December 25, 2022
Busy times now for all local families, preparing for the Holiday Season, enduring all of the season’s traditional fiestas, posadas and more. Only moderate numbers of anglers in town now, though quite a few vacationing families are arriving, taking advantage of the ideal winter time climate. Clear sunny skies, with 80 degree highs.
With ocean water temperatures now ranging 75 to 77 degrees, we are still seeing some excellent action for some of the most popular pelagic gamefish species, with main target species now being dorado, yellowfin tuna and wahoo, some fortunate anglers are catching a gram slam of all three of these fish during one morning outing.
Center of activity has been in close proximity, from Cardon, La Fortuna and off of Punta Gorda.
Live bait became scarce this past week, with the main bait now being used either ballyhoo or slabs of squid. Some anglers have been able to obtain chihuil, but as usual that is never a guarantee.
The yellowfin tuna have mostly come from the Cardon area, within a mile or two of shore, while drift fishing with strips of squid. Sizes ranged from 20 to 70 lb. Some charters accounted for up to four tuna. Bite varied a bit everyday, depending on currents etc…though overall this was the best yellowfin action we have seen in the past month.
Dorado continue to be the most common fish being hooked up, limits and additional releases being a common deal, sizes were mostly under ten pounds, but some exceptions of larger bulls up to 15 lb., striking mainly on trolled ballyhoo.
Wahoo are still around in good numbers, but are more finicky, as there continues to an unprecedented amount of spear fishing chasing these same fish on the grounds where rod and reel anglers are also concentrated. Best chances for the wahoo was on slow trolled trap hooked live baits, but bait was tougher to find recently. A percentage of wahoo were striking on rapalas and ballyhoo, as well as on cast and retrieved yo-yo style jigs. Again like the tuna, some of the more fortunate anglers were able to land up to four wahoo on one trip. with other hook ups lost as well. Average size for the wahoo was 20 to 30, but we saw fish to over 40 b. as well.
Not much billfish action on the San Jose del Cabo grounds now, as the main mass of striped marlin is still on the Pacific grounds. Also not much inshore or bottom action going on either. Though more and more whales are now arriving, as well as porpoise, sea lions and turtles, all providing extra entertainment for boat goers.
Good Fishing, Eric