Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
October 7, 2007
Gene –
Los Cabos is now gearing up for the busy fall season, increasing crowds of anglers are beginning to filter in, though this season appears to be a little behind schedule in getting going, we do anticipate the normal near capacity crowds to arrive during the next eight week period. The weather has continued to be warm and tropical, highs near 90 degrees, the late evenings and early mornings are cooling off and actually we are entering that time when the climate is ideal. The water temperature has been averaging 83 to 87 degrees throughout the region, clean blue water is being found within several miles of shore. Live sardinas have been plentiful and there has also been a mix of mullet and caballito available. On the offshore fishing grounds there were large schools of skipjack that were also being using as whole and cut baits.
Most of the billfish action reported recently was coming from areas off the Pacific and off Chileno. The area of San Luis did produce some good striped marlin action earlier in the week. Sailfish seemed to be more prevalent in the same areas off of La Fortuna and Iman where fleets were concentrating efforts for yellowfin tuna and dorado. Even some of the cruisers from the East Cape were making the long haul to the vicinity of the Iman Bank to target the all around action that was taking place. Apparently on the two hour ride they were able to jig up giant squid off of Los Frailes without any delay at all and were doing quite well using strips cut off of these squid for bait. The fish counts were slightly down compared to last week, but all in all the fishing would have to be considered very good.
The action varied from day to day, one day it would be dorado that dominated the bite and then the next it would be the yellowfin tuna that were more aggressive, then on other days it was about a equal split between the two species. The fish would strike on various trolled lures, but it was the fresh live or dead bait that they really preferred. The most consistent place proved to be from La Fortuna to the Iman Bank. Anglers reported average catches per boat of about four tuna and five or six dorado, as well as a few nice sized dogtooth snappers, cabrilla and yellowtail snapper mixed in. The majority of the yellowfin tuna that were accounted for weighed in the 15 to 30 pound range, there were a few specimens to over 60 pounds landed. Same with the dorado, most of the fish caught weighed 10 to 25 pounds, but there were a handful of exceptional sized bulls to 40 or 50 pounds also brought in. Some of the dogtooth snapper landed weighed upwards of 50 pounds and they were striking on dead baits drifted over the same rock piles where the yellowfin tuna and dorado were congregating. The larger tuna also seemed to prefer the dead sardinas that were drifted down a little deeper.
The first part of the week saw a handful of wahoo mixed into the daily catches, striking on tuna and dorado type lures, as well as on fly lining sardinas without wire leader. Most of the wahoo landed were smaller sized 20 to 25 pound fish, but nevertheless they were wahoo and were fun fish on the lighter tackle.
The combined panga fleets sent out approximately 83 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of: 8 sailfish, 6 striped marlin, 9 wahoo, 34 cabrilla, 48 yellowtail snapper, 15 dogtooth snapper, 445 dorado and 345 yellowfin tuna.
Good Fishing, Eric
