June 20, 2021
Happy Fathers’ Day
Again this week we are seeing increasing crowds of tourists arriving for the first wave of summer vacations. We are now officially starting the summer season, the climate has been steadily warming, as is normal for this time of year, but overall conditions have still been bearable, with some afternoon Pacific breezes prevailing. With distance Tropical Storm Dolores developing below Manzanillo on the mainland we felt a bit more humidity, more cloud cover and larger ocean swells, but nothing more, as anglers for the most part were finding favorable ocean conditions, particularly in the direction north of Punta Gorda. South winds picked up late weekend, which also contributed to pushing in cooler greenish currents in the same direction. Ocean temperature has ranged in the 74 to 80 degree range.
Bait netters are finding sardinas, caballito and mullet all near the marina area now, they are also offering slabs of squid and ballyhoo, so bait has remained plentiful. The majority of local sportfishing charters are fishing on the grounds from Cardon, La Fortuna, Iman, San Luis and north to Vinorama, with offshore billfish action continuing to be found near the 1150 or 95 spots. Striped marlin were spread out, also being found within a few miles of shore, depending on currents on a particular day, also a couple of sailfish accounted for, as well a small sized blue marlin and mid-week there was a swordfish brought in by a trip of commercial pangeros, smaller sized, about 130 lb., but impressive anyway.
Yellowfin tuna action was hit or miss, continually fluctuating water conditions making the action sporadic. Best chances in recent days has been north near Vinorama, close to shore, 100 to 200 ft. of water, early bite on sardinas or striped squid, a smaller grade of fish 12 to 25 lb., though earlier in the week other schools of tuna encountered had yellowfin to 30 to 70 lb.
Dorado were even less numerous than were the tuna, some days we are seeing a few dorado up to 20 lb. in the mix, but other days we are not seeing them, once conditions do stabilize more, we surely will seeing more schooling dorado show on local grounds. Not much at all going on with wahoo either, early in the week there were reports of wahoo seen free swimming and a couple of hook ups, but as the week progressed nothing more.
Most consistent fishery now continues to be concentrating on the bottom rocky structure, from as shallow as 50 ft., to depths of 200 ft. A wide variety of species are being landed, while anglers are using yo-yo style jigs and bait, mainly sardinas. A few impressive amberjack to over 50 lb., leopard grouper to 20 lb., yellow snapper, red snapper, rose snapper, pompano, bonito, barred pargo, triggerfish, island jack and even had a batch of blackfin jack, which are not a very common local catch. All of these fish are excellent eating, including the local Mexican Bonito, which is unlike its California relative.
Along the shoreline there are more hog sized jack crevalle than there are roosterfish, as roosters are running a bit later than usual this season. We are still seeing some quality sized sierra along the shore, though not as many now as water is warming, the sierra eventually move out. Shore anglers have had some impressive catches recently, including snook to over 40 lb. and tripletail, those these anglers are dedicated and put in their time, but they know that this is now peak season for the better shore action.
Good Fishing, Eric