October 27, 2012
Anglers –
The Los Cabos area is now bustling with visiting anglers, this is peak fall season, weather conditions are once again ideal, after last week’s deluge from Hurricane Paul, the horizon remains clear, days have been sunny, cooler early in the morning, but by afternoon temperatures warm to 85 degrees. Over 700 anglers participated in this year’s Bisbee Black and Blue event, look for many stories to be told, as there is always some sort of drama involved. Sportfishing charters are traveling in all directions now, from the Pacific grounds to Los Frailes, in search of that special catch of a lifetime.
There are more persistent winds now starting to blow out of the north, typical fall conditions, maybe a bit earlier than normal. This combined with shorter daylight hours has also contributed to a cooling trend for the ocean, now averaging about 80 degrees outside of Cabo San Lucas and up to 82/84 degrees in the direction of the Sea of Cortez.
This annual cooling trend of local ocean currents is what usually triggers the elusive wahoo into becoming more active. We have seen more wahoo in recent days, still not a wide open bite, but considering the heavy pressure and still slightly off colored post storm waters, there has been some decent action found for these speedsters. Some charters reported as many as a half of dozen strikes and up to four wahoo landed. The ‘hoo were striking various baitfish, as well as trolled skirted lead heads or Rapalas. Most of the wahoo landed were in the 20 to 40 pound class, there were some small juveniles mixed in, nice gesture to release these, also there were at least several wahoo over 50 pounds accounted for. We look for this action to peak during the next couple of months, wahoo typically stay in the Southern Baja area until the ocean temperatures drop into the lower 70 degree range, which on a warm water year can be into January.
This past week started off with a flurry of big yellowfin tuna being landed off of the Gordo Banks, there were several fish in the 250 pound class weighed in, with others in the 100 to 230 lb. range. There were reports of a couple of super cows over 300 pounds accounted for by private sportfishers. There has been a better chance now at hooking into a big tuna as a big marlin, which are the species that tournament teams are searching for, only marlin weighing over 300 pounds count in the Bisbee Jackpot. The yellowfin were striking on chunk bait, sardinas, chihuil, skipjack and cocinero. The tuna bite slowed during the heavy pressure of the Bisbee, this next week will be the time WON Tuna Jackpot teams search out and plan strategy for the big Tuna event slated for the second week of November, looks like this year our local teams will have an advantage, having the knowledge of how to fish the Gordo Banks when the fish become spooked form heavy boat pressure.
Normal everyday charters have been fishing off of Santa Maria for a combination of skipjack, yellowfin tuna, dorado and wahoo, this action is all within several miles of shore. The yellowfin tuna have had to battle the aggressive skipjack to reach the bait, most of the yellowfin in this area have been 10 to 15 pounds, striking on sardinas. Dorado and wahoo are also hitting baits, as well as lures being trolling around the perimeter of the charters that were drift fishing with bait. The Iman Bank was another popular area being concentrated on, slightly larger grade of yellowfin, up to 25 pounds, with skipjack, dorado and wahoo in the vicinity. There has been only an occasional amberjack, cabrilla or dog snapper off the bottom.
The bait situation for obtaining live sardinas always become stressed during this busy period, on some days the commercial netters found sardinas off of the PLC Marina jetties, but this has not been as consistent as the sources found from Palmilla towards Santa Maria, this situation has a direct bearing on which direction the boats launching out of La Playita can practically reach once they do secure their daily bait rations.
The combined panga fleets out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina, sent out approximately 212 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
7 sailfish, 2 striped marlin, 42 wahoo, 165 dorado, 512 yellowfin tuna,10 amberjack, 3 dogtooth snapper,18 pargo, 6 sierra and 1600 skipjack .
Good Fishing, Eric