June 8, 2009
Anglers –
Southern Baja is welcoming light crowds of tourists, great to time to visit, weather prefect, not too warm yet, sunny days in the mid 80s. Oceans have been calmer in the direction of San Jose del Cabo and water temperatures are now close to 80 degrees is this region, though the Pacific
is much cooler than this. Warmest currents are definitely being found in the direction of the Sea of Cortez.
Anglers found supplies of live mullet, caballito and limited sardinas available. Schools of bolito and smaller skipjack are becoming more prevalent on the fishing grounds. Offshore fishing action has been dominated by striped marlin, most often being found 6 to 20 miles from shore, striking on lures and live bait, but often times not eager to bite. Some dorado are being encountered scattered through the area, hitting various lures and baits, though not in big numbers, there has been chance at catching a 40 pound plus bull. We expect with more baitfish appearing on the banks that more dorado and other gamefish will be following. Only a few tuna being reported, on some days there are reports of fish seen feeding on the banks, but more often they are not striking, just an occasional tuna in the 10 to 30 pound class being accounted for, these fish were taken on either dead or live sardinas, no consistent bite.
Concentrations of mullet are now moving inshore, this has attracted more roosterfish, jacks and snapper. Slow trolling with mullet in the shallow rocky areas north of Punta Gorda has been producing great opportunities of hooking into and trying to actually bring to the boat a monster sized dogtooth snapper. Anglers using 50 to 80 pound main line with fluorocarbon leader of 80 to 120 pound have reported consistent success. Amberjack and grouper have also been mixed in with the big snapper, fun to see these aggressive fish attack the slow trolled surface bait and you better be ready to apply as much pressure as possible in order to keep from being cut off by the rocks.
Palmilla Point has been producing good morning action for sierra, yellowtail, amberjack, bonito and even a few dorado. Concentrations of juvenile sized roosterfish are schooling along the beach stretches, only a few larger roosterfish being reported, this could change at any time, peak rooster time is now.
There were several wahoo reportedly caught this past weekend in the area of La Fortuna to Iman, one of them weighed close to 70 pounds and hit on a small sized Rapala being used to target bonito. Maybe conditions will become just to the wahoo's liking prefer and go on the bite. In years past there could be some incredible wahoo action found on the inshore banks during late spring, early summer season.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 58 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 4 wahoo,
8 striped marlin, 11 dorado, 4 yellowfin tuna, 215 roosterfish, 23 sierra, 16 yellowtail, 25 amberjack, 44 bonito, 27 dogtooth snapper, 10 cabrilla, 104 various pargo species, 18 hammerhead shark and 15 jack crevalle.
Good Fishing, Eric
