June 21, 2009
Anglers –
The official summer season has now started, with the recent heat wave and high humidity it feels as though we are all in for a long hot one. The first tropical depression formed mid week and ended up dissipating over the mainland near Mazatlan,
bringing only a few scattered isolated rain squalls to Southern Baja.
Ocean conditions varied this past week, some winds out of the north and south, water temperatures varied from 73 degrees on the Pacific to as high as 88 degrees in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. The cleanest blue water was now being found to the north of Punta Gorda. Most of the fishing action is now centered on the areas from the Gordo Banks, La Fortuna, Iman, San Luis to Vinorama. There have been good supplies of mullet and cabalitto, but sardinas continue to be scarce.
The fishing grounds have had increased concentrations of bolito, which proved to be very productive baitfish for a variety of gamefish.
The inshore fishing has been mainly for smaller roosterfish, also a few other species of jacks, but with the lack of smaller baitfish most charters are concentrating on the offshore fishing grounds, though most of the time they have been within a few miles of shore. Dorado have increased in numbers, though still not wide open and unpredictable as where they are being found from day to day. The sizes have ranged from juveniles up to 50 pound bulls and the fish have been striking lures and various baits with similar percentages. Trolling with live or dead bolito has produced some of the larger specimens. Most charters are accounting for a couple of dorado, sometimes many more than that, important to practice catch and release on especially the smaller females.
Yellowfin tuna are being seen breezing with traveling porpoise, but more often they have not been interested in striking, some yellowfin were taken by blind strikes, but still with no consistency, we look for these fish to become much more prevalent as the summer season gets into full swing.
As water temperatures dropped back down from 88 to about 82 degrees around the areas from San Luis to Vinorama in the last couple of days this has triggered the elusive wahoo to become more active. Anglers that targeting these speedsters with the properly rigged terminal tackle, mainly higher speed trolling lures such as Rapalas and skirted lead heads, reported having multiple strikes and the fish that were landed weighed in the 20 to 40 pound range.
The billfish action improved in recent days, despite the warmer water there were good numbers of striped marlin hanging around, striking on trolling lures and baits, particularly eager to strike on bolito. A black marlin that was estimated to weigh close to 500 pounds was hooked into on the Outer Gordo Bank by panga skipper Jesus Pino, who along with his clients battled the fish for a couple hours before passing it off to his brother Chame Pino on another super panga, they were using 50 pound main line and a 100 pound fluorocarbon leader, after fighting the monster for five hours they had it right at the panga but it was still too strong, it went back down deep, then after applying maximum pressure in a win or lose deal they had it back to the boat and ended up breaking the line right at the knot, oh well the fish lived to fight another day and it made for a great fish story.
Not much off the bottom recently, an occasional cabrilla, amberjack, pargo or yellowtail, but most anglers have preferred to find some cooler air by trolling lures or bait, it is becoming a bit too warm to drift fish.
The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 44 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a total fish count of: 7 yellowfin tuna, 55 dorado, 8 striped marlin, 3 sailfish, 13 amberjack, 21 various pargo species, 2 golden jack, 3 island jack, 18 jack crevalle, 8 cabrilla, 4 sierra, 12 bonito, 3 yellowtail, 17 wahoo and 28 roosterfish.
Good Fishing, Eric
