June 17, 2012
Anglers -
With Los Cabos now hosting the G20 Summit for world leaders, we are seeing unprecedented security forces operating, with safety for everyone being the highest priority.Through this week we expect traveling delays, due to heavy traffic through road blocks and various closures. With this active military presence seen throughout the area, the weather patterns were almost as dynamic, cool Pacific air flows, gusty at times, swirling from all directions, high temperatures did reach 90 degrees over the weekend ,morning's are still cool, actually very comfortable climate, just has not been what is needed to improve local ocean conditions. With the start of summer season one week away, marine moisture is all there has been, no rainfall in sight, but plenty of sunshine.
Anglers are being confronted with these unfavorable ocean conditions, not so much cooler temperatures, greatest factor being the high chlorophyll levels that is creating greenish brown waters that just do not attract the baitfish which in turn bring in the gamefish. On Terrafin SST charts, the green water was ranging to 40 miles offshore, even there it does not even appear blue. Inshore water temperatures are averaging 70 to 74 degrees, not too cool, just the dirty current has not been what we want to see. This same pattern persists to as far north of Punta Arena, where there is a water break up to 76/78 degrees. So water temperatures are okay, there needs to be a switch in currents, to sweep in cleaner conditions, so anglers can find what they came to expect. There was some encouraging reports of improved ocean conditions outside of San Luis Bank, where on Father's Day local panga boats were participated in an annual event, winning fish was a 36 pound dorado, a 34 pound dorado was second. Now we have heard late notice talk that authorities will be closed the Puerto Los Cabos Marina Port on June 18 & 19, we have not even officially been notified and many charters are scheduled for these dates, anglers have purchased expensive plane tickets, pre paid for all inclusive packages, rented vehicles, gone shopping, spent lots of money, all planning to fish for a day or two even more, now at the very last hour we are supposed to notify that the Port is Closer, refund all payments and say that we are deeply sorry for this poor judgment and baseless decision. This event has been planned for a year, you think local business operators could have be notified of any closures far enough in advance to not disappoint visiting anglers, hopefully there can be reversal of thoughts, otherwise we are all looking at losing more disgruntling tourists.
Not many anglers appear to be in town now, perhaps more would be ready to go fishing if recent reports were more encouraging, ocean conditions have been tough and then having to deal with traffic delays, etc…I believe many people are just hanging out at their resorts and enjoying the isolated relaxation, there are definitely more political diplomats and their entourages than normal tourists.
Early in the week there were limited numbers of striped marlin and dorado found in the cleaner offshore waters, then currents switched again, pushed in browner colored waters and progressively slowed down the action. The best chance at finding action was closer to shore, anglers were slow trolling and drifting with baits such as caballito, mullet or moonfish. Early in the week there was a good bite for amberjack right directly off the PLC Marina rock jetty entrance, especially at first light, one local commercial pangero reported landing a 80 pound amberjack, most of the ambers landed were in the 20 to 50 pound range, fortunate boats had two, three or even four of these quality fish.
During the week the common species found were amberjack, jack crevalle, roosterfish, sierra, pargo and cabrilla. None of these were numerous, but some charters did account for decent catches of three,four or five quality specimens. Roosterfish were congregating more around the jetty area due to higher presence of baitfish, not much bait activity along beach stretches now, as inshore conditions rebound we should see a big influx of mullet.
At this time we are being told by Port Officials that we can no longer fish in this jetty area, guess that was inevitable, being that these boats are fishing where boat traffic is heavy, though now there are more military boats than anything else. It would be nice if these patrol boats acknowledged the Marina's no wake speed limits, these turbo jet PT patrol vessels create heavy wakes, damaging dock structure and have already been reasonable for many snapped dock lines.
Heavy commercial inshore gill net operations continue on both the Pacific side of CSL and north of SJDC. This is an incredibly destructive technique, though is very lucrative for the individuals involved, systematically and indiscriminately trapping any species that swims through this particular shallow zone, including pargo, snapper, roosterfish, cabrilla, parrot fish, pompano, amberjack, sierra and many others, often snagging turtles and even mammals. When this gear does breaks off, it is often encountered drifting with decomposing fish, while continuing to kill others. These fish camps do have legal permits, somewhere up higher in the political chain there has to be someone that realizes what damage this is doing to such a fragile eco system, which will not be able to sustain itself much longer at this rate of decimation. When reporting this situation to local officials, of course no one wants to get involved, this form of fishery needs to be abolished all together, there are alternative methods, this should not be political, we are talking about future resources for generations to come, it is discouraging to witness such negligence.
The combined panga fleet out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 68 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
6 striped marlin, 18 dorado, 12 bonito, 39 amberjack, 9 grouper, 19 cabrilla, 12 jack crevalle, 66 roosterfish, 6 pompano, 32 huachinango, 22 yellow snapper, 20 triggerfish,
10 sierra and 5 pargo colorado.
Good fishing, Eric
