July 9, 2011

Summer time is definitely here, temperatures are reaching 90 degrees, scattered tropical cloud cover with high humidity.. At this time there is the season’s third storm system brewing off of Manzanillo, named TS Calvin. It appears that Calvin will not become too strong and will not have any impact with land, higher swells and humidity is about all we expect.

Conditions are stabilizing with the warming days, but there were times when winds picking up from the south. Inshore waters are still off colored, clear blue water was found further offshore. Ocean currents have been swift with moderate swells, expecting to increase in coming days. Water temperatures are now averaging 80 to 85 degrees throughout most of the Southern Baja. Most abundant inshore baitfish were mullet, jurelito and caballito, sardinas were found north towards the East Cape and La Paz. This week there were immense schools of bolito moving onto the fishing grounds, at times they proved very finicky to catch, but they were choice trolling baits for larger sized gamefish.

Fleets were reported mixed success 15 to 30 miles offshore looking for yellowfin tuna, most of the time associated with porpoise, fish averaged 20 to 40 pounds, a few larger tuna encountered as well. This bite was hit or miss, one day the concentration of porpoise and yellowfin would be in one area and the very next day they were nowhere to be found. Once the tuna were located, multiple strikes were the rule. A scattering of billfish are being accoutered for, sailfish, striped and blue marlin. These fish were striking on trolled lures and various baits. There were reports of blue marlin over 500 pounds caught off of the East Cape in recent days, so we expect these fish will be in our local waters soon.

Panga fleets found steady action for various snappers and amberjack off the bottom structure, San Luis Bank was one of the more productive areas. The bite was best first part of the week and then tapered off towards the weekend. Jigging with yo-yo jigs was the technique used. The larger grade of yellowfin tuna are congregated on the same grounds, from Iman, San Luis to Vinorama. They are not being seen much on the surface, but anglers are taking blind strikes while slow trolling larger sized baits, with the preferred offering being bolito. At times they would only strike these baits, shying away from mullet or small jacks. The fleet hooked into these tuna every day, with combined counts ranging from several fish, up to fifteen in one day, all of these yellowfin were in the 30 to 150 pound range. There was such an abundance of food source on the grounds now that the fish do not appear that enticed to bite baited hooks. No great numbers yet, but encouraging to see this quality and there is a good chance that you can hook into a couple of these yellowfin per morning. The key is having the right bait and plenty of patience and then hoping that the fish takes the bait deep enough for a solid hook up. With such quantity of bolito now on the local banks, we do anticipate that these quality yellowfin will continue to provide action for the rest of the summer.

On Friday there was 194 lb. yellowfin tuna landed by Frank Harbin of Chico, Ca. Frank hooked into the monster on the Iman Bank while drift fishing with a jurelito. Aboard a 22 ft. panga and using a lighter and lengthy flexible rod, he battled this fish for some six hours, with help from the crew, was finally able to bring it to gaff, but on the first attempt the fish took the gaff out of the mates hands and headed back towards the bottom, close to an hour later on their second gaff attempt they had success.

We have not been finding schools of dorado, only small groups, a few bulls to 40 pounds in the mix. No particular hot spot with big numbers, but most all fish are of quality size. Roosterfish and jack crevalle dominated the gamefish action close to shore, it is peak season now for these species, with many specimens over 40 pounds being landed.

Surf fishing activity is now in full swing, mid week there was a 40 pound class snook caught off the beach near the San Jose Estuary, there were reports of roosters and snapper as well, watch the high swells though.

The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 67charters for the week, with anglers reporting a total fish count of: 9 sailfish, 13 striped marlin, 1 wahoo, 69 yellowfin tuna, 64 dorado, 49 amberjack, 3 dogtooth snapper, 115 huachinango (red snapper), 13 yellowtail pargo, 45 jack crevalle, 22 cabrilla and 64 roosterfish.

Good Fishing, Eric

June 24, 2011

Strange week, the first week of summer felt more like winter or early spring. Persistent cold winds from the south swept in cooler currents, dropping water temperatures to 68 to 72 degrees through much of the Southern Baja coastal stretches. Murky green conditions were spread out to over 20 miles offshore, though the dirty current did not reach past Los Frailes. The season’s second Hurricane, Beatriz, developed off Southern Mexico, this system weakened over land, before encountering cooler waters and dissipating as fast as it had developed. Beatriz was located several hundred miles south of Cabo San Lucas and was packing sustained winds up to 90 mph, creating larger swells that did pound Southern Baja beaches for several days. Now, we patiently wait, It is only matter of time before the conditions turn back around, but it is hard to say exactly when this will happen. Over the weekend conditions have stabilized, winds resided, cool Pacific air relenting to summer heat once again.

As conditions drastically changed, the week started off with a wide spread die off of fish being reported. Innicially observed north of Punta Gorda, swifting in the direction of Palmilla and Cabo San Lucas. Masses of mostly smaller sized snapper species, one pound or less, deeper water specimens, a few larger fish, no dead pelagic species reported. When talking with local residents they cannot remember ever witnessing a similar incident of this scale. These fish were found floundering on the surface, gasping, eyes and bladders burst, barely alive, before drifting onto the beaches.

Of course many theories have surfaced as to what might have caused this event, among the speculations, by catch from commercial netting, poison red tide, natural occurrence, nuclear fallout from Japan, drastic current/temperature change, air bladder rupture, limited oxygen levels and terrorist poison attack. Biologists have collected specimens for study, but we have not yet heard any reports as to a confirmed cause. The die off occurred for the first part of the week and seems to have abated.

Anyway, we do know that we had an extreme current and temperature change in a matter of 24 hours, water temperature had been in the 81 to 83 degree range and when this south westerly current swept in the water temp dropped to a chilly 68 degrees, also turned over to a dirty murky green color. So we are just passing around many theories, waiting to hear any information from the biologists. Most logically reason points to something to do with such a drastic change, deep current lacking sufficient oxygen.

Anglers found extremely difficult fishing this past week, southern winds were persistent, at times gusting to 30 mph in the afternoon. Finding clean water was the main problem, high surf conditions stirred up the inshore action even more. Larger baitfish were available from the commercial fleet, such as jurelito, mullet and caballito, but finding any hungry fish to hit the bait was the hard game. A few roosterfish, jack crevalle, snapper or skipjack provided what little action was found, more numbers of roosters were found north of Vinorama, which is twenty plus miles from the Puerto Los Cabos Marina. Local panga fleets did not find any wahoo, dorado or tuna where they had the previous week. Charters that ventured 20 to 30 miles offshore did report scattered action on some football sized yellowfin tuna and an occasional dorado or marlin, but with choppy seas you were wise to be on a larger sized sportfisher to venture that far out.

Striped marlin were scattered throughout the area, as water cleans we expect them to be very hungry. On Thursday there was an encouraging report from a sportfisher that caught and released half dozen stripers from the Gordo Banks area, they found this action after having retuned from as far as 30 miles offshore, where they had seen no signs of life.

The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 51 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 3 dorado, 7 yellowfin tuna, 6 amberjack, 3 yellowtail, 18 pargo, 44 roosterfish, 32 jack crevalle, 17 cabrilla, 22 skipjack and 5 sierra.

Good fishing, Eric