December 3, 2009
Anglers –
As winter conditions settle in across the U.S., tourists visiting Southern Baja are enjoying warm sunny skies, with high temperatures reaching 80 degrees. Crowds are moderate now, common for the first couple weeks of December, after Thanksgiving and before Christmas, always seem to be slack time for traveling, people are gearing their attention to other priorities. The predominant northern wind pattern is now prevailing, so far this has not been too bothersome, though early morning temperatures have dipped into the 50s during recent days. Ocean swells are minimal, clean blue water being found close to shore, water temperatures ranged 78 to 80 degrees throughout most of the region.
Charter fleets were sending boats in directions towards the Pacific and all of the other popular fishing grounds on course toward the Sea of Cortez, from the Gordo Banks to Vinorama. Mid week there were days when north winds did limit options where the local fleets could comfortably and productive concentrate their efforts. There does seem to be a local fall season pattern, that consistently shows the wind increase near full moon and during the immediate days following the full moon phase.
This can also be the time of month when live bait can be harder to obtain. For the past two weeks the schools of sardinas have migrated in a northern direction, being found in the Los Frailes and Cabo Pulmo areas. Pangeros have been leaving in the dark of the early hours in order to make the round trip and bring supplies of live bait to the charter fleet back to the fishing grounds of Iman Bank by 7:30 a.m. Most panga charters would start with trolling with lures early while they waited for the sardine boats to arrive, this worked out well, as some wahoo and dorado were striking on the lures and then with the live sardina bait anglers were able to get into the yellowfin tuna action.
The tuna were hitting on both live and dead sardinas, it was beneficial to have plenty of bait for chumming the yellowfin into surface feeding action. Average sized tuna coming from the Iman Bank area was in the 8 to 15 pound class, but everyday there were some much larger tuna accounted for, mixed in with the same football sized yellowfin were a few fish to 80 pounds. The Gordo Banks also produced some quality sized fish, there has been not much pressure on this spot recently, winds kept the fleet closer to shore for a few days. For the chance at hooking into one of the late season cow sized tuna that have been holding on the Inner and Outer Banks, anglers have used a wide combination of baits, from live bolito, caballito, chihuil and skipjack, to drifting with strips of giant squid, chunks of fresh caught skipjack and chumming with dead sardinas.
Wahoo action continues to be very good for the panga fleets out of San Jose del Cabo, probably the best late fall bite that has been recorded in several years. Iman Bank, La Fortuna and Punta Gorda all were attracting roaming packs of wahoo, that when encountered would readily strike on baits and trolled lures. Live caballito were the most common bait available for wahoo, trap hooking them on light wire leader was the technique used. The newer style Rapala X Rap Magnum continues to be a consistently productive trolling lure for wahoo. Average sized wahoo ran 20 to 30 pounds, but everyday there were fish upwards of fifty pounds or more accounted for. Not everyone was getting lucky on the wahoo, others had tales of cut lines, but a number of anglers, especially the well prepared, landed five or more wahoo during a morning.
Dorado were also a common catch, being encountered in the same areas as were the tuna and wahoo. The dorado were hitting baits and lures, most of them were fifteen pounds or less, but there were still a handful of larger bulls up to 25 pounds mixed in.
Charters were averaging at least a couple of dorado in their overall catch.
Striped marlin are more numerous this season off of San Jose del Cabo, showing up in greater numbers than normal for this time of year. Most likely it will not be long before schools of mackerel move into these same waters, that will only attract more gamefish. Marlin are now being hooked into regularly from the pangas, by anglers that are not even targeting them, within two miles of shore, striking on caballito and sardinas, also at least one marlin reported striking on a chrome casting jig.
Sierra have now moved into local waters in big numbers, particularly along the beach stretches from Chileno to the Presidente Resort, striking sardinas, Rapalas and hoochies, this will be mainstay of the inshore action in the coming months.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 106 charters this past week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
4 sailfish, 14 striped marlin, 286 yellowfin tuna, 114 wahoo, 154 dorado, 16 amberjack,
22 rainbow runner, 116 sierra, 5 roosterfish and 38 bonito.
Good Fishing, Eric
