Anglers –
December 15, 2018
There continues to be a noticeable lack of visiting tourists now, as families prepare for Christmas and are not doing much raveling now. We do anticipate more people arriving over the upcoming school vacation period. Weather was cooler this week, persistent north winds continued as well, so far to date we have seen more wind than we normally do, just one of those years. Scattered cloud cover, high temperatures of 75 to 80 degrees. Ocean water temperatures has been ranging from 75 to 78 degrees, we expect to see more of a cooler trend with the northerly winds pushing in cooler currents.
Still no signs of a new resource for sardinas, caballito continue to be netted in the marina channel, other bait options for anglers have included strips of squid and ballyhoo. Local sportfishing fleets are searching out the fishing grounds from Chileno to Vinorama, most consistent action has been found from Iman to Vinorama, the problem is that this is where the wind has been blowing the grounds out of shape and making it more difficult to drift fish for the yellowfin tuna. Anglers were doing well to land two or three tuna, these yellowfin ranged in sizes from 10 to 80 lb., most being in the 10 to 20 lb. class. The highlight catch for the week definitely was the super cow sized tuna that was brought in by a team of local anglers on Monday, this yellowfin tuna was weighed in at 313 lb. and was hooked into on the Gordo Banks on a piece of squid, quite an impressive tuna for this late in the season, it took the team close to an hour and a half to bring the monster to gaff.
Besides the sporadic bite for the tuna, dorado and wahoo proved to be even more elusive. Only a scattering of these gamefish were encountered. Hard to say what the coming weeks will bring, cooler, off colored greenish ocean conditions now, seasonal transition time. Should start to see schools of mackerel and sardineta move in, this migration brings in more fish.
Off the shoreline charters were doing well for roosterfish, not normally the known season for these fish, but they are around at this time, particularly in front of the San Jose del Cabo hotel zone. Most of these roosterfish are smaller sized juveniles, under ten pounds, with an occasional larger specimen in the mix. Please remember to always release these prized fighting gamefish, they are known more for trophy fish, take a photo and release, not known for their eating quality.
Not much bottom action being done, swift currents and dominance of triggerfish the main deal. We did have one nice Californian sheepshead, island jack, some pargo and a couple of amberjack and bonito.
Billfish is mainly going on the Pacific now, very little marlin action off of San Jose del Cabo now, when there food source moves this direction the marlin will follow.
Whale migration is now moving in the direction of peak season, more of these mammals are being seen daily.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 71 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 1 sailfish, 3 striped marlin, 12 dorado, 4 wahoo, 105 yellowfin tuna, 10 bonito, 5 white skipjack, 14 red snapper, 10 yellow snapper, 2 amberjack, 1 sheepshead, 6 cabrilla, 4 mohara, 1 island jack, 12 sierra, 48 roosterfish and 55 triggerfish.
Good fishing, Eric