November 30, 2019
Anglers –
The crazy month of November has now ended, this is time when the big crowds of anglers diminish, as less people travel between holidays. After dealing with TS Raymond last week, this week we had yet another low pressure system develop and sweep through Southern Baja from the west, which brought more heavy rainfall, as well as some wind gusts that might have even reached 50 mph in areas, rainfall of anywhere from 4 to 8 inches, depending where you were. The local Ports were completely closed on Wednesday, reopening about 8 a.m. on Thursday. This has been a strange season, very unpredictable weather patterns, though the water table definitely has been filled up and the landscape will be staying green longer than normal. Be aware of the mosquitoes as well.
Ocean temperatures dropped a bit, now averaging about 77 degrees, this latest storm turned over water conditions, from all of the run off, dirty water for much of the inshore zone, though now with each passing day we are seeing clarity improve and the all-around fishing action quickly rebound. Baitfish were more scattered, schooling sardinas now closer to Cabo San Lucas, local fleets ere using mainly slabs of squid, ballyhoo and what other baitfish could be found on the fishing grounds, caballito vanished, it will be any week now that school of mackerel and sardineta appear on the ground off of San Jose del Cabo.
The better billfish action was on the Pacific, but in recent days we have seen more striped marlin showing in the direction of San Jose, which is usually the trend during this time frame. Dorado action improved, as more numbers of these popular gamefish are showing throughout the region, majority of these fish are in the 10 to 15 lb. class, some larger. Wahoo became a bit more elusive in the dirty conditions, as did most species, but as water began to clean up we did see a few more ‘hoo starting to show, the action early week had been near Vinorama, but by weekend the best areas were closer off of Cardon, La Fortuna and then on Saturday the wahoo bite broke open close off of Punta Gorda. If you get chihuil for bait, that was the hot ticket, some hit on ballyhoo as well. Wahoo up to 50 pounds were weighed in.
Yellowfin tuna action stalled out during the dirty conditions, but now we are seeing more tuna in the mix, some from Iman, San Luis, Gordo Banks and others further offshore associated with porpoise. Earlier in the week local pangeros brought in a cow yellowfin of about 350 lb., not returning to the docks until 9 p.m. Though most of the tuna we did see were from football size, up to 70 lb. Though the cows are lurking on the Gordo Banks, just you need to put in some serious time to have a real chance.
Off of the bottom we saw various snapper, pargo, bonito, a few cabrilla and of course more triggerfish than anything else. Along the shoreline there were roosterfish and some early season sierra, but with limited bait this was not a guaranteed option.
Still only sporadic sightings of whales, but these mammals are now arriving from their northern feeding grounds on their annual southern migration and will be in taking up residence in local waters through the winter months.
The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 76 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 3 blue marlin, 6 striped marlin, 3 sailfish, 108 dorado, 68 yellowfin tuna, 35 wahoo, 4 yellow snapper, 5 cabrilla, 4 amberjack, 22 bonito, 9 sierra, 10 roosterfish, 4 rainbow runner, 4 golden eyed tilefish, 14 glass eyed snapper and 40 triggerfish.
Good Fishing, Eric