August 16, 2009
Anglers –
Early in the week there was a scenario where every afternoon local thunderstorms would develop over the mountainous region just to the north of San Jose del Cabo, heavy rainfall fell in isolated areas, but this precipitation never did reach the coastal plane. The month of August continues to be hot and humid, though there also has been a bit more relief with the inreased cloud cover, high temperatures have averaged in the upper 90s. There is a newly developed Tropical Storm named Guillermo, but this system is now some 800 miles to the west/southwest of Cabo San Lucas and besides increasing the humidity and ocean swell some we will not feel any impact from this disturbance. We are now entering the period where the next four to six weeks is the time when historically more hurricanes have made landfall on the Southern Baja, so we will all be watching the forecasts more intensely.
Despite this being the slower season for tourists there have actually been fair numbers of anglers in town. Local San Jose fleets have been concentrating mainly on the fishing grounds from Gordo Banks, San Luis and Iman Banks, this is where more schools of baitfish have been attracting gamefish species such as sailfish, black, blue and striped marlin, dorado, yellowfin tuna, wahoo, skipjack, amberjack, grouper and snapper. Water temperatures have averaged about 85 degrees, clarity has been clear and blue with rolling ocean swells due to distant tropical storm activity. Live sardinas were plentiful around the Puerto Los Cabos Jetties and on the fishing grounds there have been bolito available to catch by trolling small hoochie type jigs, though they have become scarcer this past week, but worthwhile to put in the effort and time to catch because the greater percentage of quality hook ups have come on these larger baitfish.
Average daily catches per charter have consisted of one to three yellowfin tuna of 40 to 80 pounds per boat and 3 to 10 dorado mixed in. The majority of the dorado now being caught are schooling size, under twenty pounds, only an occasional larger bull is being encountered, unlike in previous weeks when most all of the dorado being encountered were over 30 pounds. Also more dorado are now found closer to shore than further offshore. The same areas where the bolito bait fish are being found have also produced billfish hook ups every day, many times resulting in break offs since anglers were using lighter 60 to 80 pound leaders while targeting the line shy yellowfin tuna.
Not much consistent action coming off the bottom, stronger than usual currents have not helped, but anglers did report a mix of snapper species, including a few of the dogtooth variety pushing the 50 pound mark, some cabilla, grouper and amberjack were also landed to round out catches while drift fishing with bait or working yo-yo jigs.
Local inshore anglers reported a few snook landed recently, mostly in the vicinity of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina, striking on sardinas, mullet and artificials. They also caught corvina, croaker, jack crevalle, roosterfish, barracuda and even a pair of rare Eastern Pacific bonefish than hit on sardinas.
As long as the weather is cooperative we do anticipate the action to only improve in the coming weeks, hopefully the storms will keep their distance and we can avoid any disasters for the rest of the hurricane season.
The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos area sent out approximately 52 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
5 sailfish, 2 striped marlin, 2 blue marlin, 1 black marlin, 5 wahoo,13 hammerhead shark, 5 grouper, 13 cabrilla, 16 huachinango (red snapper),12 roosterfish, 172 dorado, 76 yellowfin tuna, 4 amberjack, 11 jack crevalle and 4 dogtooth snapper.
Good Fishing, Eric
