January 13, 2008
Anglers -
The Christmas and New Year's Holiday season has come to a close, schools are back in session and people are back to work, this means that for the time being the numbers of tourists in Los Cabos is down. For the vacationers that were in town this past week they were treated to an unseasonably wintertime heat wave, there were several days when temperatures reached 90 degrees, clear sunny skies, no wind, light crowds, this meant lots of freedom to get out and enjoy your favorite outdoor activities. Ocean water temperatures continued to be on a cooling trend, now ranging from 67 to 73 degrees, with the warmest currents found straight outside of Cabo San Lucas and coolest areas in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Schools of mackerel baitfish are now migrating into the cooler waters off of San Jose del Cabo, this has also meant that more striped marlin are starting to appear in this same area. Sardinas have become scattered, on most days pangueros have been able to net sufficient supplies, but at times they were searching in different directions, from Cardon, Palmilla and to Santa Maria.
Striped marlin has continued to be the main target species offshore, now being found throughout a wide area, from the banks on the Pacific to inside the Sea of Cortez, mackerel has been the bait of choice, though the fish are also striking on smaller sized skipjack and artificial lures. Sizes are ranging from 80 to 140 pounds. There have been a few mako sharks found on the same marlin grounds, most of them in the 50 pound class. There were reports of a few wahoo taken in the warmer waters off of Cabo, but none that we know of from the cooler northern areas. Dorado counts are steadily dropping off, this is the usual trend for this time of year, as these tropical fish prefer to migrate towards the south in search of warmer currents. There are still some smaller schools of dorado in the region, striking on bait and lures and averaging 5 to 15 pounds.
Despite the cooler inshore waters the fishing action close to shore has not been producing much consistent action, at least in the direction of San Jose del Cabo, when more schools of baitfish appear this should attract the sierra, pargo and jacks. Bottom fishing has starting out sluggishly as well, the north winds did not help, but now that they have at least temporarily slacked maybe there will be some better counts of amberjack, yellowtail, snapper and cabrilla. There was a day over last weekend when the huachinago (snapper) made a good showing in the La Fortuna area, but the next day they were not interested.
The yellowfin tuna action remained in the areas from Punta Gorda to Vinorama, seemed to vary each day on what time of the morning and where the fish would come up. In recent days the best action was found three to five miles outside of Vinorama, the tuna were not really interested much in live bait and preferred trolled Rapalas, this was a very long run for fleet launching even from the closest area of La Playita, but did produce average catches of 3 to 8 tuna per boat in the 10 to 16 pound range.
The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita sent out approximately 47 charters for the week, with anglers reported a fish count of: 13 striped marlin, 3 mako sharks, 33 dorado, 22 bonito, 34 red snapper (huachinango), 11 amberjack, 13 cabrilla, 19 sierra and 105 yellowfin tuna.
Good Fishing, Eric