August 30, 2009
Anglers –
The month of August is turning out to comparably busy for sportfishing fleets, mainly for the reason that the weather conditions have help up and the few tropical storms that have developed have headed off distantly on westerly paths. This week we watched Tropical Strom Ignacio form offshore of Manzanillo, but it followed the same course off to west before paralleling the Baja Peninsula some 800 miles offshore, at this time it has been downgraded to a depression, though Southern California beaches are likely to see increased swell activity in the coming days. There was increased tropical cloud cover locally, particularly over the mountains, where there were isolated thunder storms daily, but so far none of the rainfall has been felt on the coastal plains. Plenty of heat and humidity, heat index has been averaging 105 to 110 degrees each day. There was a slight cooler feeling recently during the early morning hours, showing signs that fall weather is not too far away. At this time we are cautiously monitoring the progress of Hurricane Jimena which has developed rapidly into the season's first really powerful storm and is forecast to follow a path taking in just to the west of the lower Baja Peninsula. This is definitely a storm system that all local interests should taken seriously and make preparations accordingly.
Ocean conditions varied as usual, this summer seems to be harder than normal to predict, choppier seas that what we generally see during the summer, some days from the north, east or south, but overall the ocean has been calmer in the direction of the Sea of Cortez and water temperatures have ranged from 80 to 86 degrees. The swift current running towards the south has weakening and shifted direction some. Live sardinas are being netted in the vicinity of the Puerto Los Cabos Jetties, though with higher surf conditions coinciding with low tides, netting the bait has become more time consuming for the commercial pangeros in order to sufficient supply the entire fleet of sportfishing charters. These bait fish have been worth waiting for because the more consistent action on the local fishing grounds for both yellowfin tuna and dorado have come on these baits.
The Iman Bank has remained the hot spot and has also become more crowded, with charters boats coming as far as from the East Cape Region to get into the action. Some of these larger boats need to make more of an effort to practice common sense courtesy rules of fishing and not troll their lures directly through the chum lines of the local panga fleets that are patiently drift fishing for the yellowfin that have now become increasingly more finicky and are not interested in striking on lures in this particular area. The yellowfin tuna which are averaging 30 to 80 pounds are striking on lighter 40 to 60 pound leaders more readily, hitting on a combination of techniques, from slow trolling with larger bolito bait fish, which are caught by trolling with small hoochie skirts on the same fishing grounds, to drift fishing with either live or dead sardinas. Some days the larger baits work best, while at other times either the live or dead fly lined sardinas prove to be more productive. The tuna at times would come up and appear to feeding on the surface, but this did not always mean they were easy to hook into, anglers required patience and a persistent effort using various bait set ups to account for average catches from one to three yellowfin per charter.
Dorado were found in greater numbers than were the tuna, in the same spots, as well as closer the further from shore. The majority of the dorado now being found were under fifteen pounds, but there were also some larger bulls to 45 pounds accounted for, more so offshore while trolling larger baits or lures, but also on sardinas where the tuna were being targeted. A handful of striped marlin up to 150 pounds and sailfish to 100 pounds were hooked into as well on the smaller baitfish.
Not much action found close along the beaches now, as the mullet bait fish have moved out and higher surf has become more consistent. The bottom fishing has been hit of miss as well, but a few pargo, amberjack, Mexican bonito and cabrilla have been hitting the decks by the few anglers that are giving this a try when the current allows, yo-yo jigs and larger baits have worked best for this.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 48 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 9 sailfish,4 striped marlin, 8 hammerhead, 304 dorado, 72 yellowfin tuna, 8 cabrilla, 9 amberjack, 3 dogtooth snapper, 15 pargo, 5 roosterfish and 22 bonito.
Good Fishing, Eric
