughout the day with average highs of about 75 degrees. North winds seem to be finally tapering off some this past week, ocean temperatures averaging about 70 degrees, water clarity much improved, slight ocean swells and the most consistent fishing action now being found is concentrated in the diction of San Jose del Cabo, where even the Cabo San Lucas fleet is now heading, making for more crowds than normal on local San Jose grounds.

Bait fish remain scattered, changing daily as to what might be available, some days limited sardinas, caballito and mackerel were found, on others only ballyhoo or slabs of squid were being offered. Occasionally anglers were able to use sabiki rigs to jig up bait found schooling on offshore grounds. 

Most common catches this week were dorado, striped marlin, a mix of bottom species and for a few fortunate anglers a handful of yellowfin tuna were found near the Iman Bank. Dorado were spread out, from inshore to offshore, no large schools, mainly single fish, sizes up to 20 lb., striking on trolled lures and a variety of bait. Striped marlin were found spread out as well, seen tailing on the surface or taken by blind strikes while trolling. No big concentrations of bait schools are being reported to create surface feeding frenzies, lots of local pressure with Cabo San Lucas fleet now fishing on the same grounds off of San Jose del Cabo, since they have no fish now on their normal Pacific or Cabo grounds.

The best chance for yellowfin tuna was to concentrate all of your efforts on the Iman Bank, chumming and drift fishing with strips of squid. Though the bite was tough, a lot of patience was needed and  sufficient supplies of the squid, some days the bite was early, some days late or on other days never happened at all. The yellowfin that we did see accounted for ranged from 25 lb. up to 75 lb.

Not much consistent bottom action being found, the highlight we saw was one 37 lb. amberjack, mainly bonito, smaller sized pargo, leopard grouper, whitefish and triggerfish. 

Good Fishing, Eric