Anglers –
January 1, 2017

Happy New Year’s !

The end of the year has brought many families visiting Southern Baja, ideal vacation spot to pass the holiday season and bring in the New Year. Busy times now, as everyone is actively preparing for annual festivals. Weather was a bit unusual, very windy from the north through the week, laying down on Friday for the weekend, warmer temperatures, highs near 90 degrees late in the week and early morning lows were a balmy 65 to 80 degrees, warm north wind was blowing. Ocean swells were minimal, though water temperature was cooling into the lower to mid-70 degree range, also green water splotchy throughout the inshore zones. Still decent conditions to hold a variety of pelagic gamefish late into the season.

Schooling mackerel are moving into the region, off of the Pacific Banks and off of the normal grounds off of San Jose del Cabo. This has been attracting more striped marlin, though still in limited numbers, we except for the action to become wide open in coming months. Dorado continue to be scarce, only an occasional fish, most of them small in size. Same deal with wahoo, only a handful of these fish were landed in the past week, though we do believe that many are still remaining in the area, has not become so cold yet to send them migrating south. Early week there was a blue marlin in the 250 lb. class landed from a charter out of La Playita, hooked on a trolled caballito, two hour battle to bring the fish to gaff.

Yellowfin tuna remains one of the main species being successfully targeting, Best action through the first part of the week, as wind shut down the northern grounds, was right near the arches off of Cabo San Lucas, yellowfin to 30 lb. were striking the drifted strips of squid, lots of sea lions to deal with in this area, though boats accounted for up to six yellowfin per outing. Then the action switched back to Punta Gorda, where using the same techniques, anglers found yellowfin ranging up to 50 lb. close off of the point, within one mile. No huge numbers, but charters accounted for one to five fish. Bottom action on the same grounds produced red snapper, triggerfish and a few pargo or pompano. We did hear of one report of a monster yellowfin tuna of over 300 lb. landed off of a larger sportfishing, not sure exactly where the cow was landed. The were 100 lb. plus tuna being seen surfacing on the Gordo Banks, but very few were actually hooked into, Dave Asher visiting from the East Coast did hook up with a very large yellowfin tuna on the Outer Gordo Bank, only to lose the fish after a grueling two hour battle. So it does appear that there will be a chance at these larger grade of yellowfin in to the first part of the New Year.

Live caballito were tougher to obtain early in the week, rebounding later, squid supplies remain sufficient and now the mackerel appear to be picking back up, of course still no reports at all of sardinas being located anywhere in the vicinity. More whales are arriving, after a lull in activity, the mammals now seem to being spotted more frequently.

Close to shore there was roosterfish, jack crevalle and sierra, we did have one super panga catch a release a roosterfish that was estimated near 40 lb., impressive size considering this is not peak season now for the roosters. Most of the sierra we saw were on the small side, Red Hill had a decent bite early in the morning for sierra for anglers trolling small Rapalas and hoochies.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 136 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 sailfish, 1 blue marlin, 13 striped marlin, 195 yellowfin tuna, 14 dorado, 3 wahoo, 8 bonito, 5 pompano, 2 island jack, 22 yellow snapper, 9 leopard grouper, 88 huachinango, 32 tijareta, 34 sierra, 12 rainbow runner, 12 barred pargo, 22 roosterfish and 140 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
December 24, 2016

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Crowds of vacationers were arriving throughout the week in the Los Cabos area to enjoy the Holiday Season south of the border. Many were doing so to escape the frigid cold temperatures sweeping across northern territories. Weather conditions were definitely cooperating, as the persistent northern winds finally calmed down, clear sunny skies, with daytime highs in the 80s, feeling more like spring time than winter. The area was bustling with tourists and many families were reserving sportfishing charters as one of their preferred activities.

Ocean water temperatures were holding in the 74 to 76 degree range, still warmer than usual for this time frame, with the winds residing for a few days now, this has given the chance for clarity to improve and blue water was being found fairly close to shore. Bait supplies remained steady for caballito and strips of squid continue to be used for drift fishing, while targeting the yellowfin tuna action. The majority of the charters launching out of San Jose del Cabo area were fishing areas from Punta Gorda, Gordo Banks, Cardon and Iman Bank. Through much of the week the most productive place proved to be close to shore off of Punta Gorda.

All around action was a bit spotty, some days the bite would be early, some days late. Most common species caught was yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 30 lb. class, no huge numbers, but some charters were fortunate to land five or more tuna per trip. Caballito and the strips of squid was the main method that showed best results. There were a few larger yellowfin tuna still lurking late into the season around the Gordo Banks, but these fish were more finicky than the tuna found closer to shore. Not a tremendous variety of species now, only a few dorado being found, most of these closer to shore as well, the majority smaller size, though we saw a handful of dorado in the 20 lb. range. Wahoo are still hanging around the region, though not many were being landed, they did not seem eager to strike on the normal type of lures or trap hooked baits, though many anglers told stories of having wahoo cut lines that were rigged with lighter mono leaders, which were needed to entice the line shy yellowfin.

Where the tuna action was centered close to shore there were various species of pargo and snapper mixed in, as well as the ever present triggerfish. The commercial fleet were doing well targeting the red snapper with fresh shrimp heads that were able to obtain from shrimp trawlers which were passing through the area while on their way back to their home ports.

While we heard of more striped marlin action being found on the Pacific Banks, we did not see much action for billfish off of San Jose del Cabo, only an occasional striper of sailfish. No signs of any sardina schools and this seems to be hurting any inshore fishing opportunities for sierra or roosterfish. Though a few decent sized roosterfish were hooked into off the beach stretches while trolling with caballito.

After seeing whales earlier in the month starting to appear, recently they have been very few and far between, late to arrive for their annual migration.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 105 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 sailfish, 2 striped marlin, 235 yellowfin tuna, 26 dorado, 6 wahoo, 12 bonito, 3 grouper, 3 pompano, 32 yellow snapper, 8 leopard grouper, 140 huachinango, 35 tijareta, 12 sierra, 8 rainbow runner, 4 barred pargo, 16 roosterfish and 160 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
December 17, 2016

We are now seeing light crowds of tourists visiting, this is always the pattern during the couple of weeks before the Christmas Holiday. People are busy with preparations now, this slack time gives us all a little more freedom to take care of personal agendas, actually a relief to have a lighter schedule in order to catch up on other things that have been put aside through the busy fall season. Winds were much lighter this past week, though it was cooler early in the morning, temperatures down in the 50s, though daytime highs did reach up near 80 degrees. While most of the U.S. and Canada are enduring frigid conditions, we are enjoying the great Southern Baja climate.

There are now large concentrations of mackerel, with sardineta mixed in, being found several miles off of the San Jose del Cabo hotel zone, this is always a favorable sign that this food source will attract more gamefish, most notably striped marlin and dorado. So far we have seen a few dorado and marlin in this area, but no significant numbers. We are also coming off of a bright full moon, which can cause feeding habits of gamefish to change. Ocean water temperature has been averaging in the 75 to 77 degree range, which is still a few degrees higher than normal for this time frame. Water clarity was greenish on the grounds north of Punta Gorda, depending from day to day where you were, some areas were off colored, though blue water was also found near these same grounds, currents moving through, changing daily, a lot depends on how persistent the north winds is. The annual whale migration is behind schedule this season, same thing happened last year, we do expect to start seeing more numbers of both humpback and gray whales soon.

Anglers were using strips of squid to target the yellowfin tuna, Punta Gorda continued to be one of the more productive areas, yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 30 lb. range were schooling on these grounds. Some days the fish would not bite until later in the day. There were porpoise found a bit further from shore that were holding yellowfin tuna as well, charters were chasing these schools down and dropped strips of squid and hooked similar size tuna. There were some much larger tuna, to over 150 lb. still holding on the Gordo Banks, though the only fish that were being hooked were by local anglers fishing the twilight bite, as the sun was setting, one local panga came in with three tuna in the 150 lb. class on Thursday evening.

This week there was good action on red snapper (huahinango), found close to shore off of Punta Gorda, same place where the yellowfin tuna bite was, the snapper were hitting on the strips of squid and ranging from 4 to 10 lb., mixed in were some triggerfish to 8 lb. as well as a locally rare sheepshead of about 24 lb. A few scattered wahoo on these same grounds, though not many are being landed, an occasional fish to 40 lb. As the moon darkens and if conditions remain calm enough, we do expect for the wahoo to go on another bite.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 71 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 285 yellowfin tuna, 19 dorado, 9 wahoo, 1 sheepshead, 6 pompano, 18 yellow snapper, 4 leopard grouper, 290 huachinango, 13 sierra, 3 barred pargo, 1 mako shark, and 180 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric