Inshore Conditions Turn Over Again, Cow Tuna 20-30 Miles Offshore ~ June 25, 2016

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Anglers –
June 25, 2016

With the officially start to the summer season we also saw the weather change to more of a tropical pattern. Increased morning cloud cover, burning off as the day progressed, higher humidity and heat index up to 100 degrees. The wind and swell patterns are now becoming more predominate from the south. This week there was a ocean swell from the southern hemisphere that pushed into Baja waters. Currents continued to be extremely strong, inshore areas are now cooler and greener, the clarity line had been within several miles of shore, but in recent days have shifted from 20 to 30 miles offshore, this is where there is a pronounced break from 74 degree water, up to 78 or even 80 degree currents.

This entire week had the ocean conditions rapidly changing, the week started with warmer clean water being found fairly close to shore, then water clarity deteriorated and the warm blue water shifted to much further offshore. All of this movement has limited what sportfishing fleets were able to do, basically it was down to two main options, either stay closer to shore and work the beach stretches and the structure within a couple miles of shore, other plan was to head out deep to where the clean water was found.

Bait supplies consisted of mullet, caballito, moonfish, or ballyhoo and squid slabs were also available. The majority of the local panga fleets were fishing on the grounds from Cardon to Vinorama, trolling or drift fishing with various baits, there were some great quality fish accounted for early in the week, as the week progressed the water became more stirred up with the increased swell and the action tapered off. One of the more significant catches was a 122 lb. amberjack that was landed near Vinorama on a live mullet from the super panga “Hooker” by skipper Tony Miranda’s son Axel, what a monster. There were many other amberjack landed that were in the 20 to 70 lb. class. Also a handful of dogtooth snapper and pargo Colorado, leopard grouper, barred pargo, yellow snapper, roosterfish, jack crevalle and at least one yellowtail.

Off the structure, in areas of 120 to 180 ft. there was some action encountered while using yo-yo jigs, mid-week there were some yellowfin tuna up to 75 lb. landed off of the San Luis Bank, then as the water became off colored, that put an end to that action for the time being. All week there were reports of larger cow sized yellowfin tuna being encountered while trolling among pods of fast moving porpoise, most days this activity was found some 20 to 30 miles from shore, near where the warm water break was. We saw one 170 lb. class yellowfin brought to the panga dock area, we heard of a fish over 300 lb. taken from a Los Barriles charter, there were many reports of big fish, though with the distance offshore and the combination of south wind chop, this was mainly a larger boat deal and for the boats that arrived on the scene first before the traffic created too much commotion and put the fish off the bite. Other action offshore besides encountered possibly tuna action was for scattered strikes on striped marlin or dorado, no big numbers but a few nice fish were being found, most of these just by trolling lures in open water. Not much talk of wahoo this past week, though as the water clears back up closer to shore these fish could become more active at any time.

The roosterfish action continued to be very good along a wide stretch of inshore zones, a couple of off days when currents became dirty and cold in certain regions, quickly changing from day to day now. We heard of roosterfish to fifty pounds that were caught and released, also scores of big jack crevalle are also patrolling these same inshore areas,

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 63 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 8 striped marlin, 1 yellowtail, 9 dogtooth snapper, 23 yellowfin tuna, 16 bonito, 9 dorado, 26 amberjack, 18 leopard grouper (cabrilla), 18 pargo colorado, 24 yellow snapper, 5 sierra, 10 barred pargo, 72 jack crevalle, 74 roosterfish and 55 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

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