March 30, 2008
Anglers -
This was a very busy week throughout all of Baja, as families enjoyed the traditional Easter Week vacation, with the majority of the population spending several days camping on their favorite beaches. With the annual carnival also going on at the same time in downtown San Jose del Cabo, this created some major traffic disturbances at times. Just like clockwork the start of spring time brought with it warmer weather, daytime highs were reaching the mid 80s and there was very little wind to report. Ocean water temperatures were ranging 64 to 68 degrees closer to shore, with some warmer currents to 72 degrees found 20 miles of more offshore.
Only moderate crowds of tourists are now visiting the area, it seems the slow economy in the United States is having a direct impact on people spending lavishly on vacations.
Those persons that are making the trip are enjoying pristine weather conditions. It will only be a matter of time before the water temperatures warm and the popular pelagic game fish return to our local fishing rounds.
Striped marlin action is finally turning around, after being dead for several weeks. Good numbers of stripers are being seen in areas 10 to 15 miles from shore. One problem has been limited supplies of their preferred bait, live mackerel. The best success was for anglers that used mackerel, though a percentage of the marlin were also striking on trolling lures. We look for this action to improve soon, hopefully the bait supplies does the same. Yellowfin tuna are becoming more common as well, though they remain offshore, an average of 20 plus miles from shore, moving with porpoise. The yellowfin have been striking on feathers, cedar plugs and sardinas, weights have ranged from10 to 30 pounds. A few dorado to 25 pounds are also being encountered in the same offshore waters where the warmer and cleaner water was found.
Local panga fleets found the best inshore action from Palmilla to Chileno. Off Palmilla Point there was a consistent bite for yellowtail, most of these fish were in the five pound class, but everyday there are a handful of these jacks being landed that are in the 15 to 30 pound class. These fish are striking mainly on yo-yo iron jigs in water depths ranging from 100 to 160 feet. A handful of amberjack are mixed in the fish counts and there are quite a few of the scrappy fighting Mexican bonito being hooked into on the same rock piles. In recent day the giant Humboldt squid, weighing to over 50 pounds, have been dominating the early morning action, actually being a nuisance, as anglers were not able to keep them off of their jigs, cannot even imagine how active these squid would be if a person went out at night with lights, sure would not want to fall overboard. Most charters are averaging over 15 fish caught in combination, most of them not huge, but nevertheless very good action and good eating as well.
The sierra action made a rebound this past week, significant number of these speedy mackerel in the 2 to 6 pound range moved into the area from Westin Regina to Chileno, trolling with sardinas was the most productive method, some anglers caught them on jigs and drifting with dead bait. This is an area that the rouge gill net fleet based towards the East Cape area has not frequented due to it being so visible to the public. Small roosterfish and some good sized jack crevalle are rounding out the inshore action.
The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 79 charters for the week, with anglers reported a fish count of:
2 mako shark, 3 hammerhead shark, 202 Mexican bonito, 21 amberjack, 535 yellowtail, 19 pargo, 464 sierra, 24 roosterfish,16 yellowfin tuna and 88 giant squid.
Good fishing, Eric
