April 17, 2011
As days become progressively longer, with rising daytime temperatures, this is transition time in Southern Baja, when conditions fluctuate from day to. There was a warming trend for a few days, then this switced to cooler winds off of the Pacific, common pattern during spring. Daytime highs ranged from 75 to 85 degrees, an ideal all around climate now. Ocean currents have averaged 66 to 72 degrees, warmer areas found offshore of the Gordo Banks towards Los Frailes. Crowds of tourists are lighter now, as spring break winds down. Though this coming week is the Easter Holiday and the local tradition of camping on the beaches will be in full swing.
More favorable ocean currents were found north of Punta Gorda, warming water to 74 degrees, encouraging with many schools of unidentified baitfish on these fishing grounds, greater numbers of striped marlin were encountered on the surface, often in groups of several fish or more, but these billfish were not showing much interest in biting. Perhaps having so much natural food source the stripers are just not hungry now and with full moon this weekend it is hard to predict what might happen.
There has been some reports of smaller sized yellowfin tuna found traveling with porpoise, Outside of the Gordo Banks and to the north, first boats on the scene were scoring. On Saturday a couple of panga charters scouted areas towards Vinorama and outside of San Luis they encountered schooling yellowfin tuna, they did account for a pair of fifty pound class yellowfin for their efforts, a couple of other strikes were lost. These tuna hit on either sardinas or bolito, which were found near these same fishing grounds. This is a bit of encouraging news and possibly will develop into something more consistent. Still a very hit of miss deal, there have been choppy conditions at times further offshore. Few dorado or wahoo to speak of either. There continued to be consistent action found for sierra along the rocky beach stretches, trolling with sardinas was the most productive method for this.
Drift fishing over shallow water rock piles with sardinas produced a mixed bag of pargo, cabrilla, grouper, amberjack, yellowtail, bonito, triggerfish and pompano. These are all great eating species, most of the fish averaged less than ten pounds, but there were a handful of grouper, yellowtail and amberjack that did top the 30 pound mark, including one 60 pound class grouper. Anglers had varying success using yo-yo style iron jigs, this was harder work, but also this produced a number of quality fish.
Schools of sardinas were concentrated near Palmilla Point, somewhat limited supplies, but available most days and fresh dead sardinas were offered by the $10 bag at the panga docking area in La Playita. No schools of mullet reported yet, still a bit early for them. This is the tail end of whale migration now, actually there have been quite a few sightings recently, but these mammals will all be migrating towards their northern feeding grounds in the coming weeks.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 52 charters this past week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
5 mako shark, 12 hammerhead shark, 3 yellowfin tuna, 13 bonito, 19 amberjack, 29 yellowtail, 6 pompano, 18 pargo, 14 roosterfish, 29 cabrilla, 9 grouper and 165 sierra.
Good fishing, Eric
