May 10, 2009
Anglers –
The recent over reaction to the swine flu situation has proved to be very costly to the entire country of Mexico and particularly so for tourist related businesses. Though it appears that the worst is now over and that the virus was not as serious as once predicted it might be. This is now an ideal time to visit the Los Cabos area, clear sunny skies, highs temperature about 85 degrees and though the ocean conditions have still been a bit unpredictable the fishing action has been steady enough to please most serious anglers. Water temperatures were now on a warming trend, averaging 73 to 77 degrees, clarity have fluctuated as strong currents flow in out of certain areas. Finding any live sardinas has not been easy and most common live bait now available has been caballito. There have been more bolito appearing on the fishing grounds and they are also being used for bait.
Concentrations of squid have been keeping the striped marlin full and they have been off the bite, being found spread out from Cabo San Lucas towards the East Cape, but not always easy to catch. Though early in the week anglers found good action on stripers found straight out of San Jose del Cabo, up to five marlin per charter, striking on trolled lures and caballito, most of this action was 5 to 15 miles offshore. Towards the later part of the week the water was more off colored and the bite slowed back down.
Local panga fleets fished areas from Palmilla to Iman, doing a combination of jigging off the rock structure, trolling bait and lures on the surface. They found mixed action for amberjack, pargo, cabrilla, yellowfin tuna, bonito, wahoo, roosterfish, yellowtail and dorado. Great variety, but the action was changing day to day as where the best action was found. Tuna were located mixed with fast moving porpoise at times and on other occasions they were encountered by blind strikes while fishing near structure, most of the tuna that were hooked into were in the 20 to 50 pound range.
The most common species found off the bottom were amberjack, some of them weighing to over 30 pounds, cabrilla to 20 pounds, pargo to 15 pounds and a handful of yellowtail in the 10 to 20 pound class. At times the amberjack were found feeding on the surface, very fun fish on lighter tackle.
Roosterfish were striking on trolled caballito or mullet off various beach stretches, some lager fish up to forty pounds were accounted for, catch and release. One of the better areas was from Punta Gorda to La Salina, we look for this action to break loose in the coming weeks, a few dogtooth snapper and African pompano are also showing in the mix.
Dorado were scarce, strange there were more of these fish being found when the water was cooler, might be that the baitfish are now scattered and so are these fish, some fish in the 10 to 25 pounds range are being found, but they have not been numerous.
A few wahoo were appearing in the warming waters, fish to 30 pounds were found scattered throughout the La Fortuna to Iman fishing grounds, striking on rapalas, skirted lures and yo-yo iron.
The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 47 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of: 9 hammerhead shark, 2 mako shark, 14 striped marlin, 19 yellowfin tuna, 13 yellowtail, 10 dorado, 7 pompano, 23 cabrilla, 44 amberjack, 18 Mexican bonito, 15 roosterfish, 5 wahoo and 38 pargo.
Good Fishing, Eric
