Anglers –

August 24, 2019

The week started off with calm weather patterns, though far off of Southern Mexico there was a low pressure system that was developing, this season has been very quiet for tropical storm strikes on the Los Cabos region, so everyone was anxious, watching forecasts closely. Starting Thursday morning through Sat. there were local Port closures due to stormy ocean conditions, though this system was name Tropical Storm Ivo stayed over 300 miles away, off to the west, paralleling the Baja coast towards the north. Seas were up to three meters, sporadic wind gusts ranging 15 to 30 mph, scattered thunder showers, with several inches of measurable rainfall received and even more in isolated areas. Great to actually final receive the rainfall, though also unfortunate for anglers who were not able to fish during shut down conditions. Ever ting does look clear for this coming week.

This was a shortened week for sportfishing operations, though the first half of the week was decent, there were caballito, ballyhoo, moon fish and slabs of squid available for bait. Also large schools of baitfish on the same popular fishing grounds, bolito, small skipjack, etc…Main target species were dorado, yellowfin tuna and billfish. Not much off the bottom except some early morning jig action for various pargo, cabrilla and a few amberjack. Most charters were targeting the surface action, with clean blue water being found close to shore and ocean currents in the 80 to 84 degree range. The majority of the charters were working areas from off of Palmilla Point to the Gordo Banks, Iman and San Luis, a few venturing to Vinorama.

Yellowfin tuna were congregated around the Iman Bank and to the inside, though getting them the bite was not easy, seemed he best chances came early in the day, while drift fishing strips of squid, these tuna are finicky, lots of natural food source to gorge on and also becoming wiser to the boat pressure every day, fleets as far away as Buena Vista are fishing these same grounds. Most of the yellowfin tuna were in the 20 to 65 lb., chances at larger though. Anglers were fortunate to land one or two. More numbers of dorado, while trolling various lures and baits, not as numerous as previous weeks, the majority were juvenile sized, with many were being released, a handful of nicer sized keeper dorado in the mix. Also even an occasional wahoo lurking on these same areas, no numbers, but they are in the area.

There were now chances at very large marlin, this is the time of year when the blue and black marlin are found in local waters, attracted by all of the food fish, such as black skipjack, bolito, dorado and smaller yellowfin tuna. There were at least a couple of black marlin up to 400 lb. landed early this week, quite a few blue marlin as well, most were in the 120 to 250 lb. range, striped marlin were hanging around, many small 50 to 70 lb. stripers, trolling lures or bait was the main techniques, on the high spots of covering open blue water.

So we are hoping for more days on the water with better weather and steadily improving action this coming week

The combined sportfishing fleet launching out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out an estimated 38 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 2 black marlin, 9 striped marlin, 7 blue marlin, 115 dorado, 3 wahoo, 22 yellowfin tuna, 4 leopard grouper, 7 Mexican bonito, 5 yellow snapper, 2 barred pargo, 2 pompano, 2 amberjack, 2 dogtooth snapper, 2 roosterfish, 6 jack crevalle and 24 triggerfish.

Good Fishing, Eric