Anglers –
October 31, 2015
It seems that our fall weather patterns have finally stabilized, no new late season tropical storms have developed since last week’s incredibly power Hurricane Patricia, which made land fall near Puerto Vallarta, surprisingly the damage was not too extensive. Ocean water temperatures have dropped a couple of degrees in recent days, now into the 84/85 degree range, this cooling trend should continue as days are becoming progressively shorter. Swells have been moderate, tides fairly extreme with passing of the full moon, winds increased from the south and north winds are starting to play havoc for the East Cape region. Daytime highs were still into the low 90s, but now it appears we will have more comfortable conditions in the mid 80s, with low of 65 degrees, time for long sleeve t-shirts, sweatshirts and wind breakers.
Sportfishing fleets continue to be busy, with the Bisbee Tournament now past, everyone is gearing up for the WON Tuna Jackpot scheduled for next week. In recent weeks all of the larger yellowfin tuna encountered were coming from the Pacific Banks, San Jaime or Golden Gate, just in recent days with the change in currents, there have been tuna to over 200 pounds found on the grounds off of San Jose del Cabo and to the north of the Gordo Banks. These larger grade of tuna were traveling with fast moving porpoise and were striking on strips of squid. Still no big numbers, but definitely a chance at hooking into a tournament winner, one panga charter lost an estimated 250 lb. tuna after a long battle, right as they were trying to gaff the fish, talk about a heartbreak.
The action close to shore off of Punta Gorda that has been going on for the past few weeks, continues, this is where tuna up to 40 lb. were sporadically biting, best action usually early, then becoming spottier throughout the day. Triggerfish, pompano and various pargo species rounded out that action off the point, overall this bite is starting to fade out and charters are now scouting out new grounds. Iman Bank is showing more activity for wahoo, as well as chances at tuna or dorado, again no big numbers, but with changing conditions, anything could happen on any given day. Wahoo were ranging from 15 lb. to over 50 lb., striking on Rapalas, skirted lead heads, as well as on chihuil or other rigged baits, including flying fish, if you were able to obtain them, as some skippers were able to a couple of weeks back when they ran into schools of these flyers in a spawning mode and were able to scoop them up with their bait nets by the dozens, of course this was a one day event.
Billfish has been mainly a mix of sailfish or striped marlin for San Jose fleets, with higher chances for blue marlin off of the Cabo San Lucas and Pacific grounds. Sailfish were found close to shore where the tuna action was. With ocean temperatures still warm, there could be blue or black marlin hooked late into the year, even early 2016.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 148 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 21 sailfish, 4 striped marlin, 370 yellowfin tuna, 12 rainbow runners, 2 amberjack, 18 dorado, 49 wahoo, 18 pompano, 16 yellow snapper, 145 triggerfish, 6 sierra, 19 barred pargo, 70 black skipjack, 14 surgeonfish, 16 roosterfish and 12 bonito.
Good fishing, Eric