November 15, 2020

As much of the northern territories are now feeling wintry weather conditions, here is Southern Baja this fall has been pleasantly warm, ideal climate now, highs still reaching into the 80s and barely feeling chilly early in the morning. Wind patterns are beginning to be a bit more unpredictable, blowing from out of the north most days, especially later in the day. Ocean water temperature is averaging around 80 degrees, on the Pacific it has dipped to 76 degrees. Crowds of tourists are arriving, as these next couple of weeks the busy season will be wind down and we will hope that people do decide to travel during the Christmas and New Year vacation periods.

Schools of sardinas continue to be found around the marina jetty area, also caballito, with other options being ballyhoo and slabs of squid. Some boats are scouting out options for chihuil, should be more of that in coming weeks, as these are special candy bait for wahoo.

This last week started out with a bang, as on Monday there was a 310 lb. yellowfin brought in, taken off of the 26 ft. super panga “Regina Dos”. This fish was hooked while trolling a live skipjack on the Outer Gordo Bank and was brought to gaff after a two hour battle on 80 lb. gear, the fight continued though, as the skipper “Gachi” and the one angler, Mike Witoshynski from Florida were unable to haul the beast into their boat due to particularly tough windy conditions, they did eventually hail help from a nearby yacht and then hauled it over the railing and headed to the dock area where a crowd had gathered after hearing the news. Later in the week there was yet even a larger super cow boated, this one weighing in at a whopping 371 lb., taken by a team of anglers aboard the locally based 35 ft. Cabo Sportfisher “Hard Efforts”, they were able to bring this beast to gaff within one hour on 100 lb. tackle.

The majority of local charters were fishing more towards the north, on grounds from the Iman, San Luis and to Vinorama. These areas were producing more consistent action than were the Gordo Banks, tough no super cows were taken from these grounds. The yellowfin found here were more in the 50 to 80 lb. class, still finicky though, at times showing themselves, feeding on the surface, though then vanishing just as quickly. Some days biting early and on others later in the day. Boats were doing well to land one or two of these quality grade yellowfin, most of these striking on sardinas, leaders of no more than 50 lb. proved more successful.

On these same grounds and a little closer to shore there were decent numbers of dorado found, though it was not easy to find many that were up to 15 lb., the majority being under ten pounds. Wahoo action was still sporadic, we did see a handful of these highly sought after gamefish brought in on most days, of course there were other stories of fast wahoo strikes resulting in lost chances. Most of the wahoo strikes were taken on trolled Rapalas, though a handful were also taken on rigged baits. We look for this action to become more consistent in the next couple of weeks, as we are now nearing the traditional peak season for these fish. Of the fish we saw, sizes ranged up to 35 lb.

Main species being found off the bottom were smaller sized pargo, red snapper, triggerfish and bonito, with an occasional leopard grouper (cabrilla) and a few prized 40 lb. dogtooth snapper.

Along the shoreline sierra are starting to show up, these fish prefer the cooling water temperatures, feisty little fighters, averaging 2 to 6 lb. More whales are being sighted in recent days, as the annual migration for these mammals is just now beginning.

Good fishing, Eric

November 8, 2020

This time frame would normally be one of the busiest periods for the Los Cabos area, though with all that has happened this year with the world wide Covid 19 epidemic we are seeing much lighter crowds. Though this past week the area was bustling with the season’s final big tournament, the WON Tuna Jackpot, which ended up attracting 149 teams and had accumulated total payouts of over one million dollars. Largest yellowfin tuna was 210 lb., local La Playita team fishing aboard the sportfisher “Burro” made the big money on the first day with their 175 lb. tuna, congratulations to them.

Weather patterns remain warmer than usual, but slowly we are feeling fall conditions settle in. Ocean water temperature now averaging about 82 degrees. The overall fishing action has not been up to normal standards now for about the past month, we do anticipate that we will have a good late season as conditions shape up. Most common catches have been dorado, though most are under 10 pounds, hard to find any over 20 lb. Sardinas, ballyhoo and some caballito have been main bait source, as well as some slabs of squid.

Local fleets have been finding better chances for the yellowfin tuna on the grounds from the Iman Bank to Vinorama, often seeing fish come up and then just as quickly vanishing, finding it tough to entice any strikes. We have seen a handful of quality grade 40 to 70 lb. yellowfin accounted for, also there have been some schools of football sized tuna showing as well, more of these found from Palmilla to Santa Maria.

Dorado were found in all directions, though more numerous on the Pacific, but again most are smaller in size, striking on lures and rigged baits, such as ballyhoo. Wahoo were spread out as well, really no particular hot spot and hard to find one over 30 lb., as in the recent tournament there were only three over 30 lb. weighed in.

Not much going on with billfish now, we saw more sailfish on local grounds than anything else. A mix of bottom species, with the highlight being a few dogtooth snapper to 40 lb. Again more triggerfish than anything else.

Good fishing, Eric

GORDO BANKS PANGAS

November 1, 2020

The month of October seemed to be warmer than usual, but just this week we started to feel more of a climate change. The week started with increasingly strong north winds, actually where the local Port was closed down for Tuesday as a precaution, seemed a bit over cautious, as conditions were not considered dangerous and there were inshore areas which could have easily been fished, by the weekend winds settled, water conditions which had become stirred up towards the north quickly rebounded, as clarity was again clean and blue near shore. Ocean temperatures cooled slightly, presently in the 82 to 84 degree range. Sardinas continued to be the main bait source, found schooling near shore, from San Jose del Cabo marina area to Chileno. Slabs of squid and ballyhoo were other options. Crowds of tourists were noticeably much lighter than we would typically see during this time frame, looks like this will be the same scenario for the rest of 2020.

Most local charters have been working the grounds from Santa Maria. Palmilla, Gordo Banks and north to Vinorama. Like last week, the overall bite was more scattered and really there was no particular consistent spot. Anglers found limited numbers of yellowfin tuna, the largest we saw were in the 50 to 70 lb. class and then there was the smaller 10 to 20 lb. grade mixed in. The locals had a few days earlier in the week where during the late afternoon they had a good tuna bite off of Palmilla, for a nice grade of 40 to 50 lb. fish, this action faded out later in the week. Did not hear of any more big tuna taken off of the Gordo Banks, this coming week is the final big tournament of the season, the WON Tuna Jackpot, believe there will be around 130 teams, with teams heading in all directions, surely we will see some nice sized yellowfin hauled in.

One of the more common gamefish we saw this week were dorado, though the majority were smaller sized fish, not many over ten pounds, anglers should remember to practice catch and release for these smaller sized dorado, especially since this is the one species where you can tell from a distance which fish are males or females, does not make sense to kill small size females which are filled with eggs, as these fish are one of the faster growing species, please give them a chance to mature.

Only a handful of wahoo were landed this week, we expect with the conditions shaping up that these fish should become much more active in the coming weeks. Off the bottom, the highlight were a few dogtooth snapper up to 40 lb., more triggerfish or small pargo compared to anything else, an occasional cabrilla, bonito, island jack or rainbow runner.

Along the shore we saw jack crevalle, roosterfish, sierra and more triggerfish. We expect to have more sierras move in as water temperature cools off as winter sets in.

Good fishing, Eric