Anglers –
November 10, 2018

This is the week of the WON Los Cabos Tuna Jackpot Tournament, a record 163 teams are in the hunt for some $800,000 of prize money. Large crowds of anglers are filling sportfishing fleets to capacity. Weather patterns have been typical for fall, sunny days with high temperatures in the 80s and variable winds, mainly from the north. Ocean swells were minimal and water temperatures averaged 82 to 83 degrees

Bait suppliers were working overtime trying their best to find enough resources for all of the fishing charters. Sardinas have been scarce the past few weeks, schools of these baitfish are now being found off of the Chileno area in limited quantities, though they are smaller than average size. Supplies of giant squid slabs have run completely out in recent days, waiting for new shipments to arrive. Caballito are being netted inside of the PLC marina channel and numbers seem to be holding up okay, ballyhoo is another bait being offered, rig for surface trolling, special for dorado, wahoo and billfish.. Small sized skipjack on the offshore grounds have been used for the larger gamefish, also some chihuil are being found on high spots, time consuming to try and catch these candy baits.

The majority of charters from Puerto Los Cabos Marina are now concentrated on the Iman, San Luis and Vinorama Banks, though there has been a percentage searching out the waters off of Santa Maria and Red Hill. The highlight for most common catches has been the yellowfin tuna. Though overall action has been hit and miss, lots of pressure day in and day out, at times bait shortages as well, best chances seemed to be early morning on the San Luis Bank, drift fishing squid, slow troll skipjack, caballito or chihuil, produced a quality grade of fish, no big numbers, but fish in the 10 to 80 lb. class were most common. The largest fish of the week was caught aboard the super panga “Killer II”, with skipper Chame Pino, anglers Craig Kojima and Steve Terp teamed up to battle the super cow which was weighed in at 302.5 lb. The largest tuna we have seen weighed at our dock area this season. At least one tuna in the 250 lb. class landed off of the Gordo Banks during recent tournament. Encouraging to finally see the cows moving in, we have not seen any of these giant tuna on these grounds yet this season. Warm water temperatures should help keep these fish in the region later in the year. The overall action for yellowfin seemed to have been more consistent early in the week, progressively tougher as the week progressed. Heavy pressure on these local fishing grounds can make fish that much more spookier.

We saw many more dorado being landed, later in the week. These fish were found closer to shore, such as off Palmilla Point or Punta Gorda, once schools were located they would readily hit various bait, especially the small caballito. We saw a handful of larger specimens up around 25 lb. Wahoo action was hit and miss, though these fish are definitely still in the area and we are seeing some of them caught every day, some days many more than others. These fish seem to be the most wary of heavy boat and angler pressure. Wahoo were striking on lures and bait, but bait seemed to produce greater chances, sizes up to 45 lb. Anglers were doing well to land a couple of wahoo, they are an elusive species and highly sought after. Minimal bottom action recently, bonito and triggerfish being the main catch, tough earlier in the week there was one 65 lb. amberjack landed, a few nice cabrilla and snapper.

Warm currents have kept some sailfish in the area, also there was a 200 lb. black marlin landed as well as a scattering of striped marlin. Off of the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas the striped marlin action was breaking wide open off of the light house, feeders, tailers and free jumping marlin in good numbers.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 228 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 1 black marlin, 14 striped marlin, 12 sailfish, 84 dorado, 44 wahoo, 290 yellowfin tuna, 150 bonito, 90 white skipjack, red snapper, 12 amberjack, 16 barred pargo, 8 yellow snapper, 4 dogtooth snapper, 18 cabrilla, 10 sierra, 15 roosterfish, 12 jack crevalle and 200 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
November 3, 2018

Very busy times continue and will not tapper off until after Thanksgiving. Weather patterns were now more typical for the fall season, low temperatures about 70 degrees and highs near 85 degrees. North winds have become more prevalent, picking up early in the week, lightening a bit over the weekend. Ocean swells were moderate and water temperatures varied from 79 to 82 degrees. Reports of north winds stirring up currents and pushing in off colored waters.

There were various bait options now available, caballito, slabs of squid, ballyhoo, chihuil, small skipjack and miniature size sardinas being found in limited quantities near Chileno. Very heavy pressure on all bait resources this time of year, always the same situation during this time frame.

Local San Jose del Cabo fleets are fishing mainly in the vicinity of Iman and San Luis Banks.The action for yellowfin tuna was much tougher this week, through much of the week the winds created very fast drifts and made that form of drift and chum fishing that much harder. There were limited yellowfin tuna in the 40 to 90 lb. accounted for, some days they found better number of football sized tuna, white skipjack and bonito, but even the smaller grade of fish became elusive. Most days the best chances for tuna was early in the day, then very sporadic.

We did see an increase of dorado that ranged to over 20 lb. still just one or two here or there, but at least were seeing some decent respectable sized fish. Wahoo were hard to predict, as they normally can be, but these fish are definitely in the area, mainly on the grounds from Punta Gorda to Vinorama. These fish do become increasingly finicky at times of heavy concentrations of boats. Anglers were taking wahoo strikes incidentally while drift fishing for tuna, as well as on various rapalas, skirted jet heads, trap hooked chihuil, caballito and ballyhoo also were working. No wide open action, but charters were accounting for one or two of these fish when targeting these specifically. Sizes ranging from 10 to 40 lb. Local wahoo tournament is next Sunday, so we will see how that turns out, most likely a fish in the 40 to 50 lb. range will have good chance of taking home prize money.

Getting late in the season now, but some sailfish were still being hooked into, as well as some smaller sized striped marlin, heard of a 300 lb. black marlin off of Cabo San Lucas. This is now kind of in between seasons for local billfish action.

Bottom action was limited, though some anglers did catch some quality fish, amberjack, dogtooth snapper, cabrilla were the highlight, early in the day on inshore grounds further north was best chance, going after this directly and not trying to do too much in one morning. Hard to target tuna, wahoo and bottom all in the same trip.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 235 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 9 striped marlin, 8 sailfish, 58 dorado, 41 wahoo, 155 yellowfin tuna, 145 bonito, 190 white skipjack, 18 red snapper, 14 amberjack, 13 barred pargo,16 yellow snapper, 12 dogtooth snapper, 18 cabrilla, 12 sierra, 12 roosterfish, 10 jack crevalle, 4 mullet snapper and 180 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
October 26, 2018

Very busy times now in Los Cabos. The richest sportfishing tournaments in the world are now underway, charter fleets are operating at full capacity. This past week we were closely following the development of Hurricane Willa, this system quickly reached category five strength, passing within a couple of hundred miles of Southern Baja before making landfall south of Mazatlán as a cat three. Very fortunate for Los Cabos that Willa passed just far enough to the south that no major impact was felt, besides high ocean swells and some moderate wind, local ports did close for Tuesday, only slight rainfall in isolated areas was reported.

With large crowds of anglers, heavy pressure now on all resources, particularly now on bait supplies. Very hard to even find sardinas, best bet near Chileno Bay, but this is limited, squid has also become scarce, only so much squid is delivered to local sources and there can be shortages this time of year. Most days there have been fresh ballyhoo and caballito available. Other options are smaller skipjack, tuna and chihuil, these can be caught on offshore fishing grounds. Ocean temperatures were averaging 82 to 83 degrees through most of the region. Swells were diminishing, breezes from the south and north have been variable from day to day, on Wednesday we had major south wind pick up, made for a long wet boat ride in from the northern grounds.

With the heavy angling pressure skippers have been searching in all directions, local San Jose del Cabo fleets have had best success working grounds from Iman to San Luis Banks. With the stormy seas, full moon and limited bait supplies, the overall action became that much more challenging. Mixed sizes of yellowfin tuna, fish from 5 to 90 lb. were landed, though there were limited numbers of tuna over 50 lb. being accounted for and there were more small sized black and white skipjack being caught than anything else. Anglers were fortunate to land one of the nicer grade of yellowfin, though some people had as many as four quality yellowfin in one outing.

Dorado remain scarce, though occasional encounters results in a few fish up to 12 lb. in the mix. Wahoo were showing signs of more activity but still no hot consistent bite day to day. Areas from Palmilla Point, Iman, La Fortuna to Vinorama also held wahoo, these fish hit on various baits and lures, average size 10 to 30 lb. a few to 40 lb. In the next couple of weeks we should see some great wahoo action, as water conditions come into their preference zone.

Billfish were spread out, more numbers on the Pacific now, some sailfish still hanging around in the warmer currents. Off the bottom there were more triggerfish than other species, but various cabrilla, pargo, bonito, pompano were also found, strong current was a factor.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 124 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 8 sailfish, 21 dorado, 35 wahoo, 270 yellowfin tuna, 90 bonito, 155 white skipjack, 22 red snapper,4 amberjack, 8 barred pargo, 5 pompano, 14 yellow snapper, 22 cabrilla, 16 sierra and 180 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric