Anglers –
March 17, 2018

With the official start to the spring season not set until next week, the weather is already feeling much warmer, more like mid to late spring. Mostly clear sunny skies, with high temperatures up to 87 degrees. Winds were moderate, with most of the winter north winds now over with, lows in the morning not so chilly in recent days, a jacket is barely needed. The ocean water temperature is averaging in the 73 to 75 degree range and is very clean and blue within a couple of miles of shore. Waves of spring breakers are arriving, especially on the beach resorts of Cabo San Lucas, but other groups of families are making efforts to at least try their luck fishing for a day or two.

This will be the final period for the annual whale migration, as with this warming trend these mammals will now begin their venture to their northern feeding grounds. Anglers found a wide variety of fish available, but catching was not always a guarantee, the yellowfin tuna action was very limited, they were seeing good numbers of the tuna come up to free chummed sardinas on the La Fortuna Bank, though lots of bait was needed to get these fish into a big enough frenzy that they would bite a baited hook. Going down to as light as 30 lb. leader was necessary. The yellowfin that were landed weighed in the 20 to 45 lb. range. Supplies of sardinas were more limited, as these schools dispersed from the Palmilla area and now being found schooling north near San Luis. More boat pressure and not as much bait available made the bite tougher.

The early part of the week started off with good numbers of dorado, though only a small percentage of these fish were over ten pounds. This action slowed down later in the week, as did the tuna action as well. Over last week and through the first part of the week we saw a wahoo bite develop, most of these fish being found close off of Punta Gorda. Of course there are no secrets these days, and word on this unseasonable action spread like wild flies. Even 100 ft. yachts were trying to get in on the action. The problem is this one particular area is very vulnerable and fragile to excess boat activity. The spear fishermen arrived in numbers as well, we heard of several afternoon trips going out with spear fishermen and killing eight or more wahoo in one outing, a bit of an over kill, too bad the local authorities are not making any effort to deter this exploitation. Just no room for the increased number of rod and reel charters, as well as so many boats now with spear fishermen.

This week there was increased striped marlin activity encountered off of the Gordo Banks region and towards Desteladera. With some balls of mackerel and chihuil baitfish being found on these same grounds, as well as trolling with ballyhoo and artificial lures, decent action for marlin now, with average fish seen being in the 90 to 120 lb. range. With the tuna action being much slower now we expect more anglers might being targeting these billfish.

The bottom action continued to be sporadic, some days decant numbers of mostly smaller snapper, pargo leopard grouper, an occasional amberjack, but with strong currents running, most days this opportunity proved not an easy task and with limited productivity.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 79 charters for this week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 16 wahoo, 25 yellowfin tuna, 11 striped marlin, 132 dorado, 13 yellow snapper, 11 cabrilla (leopard grouper), 24 huachinango (red snapper), 35 bonito, 3 amberjack, 6 barred pargo, 21 sierra and 70 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric