Anglers –
September 13, 2015
This week started off with the passing of Hurricane Linda within several hundred miles from the Los Cabos area, this system gained category three status as it followed a path parallel with the Peninsula, before turning further west and then weakening. The main impact felt in our region was first off the closure of all port activities for both Tuesday and Wednesday, as ocean swells became stormy and dangerous, with seas reaching 15 ft., winds were never too strong, some gusts up to 40 mph. There was some much needed rainfall recorded, scattered, hard squalls at times in isolated areas, on and off, as the outer bands of Hurricane Linda were holding quite a bit of moisture, some areas reported up to 3 inches of rain. Local Ports reopened on Thursday morning and each day since has become calmer, though there has been a strong current running, which contributed to greener water conditions. With weather now settled down, we expect conditions to rebound quickly. Of course we are now in the midst of the stretch in peak tropical storm season where things can change rapidly over night, at this time no new named storms are to the south, there is one area of low pressure that we will be monitoring closely for further development. With local water temperatures now averaging from 84 to 88 degrees, conditions are still ripe for rapid storm formation if environmental conditions dictate.
This is always the most tropical and humid time frame of the season, though with a couple days of cloud cover and some rainfall, this was a welcome relief from so much direct sun which had been prevailing, we can actually start to feel the first signs of Fall Season in the air. The busy season will be starting within a matter of weeks, time to prepare for the crowds of anglers that are scheduled to arrive.
Charter fleets recently have been concentrating on the grounds from Santa Maria, Red Hill, Gordo Banks, La Fortuna and Iman Bank. Although inshore baitfish are now not as abundant as pre-storm, commercial pangeros were able to net sardinas around the marina jetty area and just offshore they were jigging up caballito as another bait source option. On the fishing grounds themselves there were bolito, skipjack and chihuil schooling, these were being used for whole and cut baits. Yet another option was to purchase slabs of giant squid for use as additional chum and chunk, always a good deal when specifically targeting the giamt yellowfin tuna. Red Hill had been a hot spot for the schooling tuna, lots of fish up to 20 pounds, though this action then shifted south towards Santa Maria. Before the storm the water had been clean and the wahoo action was good, especially to the north of Punta Gorda, many wahoo to 30 pounds were landed as anglers trolled lures and baitfish. Now we wait for clean water to return and we do ecpect that action will pick back up.
The larger grade of yellowfin tuna are still holding around the Gordo Banks, first day out after the storm there was a 145 lb. and 294 lb. tuna brought in to La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos. Also a blue marlin was landed from a 23 ft. panga based out of Puerto Los Cabos Marina that was estimated to weigh over 700 lb., it was taken on a large live bait on the Iman Bank. There was also a 300 lb. class black marlin landed, as well as a number of sailfish and striped marlin, so definitely some variety available.
Strong currents made it tough to fish the bottom structure, though a handful of snapper, pargo species were landed, both on baits and yo-yo jigs, as currents slack these fish should become more active. Dorado were once again few and far between, after a flurry of action the past couple of weeks, as water cleans back up, we should see more of these dorado in the fish counts.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 62 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 black marlin, 2 blue marlin, 9 sailfish, 4 striped marlin, 22 wahoo, 17 dorado, 310 yellowfin tuna, 25 white skipjack, 10 bonito, 18 rainbow runner, 5 dogtooth snapper, 10 yellow snapper, 7 cabrilla and 8 barred pargo.
Good fishing, Eric