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