January 20, 2008
Anglers -
January is usually a month when crowds of visitors are only moderate, this season is starting off even slower than that, possibly the slower U.S. economy is cutting travel budgets and this will most certainly hurt local businesses that deal directly with the tourist trade. All we can do is hope this is temporary and that people that live in areas that are prone to freezing temperatures will want to travel where there is some warm sunshine. The weather pattern continued with dominating winds blowing from the north, not quite as strong as in previous weeks, but nevertheless averaging 10 to 15 miles per hour, these winds have unpredictably been switching from out of the south at times. Skies have been mostly clear and sunny, though daytime highs are not exactly blazing, this past week highs averaged about 75 degrees, lows were near 50 degrees most mornings, though early on Wednesday a reading of 43 degrees was reported from the San Jose del Cabo Arroyo area.
The unprecedented hot striped marlin bite continued on the Pacific banks and with each passing week more stripers are now moving around into the lower Sea of Cortez. The water temperature now ranged from a low of 67 degrees north of Punta Gorda to 72 degrees off of Chileno to the Golden Gate Banks. Schools of mackerel were plentiful and were the choice of bait for offshore fishing, which was now mainly for striped marlin, 10 to 15 miles from shore, cruisers fishing the waters around the 95 spot were reported an average of one of two marlin per day, an occasional dorado or mako shark mixed in their overall catches.
Panga fleets launching from the Puerto Los Cabos La Playita area were concentrating most of their efforts some 20 miles to the north off of Vinorama. Earlier in the week before continued cool northern winds cooler the waters off even more than they had been, there had been a decent bite for yellowfin tuna ranging up to 20 pounds, they were found by trolling smaller sized Rapalas and then others were chummed up with live sardinas, but this bite now slowed to a standstill and it was black skipjack and bonito that were dominating the catches in recent days. The Mexican Bonito which are quite good eating when properly cared for, similar to football sized yellowfin tuna, have been thick on the same rock piles where normally we would find more snapper and amberjack action, they are not giving these other species a chance, just too aggressive, striking on yo-yo style iron jigs throughout the water column, from the surface, mid-water to off the bottom. Most certainly the grouper, amberjack and snapper have to feed at some point, but it has not been during the morning hours, as only a scattering of them have been mixed in with the bonito counts.
Most of the roosterfish were in the 4 to 8 pound class and were being released, though a couple of larger specimens up to 20 pounds were reported.
The latest progress report on the Puerto Los Cabos marina construction is that the only work really going on at this time appears to be in the area designated for the panga fleets, they are coming very close to completion here and all but one or two of the local panga fleets now have their boats moored off of the slips.
The combined panga fleets from La Playita sent out approximately 57 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 6 striped marlin, 14 dorado, 74 yellowfin tuna, 248 Mexican bonito, 22 amberjack, 66 red snapper(huachinango), 19 cabrilla,33 sierra, 95 roosterfish and 330 black skipjack.
Good Fishing, Eric
