June 22, 2013

Anglers –

Well the official summer season has now started, though the weather patterns seem all mixed up and it still feels a bit like spring, with breezes off the ocean keeping conditions comfortable. Days have been mostly sunny, a mix of marine haze and some tropical cloud cover formation, high temperatures have been moderate, averaging in the upper 80s. The climate has been ideal, sure would be great if the entire summer was this mild. Great time to travel to Southern Baja now, airline tickets have been discounted and crowds are relatively light, perfect time to come have fun in the sun.

Ocean temperatures have stabilized from Cabo San Lucas to Los Frailes, where water temperatures now ranged from 75 to 78 degrees. Swift currents have swept inshore and even though the water is warmer, it has turned over once again and is a murky greenish color through most of the inshore zone. Clean blue water has been spotty offshore, most often found 8 to 15 miles from shore. Swells are moderate now, variable winds have been predominately out of the Northeast and then switching directly out of the east, before turning from out of the south. Common pattern that affects the Southern Baja region each season during this transition period from the spring season into the tropical summer, by next month these Pacific air flows and marine moisture normally give way to the sultry tropical patterns.

Anglers continued to enjoy perhaps the best roosterfish action in the past ten years, with many trophy sized fish of over fifty pounds being accounted for. Trolling baitfish such as caballito, mullet and moonfish, which have been plentiful around the PLC marina jetties, have resulted in epic action for the past several weeks now. Just yesterday the action did taper way off, as the current switched and brought in green water along the coastal stretches where the roosterfish had been so plentiful, as conditions rebound we expect to see more of these jacks providing trills to anglers. We do encourage practicing the sport of catch and release on these particular gamefish, not renown for favorable eating qualities, but more so as an aggressive inshore adversary which sport anglers can only encounter in certain parts of the Pacific coast.

The marlin action improved this past week, as good numbers of striped marlin were found in the blue water, most of the time about 8 to 15 miles from shore, many charters were accounting for multiple billfish days, often up to five per boat, most all boats targeting the billfish accounted for one or two. The stripers were readily striking on lures, many reports of multiple hook ups, also striking trolled or cast baits. No consistent counts of dorado being reported, but these gamefish are scattered throughout the offshore blue water fishing grounds, bull dorado to 40 pounds were weighed in, this is the time of year where we normally can find larger sized dorado, but more often they are solitary fish or in small groups, unless you happen upon some floating debris which could be attracting large concentrations of dorado of all sizes.

Other action found close to shore included amberjack, dogtooth snapper, pompano, jack crevalle, cabrilla and pargo colorado. This action was best early in the morning and was hit or miss from day to day, but some quality sized fish were accounted for anglers while slow trolling live baits over shallow water rock outcroppings, often in only 30 or 40 feet of water, one 80 pound amberjack was accounted for, snapper to 40 pounds, of course many hook ups resulted in cut lines due to the close proximity of the sharp rock piles.

Last weekend the local Father’s Day Tournament based out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina, saw 32 teams compete for three qualifying species, yellowfin tuna, dorado and wahoo, first place fish was a 42 pound wahoo, runner up was a 40 pound dorado and there were no tuna accounted for. This week there were a few reports of fleets spotting tuna on the surface while trolling offshore waters, but these fish disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, also quite a bit more porpoise activity being reported offshore, this is always a favorable sign that we should start to see some more yellowfin move into the region.

The combined panga fleet launching out of Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 112 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of, 7 sailfish, 26 striped marlin, 15 dorado, 1 wahoo, 24 amberjack, 16 pargo colorado, 20 yellow snapper, 15 barred pargo, 14 dogtooth snapper, 19 cabrilla, 14 pompano, 8 sierra and 230 roosterfish.

Good fishing, Eric