June 1, 2012
The month of May is over, there were major variances in weather patterns and accordingly changing ocean conditions. As the new month begins we are feeling a warming trend once again, for both air and water temperatures. Daytime highs reached 90 degrees, variable winds were moderate, warmer current moved in a southern direction from Los Frailes and ocean temperatures are averaging 75 degrees or more through most of the areas in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, while around on the Pacific currents have been much cooler. For this reason most sportfishing fleets are targeting fishing grounds such as the 95 and 1150 high spots and north towards the Gordo and Desteladera Banks.
The swift current moving back from north of Los Frailes was warm, but also murky green, progressively this current has become cleaner with each passing day, this pattern should continue as long as west winds do not pick back up and push more Pacific waters in. The expected high swells from last weekend passing of Hurricane Bud never really lived up to expectations, it seemed like there were more surfers in town than anglers. Crowds are light now, good time to visit, fishing action is improving and weather is still not too hot.
Commercial pangeros found it difficult to net sardinas due to higher surf conditions, there have been caballito, moonfish and mullet available, also limited supplies of fresh dead brined sardinas, coming from beaches towards the East Cape in the afternoon. More schooling mullet are migrating into local waters and this has attracted larger sized roosterfish, everyday roosters weighing in the 10 to 60 pound class have been hooked into, slow trolling larger live baits close to shoreline has been the best bet from charter boats, while off the beaches hard core surf anglers are hooking into these powerful roosterfish while casting and rapidly retrieving surface popper type lures. It is that time of year, where new options can open up daily.
Anglers had faced a couple of tough weeks offshore, but things have turned around in a hurry, as anglers are once again finding good numbers of striped marlin, readily striking on lures, as well as various baitfish, most of this action has been found 5 to 15 miles offshore, nicer sized stripers were accounted for, the majority of fish were in the 100 to 140 pound class. Cruisers as well as panga charters were getting into this billfish action. Dorado action rebounded as well, though most of the do-dos taken earlier in the week were very small, by the later part of the week the big bulls had returned, particularly near the buoys located off of San Luis area. Bolito were found schooling in this same region and were particularly effective baits for the larger bull dorado. No wahoo heard of in recent days, but we expect we will hear reports in the near future, as conditions become even more favorable.
Same deal on yellowfin tuna, we keep hearing stories of lots of tuna being found out of our range, outside of Los Frailes, it is only a matter of time that these fish follow the shifting currents and food source in the direction of the Los Cabos fishing grounds.
Inshore action improved in recent days, along with larger sized roosterfish now being hooked up daily, there have been various groupers, cabrilla, dogtooth snapper, yellow snapper, barred pargo, amberjack, yellowtail, jack crevalle, sierra, pompano and even a run on sheephead, this is now the time when a wide variety of species can be encountered on any given day. Much of this action has been found while trolling baits over shallow water structure and many of the largest sized fish being hooked into are breaking line off on the nearby rocks. We did receive one confirmed report of a 150 pound gulf grouper being landed from a private boat based out of Puerto Los Cabos, this monster hit on a live caballito, I believe near the Iman Bank.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 80 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 12 striped marlin, 29 dorado,13 amberjack,7 dogtooth snapper, 16 barred pargo, 66 yellow snapper, 8 yellowtail, 11 grouper, 25 cabrilla, 68 roosterfish,15 jack crevalle, 7 pompano, 3 sheephead and 9 sierra.
Good fishing, Eric
