Anglers –
January 23, 2016

We are seeing increased crowds of visitors, though not that high of percentage of these visitors are serious salt water anglers. Many people are escaping the winter chill and heading south, we expect this will continue, as the eastern section of United States are in the midst of a serious blizzard now, many flights are being canceled, though expect people will be ready to get out of town when they are able to. Local weather has been cooler in the early morning, down around the 50 degree mark, though days have been clear and sunny, with high temperatures reaching up to 85 degrees. Winds continue to blow predominately from the north, 10 to 20 mph, switching to the south on some days. Ocean temperatures are avenging 76 degrees throughout Southern Baja region, swells have been moderate, fluctuating currents, quite swift at times.

The local bait situation remains much the same, slabs of squid, ballyhoo, caballito and just in recent days some charters found schooling sardinetas offshore. With ocean temperatures now being about 4 degrees higher than normal, hard to predict what might happen with fish migrations this winter season. Plenty of whales now in the area, also more than enough hungry sea lions, creating even more competition for anglers.

Sportfishing fleets were spread out in all directions, we heard reports of larger cow sized yellowfin tuna being encountered traveling with porpoise on the outside of the Pacific Banks, marlin were scattered, some days charters could find one or two striped marlin, while on others days there were none to be found, as more concentrations of baitfish move in we do expect to see more billfish activity. Some stripers were even striking on the stripped squid that anglers used for targeting tuna on the grounds from Punta Gorda to Iman Bank. This action was on and off, wind was a problem on the grounds further to the north, sizes of the yellowfin averaged in the 15 to 50 lb. range, for the most part there were np significant numbers, anglers did well accounting for two or three tuna in their combined morning catch.

Dorado action dropped way off on the grounds off of San Jose del Cabo, we did hear of more do-dos being found on the Pacific, these pelagic fish are just now returning from Southern California, where they had followed the warm El Nino current this past summer and fall. So we do expect to see more dorado appearing in the next month, especially if this warm water situation continues. Wahoo did become more active in the past week, especially early in the week, there was good early morning action found close off of Punta Gorda by anglers trolling both lures and trap hooked larger batfish, sizes ranged up to 40 lb. This bite became more sporadic as the week progressed, though these elusive gamefish are definitely still holding in the temperate conditions and we expect continued action for these fish until water temperatures become too cool for their liking.

More bottom activity being found now, rock piles north of Punta Gorda were producing leopard grouper (cabrilla), yellow and red snapper, rainbow runner, bonito, amberjack and triggerfish. No really big numbers, but more than we have seen so far this season, anglers had success on yo-yo jigs, as well as on whole or strip baits.

Not much reported along the shore, no sierra to speak of, a few roosterfish north of the marina jetty, the majority being smaller sized fish which should always be released with care.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 57 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 6 striped marlin, 26 wahoo, 144 yellowfin tuna, 6 dorado, 21 rainbow runner, 22 cabrilla, 35 huachinango, 16 yellow snapper, 4 amberjack, 14 bonito, 2 roosterfish and 110 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric