June 15, 2008
Anglers –
Ocean conditions varied this past week, strong southern currents, winds from the Pacific, cooler dirty water, swells and marine haze all contributed to slowing down the offshore fishing action. Water temperatures ranged from 68 degrees on the Pacific and along the shoreline off of San Jose del Cabo to 76 degrees north of Los Frailes, inside the Sea of Cortez. At this time the unpredictable weather patterns seems to have stabilized and conditions are improving, so we do anticipate offshore action to rebound, this is the time of year when changes can occur rapidly. There were abundant supplies of sardinas and also a mix of mullet, caballito and mackerel available. The fishing grounds had concentrations of bolito, which proved to be productive baitfish for all of the larger gamefish. The majority of the charter fleets have been reporting the most consistent catches from areas north of the Gordo Banks.
Striped marlin were the most common catch offshore, being found from 3 to 10 miles from shore, weighing up to 150 pounds, striking on lures and various trolled or cast baits. Dorado numbers were limited, most of the fish found in recent days were taken on trolled bolito off of the San Luis to Desteladera area, sizes ranged to 40 pounds. On Tuesday, this same region produced a few quality sized yellowfin tuna, including one 180 pound specimen that hit on a mackerel bait for the Picante Fleet, another 70 pound yellowfin was taken from a East Cape cruiser. A bit of encouraging news to have some reports of tuna moving back into the area.
With the offshore conditions not very favorable for much of this past week, fleets found the more productive fishing closer to shore, particularly for the local La Playita Panga Fleets. While trolling with sardinas and mullet anglers reported catches of dogtooth snapper (though more of these brutes were lost than actually landed), sierra, pompano, yellow snapper and roosterfish. Smaller sized roosterfish were swarming the shoreline, gradually more of the larger specimens are also starting to appear, they are running alittle late this season, but the next couple of weeks will certainly be the time that the big roosters make their appearance off of San Jose del Cabo beaches. This is the tale end of the season for sierra and also the time when more of the larger specimens of the year are accounted for, a commercial panguero caught a sierra weighing over 15 pounds on Wednesday.
On the days that weather conditions allowed anglers to effectively drift fish the rock piles, they accounted for a handful of cabrilla, pargo and amberjack, most of these fish were taken on yo-yo iron and a couple of the amberjack were pushing upwards of 30 pounds.
The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita / Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 49 charters for the week, with anglers reported a total fish count of: 4 yellowfin tuna, 9 dorado, 19 striped marlin, 14 amberjack, 68 mixed pargo species, 17 pompano, 13 cabrilla, 64 sierra, 112 bonito and 245 roosterfish.
Good Fishing, Eric