November 15, 2014
Anglers –
The first week of November we saw late season Hurricane Vance develop and pass a couple hundred of miles to the southeast of Cabo San Lucas, increasing ocean swells and bringing some scattered rain showers, never really amounted to much, one day of charters were cancelled. This week there was another low pressure storm system passing from the south, moving eastward. This system never resulted in much, but did create rough choppy ocean conditions during the first two three days of the week. Now conditions have settled down for the first time in a couple of weeks and anglers are enjoying comfortable days on the water.
Crowds increased during the past couple of weeks, busy times now, which is normal during the weeks before Thanksgiving. Ocean water temperatures still warm for this late in the season, averaging 82 to 84 degrees, this could mean that we will have exotic species in local water through the rest of the year.
As we anticipated, bait supplies were more limited after the big surge in charter pressure and during local tournaments, which put even increased stress on bait schools. There have been sardinas available most days, as well as some caballito, ballyhoo were a bit harder to find, the fishing grounds held skipjack, bolito and chihuil, which were also being used for whole and cut bait. Fishing on the areas north of San Jose del Cabo were more productive for a variety of gamefish while using various baitfish, compared to on trolled lures. Though always a bonus to have some wahoo type lures such as Rapala X-Rap or skirted lead heads for your personal arsenal. Chihuil baitfish have not been easy to come by, but have proved to a bait of choice for wahoo and a few larger grade yellowfin tuna.
The yellowfin tuna action has been more sporadic since the passing of the recent full moon, tuna ranging from 10 to 258 lb. were landed this past week, chance at the bigger cows was still best on the Gordo Banks, though very few of the larger tuna are actually being hooked into. Better action for the smaller 10 to 30 lb. class fish was encountered around the Iman Bank. Crazy bite though, one day the Outer Gordo would be best, then the action would switch to Iman or back to the Inner Gordo Bank. Lots of bonito and various skipjacks mixed on the same grounds.
Best bet for finding wahoo has been near the Iman Bank, either on live caballito and chihuil or on trolled lures, more so on the live bait this past week, a few were hooked on yo-yo jigs. Sizes on the wahoo ranging from small sierra sized models, up towards 60 pounds. Dorado made a rebound this past week, as we saw increased numbers of fish in the 10 to 25 pound range, one day early in the week there was a section of a floating dock found and it was holding schooling dorado, tuna, wahoo and even sharks, the whole food chain., of course the next day no one located the same debris. Schools of dorado were also found north of Punta Gorda, it appears the fish are returning from the Pacific, in the direction of the Sea of Cortez.
Bottom action showed signs of improvement with the calmer days, a handful of cabrilla, snapper, triggerfish and at least one 35 lb. yellowtail was accounted for off of the Gordo Banks. Inshore there were jack crevalle, sierra and a few smaller sized roosterfish.
Billfish bite slowed compared to last week, a few striped marlin were scattered around, though we heard of more numbers on the Pacific.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 138 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 72 wahoo, 315 yellowfin tuna, 135 dorado, 28 bonito, 380 skipjack, 18 cabrilla, 1 yellowtail, 18 sierra, 14 jack crevalle, 4 roosterfish, 18 whitefish and 30 triggerfish.
Good fishing, Eric