October 2, 2011
The Eastern Pacific is now calm, late season now for tropical storms to develop, though they have been known to pop up quickly at this time of year, presently the weather is great, still quite warm and humid, light winds, with cooler nights. Hurricane Hilary passed within 400 miles of Cabo San Lucas, before eventually downgrading over cooler waters, ocean swells did increase the first part of the week, but have since already dropped, only scattered reports of measureable rainfall.
Significant increase in numbers of anglers arriving this past week, it seems the fall season is starting early this year. With high stake tournaments just weeks away, anticipation is high. Local teams are beginning to scout out potential jackpot winning fishing grounds and with news of the monster 1,000 lb. class blue marlin landed this past week out of Cabo, this has got the adrenaline flowing even more.
Water temperatures continue to average higher than normal, most of the region is all in the 85 to 90 degree range, warmest areas in the direction of Los Frailes. The passing of Hurricane Hilary created choppy seas, turned over waters closer to shore and really pushed in a powerful current, this contributed to a few days of tougher all around fishing action. Just the past couple of days the conditions have settled and fleets are reporting improved counts of dorado, with yellowfin tuna and other species also in the mix.
Finding sufficient supplies of sardinas became more difficult in the higher surf conditions, with most of the schooling baitfish now congregated off the rocky beaches from Palmilla Point to San Maria. Anglers are also jigging up some jacks and moonfish inside the marina channel.
Action spread out more, charters were heading out in different directions, more numbers of dorado were accounted for while trolling lures and various baitfish, limits were not uncommon, sizes ranged up to 30 pounds, most fish were in the ten pound class. The majority of the more consistent action was found from Santa Maria to the Iman Banks.
Tuna activity dropped way off during the increased swell and current activity, but the past couple days the yellowfin have made a showing off of the La Fortuna area, finicky to strike, but some charters landed as many as four yellowfin tuna, weights ranged from 15 to 60 pounds. Lots of aggressive skipjack, scattered schools of dorado and an occasional sailfish or marlin hook up as well. There was one 130 pound yellowfin landed from a panga that was slow trolling a larger live bait in the deep channel just offshore of the marina entrance at first light, not an everyday occurrence.
Not much steady bottom action found, mainly because of the ragging current, which made it nearly impossible to reach bottom. Now with the slacking current we expect to see more encounters with dogtooth snapper and amberjack.
Early in the week there was some good roosterfish action found right of the marina jetties, anglers were trolling with moonfish, catch and release on many roosters that were as large as 30 pounds. Roosterfish up to fifty pounds were landed in recent days off of the offshore rock piles, a bit unusual, but something we have starting to see more often, roosterfish normally patrol inshore waters, we now see they will travel further offshore in search of a food source.
Only an occasional wahoo now being landed, these fish are still sluggish in the warmer waters, we did hear of a few more wahoo being hooked off of Cabo San Lucas, same areas where dorado were found. The Gordo Banks area also reported a handful of wahoo, sizes up to 45 pounds.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 105 charters for the week, with anglers accounted for: 4 striped marlin, 7 sailfish, 1 black marlin, 5 wahoo, 188 dorado, 48 yellowfin tuna, 7 dogtooth snapper, 9 amberjack, 28 roosterfish, 1 pompano, 26 pargo, 22 bonito and 18 cabrilla.
Good fishing, Eric
