October 22, 2011
Busy times now in the Los Cabos area, large crowds of anglers continue to arrive, visitors are being greeting with ideal weather patterns, no storms on the horizon, clear sunny skies and diminishing winds. This is tournament time as you all know, the Bisbee Black and Blue just finishing now and the WON Tuna Jackpot just around the corner. Water temperatures now in the 84 to 86 degrees, a bit warmer than normal, should drop closer to 80 degrees soon, as days are progressively shorter and cooling.
Sportfishing fleets are traveling in all directions to search for the best possible action, with the most consistent areas now in the direction of the 95 spot, Gordo Banks and north to Iman Bank. For whatever might be the reason, anglers have had to search and work harder than would be expected to find cooperative fish. Supplies of sardinas are holding up well, these baitfish were found schooling along the rocky beach stretches from Puerto Los Cabos, Palmilla to Santa Maria.
Local panga fleets concentrated on three main areas, to the south near Cabo San Lucas is where they found the most consistent dorado action, trolling lures anglers encountered schools of these mostly 5 to 15 lb. dorado and most boats were limiting and releasing many other fish as well.
Other spot was the Gordo Banks, this is where the larger sized yellowfin were hanging out, these fish ranging mostly from 60 to 150 pounds, with chances of cow sized tuna as well. Finicky, showing on the surface, feeding on chum, but not all that eager to bit the baits with hooks, lighter leaders proved more successful at times, also reports of a limited number of private afternoon charter doing well. Just seeing these large sized tuna feeding and breezing on the surface was quite impressive, being extra patient at this spot was the key. These tuna were hooked on sardinas, skipjack, chihuil and chunk bait. Anglers were fortunate to land one or two of these fish. Other area where tuna were found was in between the La Fortuna and Iman Banks, most of these fish were in the 20 to 40 pound class, same deal with them being very finicky, coming up readily and feeding on the chummed sardinas, but not easy to entice into biting the hooked bait. Anglers catching one, two or three of these yellowfin were doing well. A mix of bottom species and a few dorado were found on these same fishing grounds, but they were limited in numbers.
Biilfish action was very spread out, a few more sailfish being encountered, they are one species that do prefer the warmer currents. Striped, blue and black marlin were also in the area, but no specific spot was producing any quantities of these billfish at this time.
We are nearing the time when wahoo typical become more active, but with the warmer than usual water temps these fish are sluggish and not yet providing more than a few scattered strikes here and there. A few wahoo were hooked into near the Gordo Banks while fishing for tuna and other wahoo were hooked while trolling rapalas or skirted lures, of these wahoo that were landed, most weighed in the 30 to 40 pound class. We do expect the wahoo fishing to become more consistent in the coming weeks as the water temperatures continue on a cooling trend.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 144 charters, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 1 blue marlin, 3 striped marlin, 15 sailfish, 565 dorado, 134 yellowfin tuna, 16 bonito, 14 cabrilla, 11 dogtooth snapper, 46 yellow snapper, 12 barred pargo, 7 wahoo, 7 yellowtail and 12 amberjack.
Good Fishing, Eric