GORDO BANKS PANGAS
December 11, 2022
Good crowds of tourists continue to arrive in Los Cabos, greeted by great weather, clear sunny skies, with highs near 85 degrees. We had patterns of north winds through much of the week, but anglers did well fishing closer to shore in the more protected calmer waters. Ocean swells now very slight and water temperature is averaging about 78 degrees.
Over the recent full moon the schools of caballito seemed to have vanished from inside the marina channel area, so the fleet was now relying more on ballyhoo and if possible catching their own chihuil on the Inner Gordo Banks. Around the corner on the Pacific there are large schools of mackerel and wide open striped marlin action, but that activity has not shifted in the direction of San Jose del Cabo yet. Later this month we expect that these schooling mackerel will migrate into the direction of the Sea of Cortez as they always do, everything is a bit different this season with the ocean temperature being warmer than normal.
Most popular fishing grounds recently have been from Punta Gorda, Cardon and Iman Bank. This is where anglers have been finding good numbers of dorado while trolling lures and various baits. We even saw a few dorado in the 30 lb. range, though most of these do-do’s were in the 6 to 15 lb. class. Wahoo were a main target species as well on these same grounds. Everyday we are seeing varying numbers of wahoo brought in, sizes ranging up to 40 lb.. Some fortunate anglers landed as many as four during a morning outing, though most charters were doing well to find one or maybe two. Of course as is usual more wahoo were hooked up and lost than were actually landed. Oftentimes these ‘hoo were acting very finicky, following the slow trolled baits closely but not wanting to strike the baits. The fresh live chihuil seemed to be their favorite. Others did strike on the rigged ballyhoo, as well as on trolled rapalas of skirted lead heads.
Yellowfin tuna action just was not going on now, we saw a couple of tuna caught this week, incidental catches on the same wahoo and dorado grounds. Would be nice if we saw schools of sardinas rebound, those are always a favored baitfish for chumming and enticing the tuna to feed. With water conditions still so favorable we are optimistic for the fishing to remain steady into the new year.
Only scattered billfish now on our local grounds, as the main action for the stripers is now over on the Pacific. Also not much at all going on off the bottom of along the beach stretches.
Good Fishing, Eric–