July 23, 2011
Just like across most of the United States, we are also dealing with high temperatures and humidity here in Southern Baja. The main interest this week has been following the development of Hurricane Dora and closely watching its projected path. Dora had become an extremely powerful category 5 storm before encountered cooler water temperatures and upper sheer that has caused it to no rapidly weaken. It is just over 200 miles from Cabo San Lucas now, Cabo San Lucas Marina was closed Friday, but a handful of charters did launch from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina on Friday, though for Saturday both Ports are slated to be closed. Dangerous surf conditions of 12 feet or more are pounding local beaches, but there has not been any rain or wind to speak of yet. It looks like we have escaped another close call, though some rainfall as the system dissipates would be welcome.
Schooling dorado moved in throughout the region this past week, the majority of the fish were juveniles under ten pounds, but there were larger fish mixed in, so remember to release the young fish and fill your limit with larger specimens. The dorado were striking on a combination of lures and bait. There were mullet, caballito and jurelito available for bait, as well as some small sized sardinas that have showed up in the last few days, these sardinas need to grow some, at this size they plug the filters on the bait tanks.
The yellowfin tuna bite was hit or miss, some tuna were found further offshore traveling with porpoise, but this was no guarantee and often over 20 miles out. Yellowfin tuna were only found in limited numbers near Iman and San Luis Bank, early in the week there was one tuna caught from a local panga that was in the 170 pound class, a handful of other yellowfin in the 20 to 50 pound range were accounted for, but anglers were lucky to catch one of them.
Water temperatures were above 80 degrees in most areas, strong currents caused water clarity to change from day to day. Southern swells made for choppy conditions much of the week. Schools of bolito and some smaller yellowfin are now found on the offshore fishing grounds and this has attracted some larger sized black and blue marlin. Several black marlin were hooked into this week, problem was that the majority were on lighter tackle and were lost after extended battles, at least a couple of medium sized blacks were landed out of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina. There are a few sailfish and striped marlin to round out the billfish action, several of the stripers were of impressive size.
Inshore action for roosterfish and dogtooth snapper is tapering off, in fact just like last week, there were several large roosterfish landed while trolling bolito on the offshore banks. The few dogtooth snapper that were accounted for also came from deeper rock piles. Cabrilla, grouper, snapper and amberjack were being hooked into, no big numbers, but some quality fish, striking on yo-yo jigs and various baitfish.
The local panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 48 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of, 1 black marlin, 13 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 19 yellowfin tuna, 260 dorado, 58 various pargo, 9 dogtooth snapper, 18 cabrilla, 15 grouper, 17 amberjack, 16 roosterfish and 22 jack crevalle.
Good fishing, Eric