May 25, 2008
Anglers -
Only four weeks to go and we will be into the official summer season, weather is always somewhat unpredictable this time of year, some wind out of the north and then some very gusty winds from the south, actually at times making it unfishable on the Pacific waters off of Cabo San Lucas and closing the port on Wednesday and Thursday, while on the same days, just 20 miles to the north the ocean conditions were not bad. Water temperatures had been steadily warming, ranging from 75 to 80 degrees, warmest currents being found north of the Gordo Banks. The winds from the south, which blew as hard as forty to fifty miles per hour, pushed in cooler Pacific and dropped water temperatures by ten degrees over night. Now since the winds have resided the water conditions are slowly improving, but this does not happen in one day, can take at least several days for it to return how it was. Crowds of anglers did increase some this past week, enjoying mostly sunny skies with highs ranging from 75 to 85 degrees, though the number of tourists visiting the Los Cabos area is still not like past spring seasons.
Over this full moon period the surf conditions also increased, this made it more difficult for the commercial pangueros to net sardinas, which typically congregate inside the surf zone. Supplies were somewhat limited, but still it was enough for anglers to catch some quality sized fish. Much of the action in recent days has been centered on the Inner Gordo Banks. This is where schools of yellowfin tuna had moved in. Despite there being several commercial seiners working this spot for a few days, they apparently did not capture all of the yellowfin. There were significant numbers of tuna seen feeding on the banks, most of them being in the 20 to 50 pound class. With the abundance of baitfish, squid, bolito and others being prevalent, as well as combined with the very bright moon, this had the fish finicky at times, one day they would hardly seem interested in any bait offerings, at least during the morning hours, but then the very next day they would go back on the bite, readily striking the sardinas. Tuna are feeding machines and you really never know when they will go on the chew, though one thing is for sure they will be feeding at some point during the day or night. Anglers found that drifting with either live or fresh dead sardinas was the most productive technique, with average catches ranging from one to six tuna per charter.
Mixed in with the tuna counts were a few varieties of pargo, yellowtail, cabrilla, amberjack, striped marlin, sailfish and dorado. Dorado were still mostly found in ones or twos, though sizes were generally very respectable, with the majority of the fish being in the 15 to 25 pound range. Marlin bite slowed over the full moon phase, but still many charters accounted for one, two or three marlin during a days outing, action centered from the area off of Chileno to Desteladera. Sailfish were found scattered throughout the area, more numbers moving in with the warmer waters, some sails were encountered within one mile of shore.
Inshore action included a mix of sierra, jack crevalle, roosterfish and bonito. Numbers of roosters were down, perhaps because of the higher surf that stirred up the inshore conditions. There are more schools of mullet now migrating into local waters and this most certainly will attract the larger roosterfish in the coming weeks, as well as the gladiator dogtooth snappers.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 66 charters for the week with anglers reporting a fish count of:
1 wahoo, 9 sailfish, 11 striped marlin, 2 mako shark, 96 yellowfin tuna, 42 dorado, 12 cabrilla, 79 various pargo species, 15 yellowtail, 11 amberjack, 13 jack crevalle, 19 Mexican bonito, 22 roosterfish and 34 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric
