Anglers –
March 26, 2016
The first official week of the Spring Season saw heavier crowds of vacationers arrive for the traditional holiday. Busy times in Los Cabos, weather was a bit unpredictable all week, started off with heavy winds from the south, pushing in cooler Pacific currents, which also created murky inshore conditions. By the later part of the week the conditions settled down and were once again on an improving trend. Ocean temperature ranged from 71 degrees on the Pacific to 73 degrees in the direction of San Jose del Cabo and Los Frailes.
Since last weekend through midweek we saw tough conditions, though now once again clarity is rebounding, combined factors such as, full moon, strong cool currents, high winds, choppy seas, all can add up to more difficult fishing. Though during this seasonal transition period, things can change very fast, conditions can predict what can happen on a given day. Bait availability has been mainly caballito, strips of squid and some ballyhoo. The baitfish such as sardineta and mackerel which had been found off of San Jose del Cabo have now all but vanished, so in turn the offshore action for billfish has been more scattered as well.
The majority of the charters are now concentrating on the grounds north of Punta Gorda, namely, La Fortuna, Iman and San Luis Banks. This is where the best opportunities for a variety of species has been found. Drift fishing over rocky structure has been the favored technique, using various baits and yo-yo jigs. Snapper, pargo, amberjack, cabrilla, triggerfish have been most common catches. No huge numbers, but some quality eating fish are being accounted for. We did see one 70 lb. class amberjack, the majority of the bottom species are in the 5 to 15 lb. class. We heard a report from Cabo San Lucas, that some larger charters venturing towards Todo Santos encountered schools of yellowtail on the surface traveling with porpoise and these boats were able to land up to a half dozen nice sized yellowtail while trolling marlin, tuna, dorado type surface lures, of course this was an isolated event, at least it was a sign that more numbers of yellowtail are heading our direction, so far this season these jacks have been almost nonexistent.
Action for dorado, wahoo or yellowfin tuna was very limited, only an occasional wahoo or dorado being reported. Tuna are still being found on the Iman Banks and towards Vinorama, drift fishing with strips of squid. This action was very hit or miss, though a handful of yellowfin were landed each day, including fish to over 70 lb., most common sized tuna was more in the 15 to 25 lb. range, anglers were fortunate to land one tuna in their combined catch. Best bet to catch fish was to try off the bottom.
Inshore there was some action on jack crevalle and roosterfish, limited as it was, we did hear of a couple of larger sized roosterfish hooked into off of the San Jose del Cabo hotel zone, still early in the season for these popular gamefish. Quite a few whales still being sighted, though this is usually now the tail end of the annual migration for these mammals, they well be heading back north soon.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 86 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 6 striped marlin, 2 wahoo, 3 dorado, 29 yellowfin tuna, 5 pompano, 17 amberjack, 23 cabrilla (leopard grouper), 32 huachinango, 45 yellow snapper, 16 barred pargo, 9 island jack, 18 sierra, 16 jack crevalle,8 roosterfish, 8 bonito, 18 black skipjack and 95 triggerfish.
Good fishing, Eric