June 28, 2009
Anglers –
With the start of the summer season now upon us it did not take long for the season's first Tropical Storm to develop, the named system of Andres gained strength near the city of Manzanillo, actually becoming a category one hurricane for a brief period. Local interests were following this storm closely as it looked as though it might be headed in the direction of Cabo San Lucas. Though early Wednesday the system encountered unfavorable conditions for further development and quickly dissipated, leaving only sizable ocean swells and high humidity in its wake. The weather earlier in the week was very tropical, with high temperatures around 95 degrees. Ocean water temperatures had averaged around 80 to 82 degrees, clean blue water was being found close to shore. Schools of mullets continue to congregate along the shoreline and sardinas are starting to show back up around the area of the Puerto Los Cabos jetties, though they are very small, the fish did not seem to care though. On Friday the south wind started to blow to 20 plus miles per hour, this pushed in cooler green water (70 degrees) from the Pacific and limited fishing options over the weekend, we are now waiting for conditions to return to how they had been. At this time the warm water line is being found 10 to 12 miles offshore, surely it will once again move close to shore when winds settle down.
Striped marlin and dorado have been the most common catches on the local fishing grounds, with lots of small skipjack and bolito attracting the gamefish. Early in the week the panga fleets out of La Playita encountered a floating section of large diameter rope within a couple miles of shore that was holding smaller baitfish and big numbers of monster sized dorado to over 50 pounds. Anglers that fished this rope quickly limited out and were catching and releasing after that, this type of action for such quality sized fish only happens so often. Of course the rope eventually drifted out of range, but there were many other areas where dorado were found as well, including the Gordo Banks, where everyday there were reports of large bull dorado being landed, several were over 60 pounds, slow trolling with bolito continues to be the hot ticket for finding the big ones.
In recent days yellowfin tuna are being found schooling inshore from La Fortuna to Vinorama, the fish were ranging up to 30 pounds, hitting on the sardinas as well as on smaller sized trolling lures. East Cape boats are making the long run down to this area, apparently there is not much action for them within closer range. Besides the tuna and dorado there were quite a few wahoo being hooked into from this one area while trolling various lures, though all of the boat pressure did made these fish spooky.
Not much action off the bottom lately, only spotty reports of a few snapper, amberjack and cabrilla, more hammerhead sharks than anything else. Inshore there have been good numbers of roosterfish, but the majority of these have been fish in the ten pound class.
The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 74 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a total fish count of: 67 yellowfin tuna, 108 dorado, 27 striped marlin, 5 sailfish, 23 hammerhead shark, 11 amberjack, 28 various pargo species, 15 jack crevalle, 13 cabrilla, 12 sierra, 25 bonito, 4 yellowtail, 12 wahoo and 43 roosterfish.
Good Fishing, Eric
