Anglers –
October 20, 2018

As we progress further into the fall season we are seeing many more anglers arriving and local weather patterns that are rapidly changing. We felt cooler 65 degree low temperatures early in the morning, shifting currents and ocean temperatures cooling off to the low 80s degree range. Daytime highs still are in the mid to upper 80s. We have been watching a series of tropical low pressure areas off of Southern mainland Mexico, very late in the season now for these systems to develop in tropical storms, but you never know these days with global climate changes. We are hoping no storms head our way during this busy time.

Heavy pressure has cleaned out the sardinas which had been schooling around the Puerto Los Cabos Marina jetties for several months now, new sources now off of Chileno and surely they will be scouting our areas further north. Squid supplies have maintained, but are likely to become scarce in coming weeks as well. Other options will include ballyhoo, caballito and chihuil

Last Sunday we felt strong south winds, since then the wind has been coming mainly from the north, already fairly strong for this early in the season, hopefully this will calm down, has contributed to the cooling water trend. Sportfishing fleets are fishing in all different directions, since there is no particular hot spot, action has been spread out, variety of fish are in the area, but no large concentrations of any particular species. The yellowfin tuna action slowed down this week, the Iman Bank was still the spot producing the better grade of tuna, yellowfin tuna ranging up to 100 b. were landed, though these fish were few and far between, fortunate to land one, some anglers were getting lucky and landing up to three of the tuna. Off of Cabo San Lucas there was a bite for smaller tuna off of Santa Maria, as well as offshore yellowfin associated with porpoise.

The cooling current seemed to make the wahoo a bit more active, as many more of these fish are being reported, a small percentage landed, quite a few others being lost, not many anglers had been specifically targeting these fish yet, because they just not had been biting much. This will all change soon, with water temperatures now in the ideal range, slow trolling trap hooked live chihuil is always one of the more productive techniques, of course chihuil at times are not a guarantee to come by. Wahoo also hit on Rapalas, Yo-Zuri, skirted lead heads and a few on yo-yo jigs.

Still only a few dorado being seen, but more this week than we have seen for a while now, still no large specimens, but at least we are seeing some of these popular gamefish show up.
Bottom action was limited by strong currents and north winds, some red snapper, barred pargo, cabrilla, bonito and an occasional amberjack or dogtooth snapper.

Billfish action was reported a bit more consistent off the grounds near Cabo San Lucas, though local grounds off of San Jose did produce scattered action for sailfish, black, blue and striped marlin.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 142 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 1 black marlin, 4 striped marlin,12 sailfish, 1 blue marlin, 27 dorado, 19 wahoo, 88 yellowfin tuna, 110 bonito, 35 white skipjack, 32 red snapper, 6 amberjack, 18 barred pargo, 1 dogtooth snapper, 14 yellow snapper, 24 cabrilla, 8 sierra, 4 roosterfish and 90 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
October 13, 2018

Weather patterns are now feeling like fall, evening and early morning temperatures are cooling off to about the 70 degree range, daytime highs still reaching into the upper 80s. We are seeing greater numbers of anglers now arriving, the next five week period is the busiest season of the year. Hurricane Sergio which had headed far west, nearly half way to Hawaii, pulled a U-turn and came back rapidly to strike the central Baja region as a weakening tropical storm, but still made quite a mess of the areas which it did strike, before continuing on towards mainland Mexico, this all happened on Friday morning. The Los Cabos area did receive some isolated rain showers early Friday, along with increased storm swells, followed by 20 mph wind gusts from the south,

Ocean temperatures were reaching into the upper 80s, we do expect that this has peaked after the long hot summer and now we will see water temperatures begin to cool off in the coming weeks. Schooling sardinas are still being found near the PLC marina channel entrance, heavy charter pressure will soon have the fleet scrambling to maintain sufficient bait supplies.

This week the fleet concentrated most effort on the Iman to San Luis Banks where the yellowfin tuna were the main target species. We saw many more smaller sized yellowfin tuna and white skipjack in recent days, fish ranging from 5 to 15 lb., but the larger tuna up to 70 lb. plus were still on these same grounds, just getting them to bite became more of a challenge. Drift fishing while chumming with sardinas and strips of squid continued to be the most productive option.

Only a few dorado and wahoo being seen, mainly on the same grounds as the tuna were found. No consistent bite for these species at this time. Same for the bottom action, strong currents continued and this made it harder for angles to fish the bottom structure, a mix of snapper, pargo, cabrilla, bonito, pompano and amberjack were accounted for, but there were more triggerfish than anything else.

Quite a few sailfish were found on these same fishing grounds, as these fish do prefer the warmest of currents, a handful of black marlin, striped marlin and blue marlin were also reported, spread out and not in any significant numbers.

Closer to shore a few early seasons sierra were reported, as well as smaller sized roosterfish, again these were in limited numbers.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 84 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 2 black marlin, 1 striped marlin, 8 sailfish, 1 blue marlin, 9 dorado, 3 wahoo, 220 yellowfin tuna, 22 bonito, 310 white skipjack, 26 red snapper, 5 amberjack, 10 barred pargo, 4 pompano, 2 surgeon fish, 9 yellow snapper, 13 cabrilla, 5 sierra, 2 roosterfish and 150 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
October 6, 2018

We are now seeing the first wave of fall season anglers arriving, the coming weeks will be very busy. Weather patterns are changing, slight chill now early in the morning, still very humid, some intense sunshine, we had no rain this past week, scattered tropical clouds and, increased swells due to distant hurricane, with relatively light winds. Ocean water temperatures were in the 86 degrees range, still very conductive for fueling storms. Last week we saw Hurricane Rosa pass off to the west and end up making landfall in Northern Baja as a tropical storm. This week we are following Hurricane Sergio, which is presently far off to the west, nearly half way to Hawaii. The deal with Sergio is that forecasts predict this system will make a u turn late this weekend and head back northeast towards the Central Baja, almost unprecedented to have a tropical storm be that far west and then move all the way back to the Baja. We will be following this through the week and hope that this storm does not swift to the south.

As angling pressure increases we are going to see how supplies of sardinas hold up, this has been the main baitfish now being used, also the slabs of squid makes a good combination and option to have, if available. As we move into the fall season there will be more opportunities of looking for other larger baits like chihuil, small skipjack, caballito and later on sardineta and mackerel.

This week again the main center of action for local fleets was on the Iman Bank. With yellowfin tuna being the most common gamefish, ranging in sizes from 10 lb. to 70 lb. Mixed in were various skipjack and lots of pesky triggerfish. The bite was tough this week, the tuna would come up, but were very finicky and would strike at sporadic times. Most charters were doing well to land a couple of tuna while on other days anglers landed as many as five or more. Many of the yellowfin landed on these grounds averaged in the 25 to 60 lb. class, quality fish, just not in any significant numbers. These fish have been on these same areas for the entire summer and are becoming wiser to the increased boat traffic. Though we expect action to start spreading out some and hopefully we will see more dorado moving in, so far they have been scarce, an occasional one or two dorado in the 2 to 12 lb. range.

Wahoo action has been limited, though we are seeing a few fish brought in from the areas near Iman to Vinorama, most of these were under 30 lb., striking on lures as well as rigged chihuil. Wahoo do not often seem that active when the ocean temperature is this warm, as we see cooling currents we expect to have much better chances for these popular fish.

We heard of some better blue marlin action off of the fishing grounds closer to Cabo San Lucas, off of San Jose del Cabo a few blues to over 200 lb. were reported, as well as many more sailfish in local waters now, these fish like the warmest of waters, sailfish up to 100 lb. were landed off the same grounds where the yellowfin tuna were schooling.

Not much bottom action now, stronger currents and anglers that did try mainly had a variety of smaller sized pargo, bonito, triggerfish, cabrilla, we did see a few amberjack, one that was over 40 lb. Also one golden leopard grouper was caught.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 69 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 1 striped marlin, 11 sailfish, 2 blue marlin, 18 dorado, 9 wahoo, 115 yellowfin tuna, 10 bonito, 230 white skipjack, 16 red snapper, 3 amberjack, 12 barred pargo, 6 pompano, 4 surgeon fish, 12 yellow snapper, 16 cabrilla, 1 golden leopard grouper and 140 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric