May 1, 2011
Anglers –
We noticed a slight increase in spring time crowds traveling to Southern Baja, but still the numbers of visitors are far below normal. The latest upgrade in travel advisories to Mexico by the U.S. state department is definitely not helping the situation. The Los Cabos region is not the area that any of this cartel activity has been reportedly occurring and remains a very safe travel destination for tourists looking to enjoy themselves at one of the many world class resorts.
The weather is now perfect, daytime highs to 85 degrees, clear sunny skies, minimal winds and cooler evenings dropping to 65 degrees. Water temperatures have varied from the upper 60s off of the Pacific up into the mid 70s in the direction of Sea of Cortez, off of San Jose del Cabo.
With weather patterns progressively warming we are now starting to see some long awaited offshore action showing promising signs of breaking wide open. Striped marlin are being found in good numbers anywhere from 10 to 20 miles offshore, anglers found spots of feeders and tailing marlin. Many boats were landing multiple striped marlin per day, the majority of these fish were being hooked up on various bait fish, small percentage were striking on trolled lures. Sizes ranged from 90 to150 pounds. The fishing grounds off of the Palmilla Point area seemed to have the larger concentration of billfish in recent days.
Further north off of San Luis Bank to Vinorama anglers were finding some quality sized yellowfin tuna. No significant numbers yet, but a good sign to see some tuna in the fish counts after such a long absence. Tuna to over 100 pounds were landed, with most of the tuna being in the 20 to 80 pound class. Schools of bolito are congregated on these same fishing grounds and this has been the hot bait for these yellowfin. Anglers were jigging up their up own bolito, then using them to slowly troll the same banks. Tuna were also hooked into while drift fishing with sardinas and on yo-yo jigs. A few nice dorado were also accounted for and there were even a handful of wahoo strikes reported, though most of them resulted in lost fish stories.
Inshore action, which had carried fleets through much of the winter season as the most consistent action available, has continued off the beach stretches between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, though the action has tapered off, with average catches per charter down to anywhere from 2 to 8 fish. Nice to finally have some other options offshore opening up.
In recent days the larger sized yellowtail resumed biting on the Outer Gordo Bank, these yellows were all in the 30 plus pound range, striking on yo-yos and larger baitfish.There were also a mix of cabrilla, amberjack and snapper to round out the bite off of the rock piles.
There were more options for bait now, sardinas, moonfish, caballito, mullet, bolito, chihuil and even some mackerel on limited basis. Things are looking up, ready to bust wide open at anytime, great time to now visit this area, light crowds, ideal weather and a variety of fishing options.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 69 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of: 17striped marlin, 10 hammerhead shark, 32 yellowfin tuna, 5 dorado, 23 yellowtail, 33 amberjack, 54 pargo, 17 cabrilla, 11 grouper, 152 sierra, 15 roosterfish, 18 jack crevalle and 8 pompano.
Good Fishing, Eric
