August 13, 2023

We continue to get deeper into the tropical storm season now, up until now we have had a series of storms passing just far enough off to the southwest that they have not made any major impact on Southern Baja. The latest systems were Dora, Eugene and now Fernanda. Last Sunday morning there were some scattered rain showers, quickly passing and the rest of the week was mostly clear, just scattered cloud cover, building over the mountain ranges in the afternoon, the typical late summer patterns. Quite warm now, with high humidity, heat index ranging up to 106 degrees. Light crowds of anglers as well, even though this past week the all around fishing action was much improved.

Anglers were now using mostly strips of squid, especially for the chances at yellowfin tuna near Vinorama. There have been limited supplies of caballito and sardinas available on some days, ballyhoo  has been another option. Currents have been swift some days, before slacking on others, ocean temperatures now in the upper 80 degree range, no signs of cooling off at all yet.

The main concentration of boats now has been off of Vinorama, boats from the East Cape are also motoring south to these same grounds, as well as all of the San Jose del Cabo charters. Small area with a larger mass of boats everyday, usually somewhere between 30 and 60 boats, puts a lot of pressure on these already finicky yellowfin tuna. This is the main action now, that is why everyone is targeting this area. Average catches ranged up to five tuna per boat and sizes were from 10 to 70 plus pounds. All of these yellowfin were striking on the strips of squid and early in the day before the heavy crowds arrived proved to be the best time to hook up.

There was another bite going on for mostly smaller sized dorado straight offshore of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina, trolling small lures, hoochies and ballyhoo. Rare to find any dorado now over ten pounds though. A handful of charters tried bottom action, more triggerfish than anything else, a few pompano and the highlight were a few dogtooth snapper up to 25 pounds.

Not much being reported along the shoreline, late in the season now for roosterfish. Billfish action was very spread out, heard better reports from the Pacific grounds, not many many charters on our grounds were even trying for marlin, since the tuna bite finally improved and everyone was hot after this bite, heavy pressure was on. It is the time of year we usually see the season’s first black marlin showing up around the Gordo Banks, though supposedly their favorite food fish, the football sized yellowfin tuna have yet to show on these grounds.

Good Fishing, Eric–