Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
June 22, 2008
Anglers –
Tourists visiting Southern Baja California were treated to mild late springtime weather conditions. Skies were mostly clear and sunny, though there was a marine haze layer hanging over the ocean, this will commonly happen during periods when cooler water temperatures develop and at the same time land temperatures are warming. Unpredictable winds continued to blow from different directions and until this situation stabilizes the water conditions are slow to return to how they had been in the later part of May. For most of this past week the water temperatures from Cabo San Lucas to Los Frailes ranged 66 to 70 degrees. There were temperature breaks up to 75 degrees found in areas 20 or miles from shore and now inshore waters near Vinorama are on a warming trend. Conditions often change rapidly at this time of year, particularly when the winds from the south that push in the cooler Pacific currents, lay down and let the warmer and cleaner waters of the Sea of Cortez prevail. It is a waiting game and every year seems to play out somewhat differently.
For the smaller cruiser and panga fleets the offshore action came to a standstill this past week and their best option was to fish the bottom rock piles and inshore areas for a mix of species. Using a combination of iron yo-yo jigs and either sardinas or mullet for bait, anglers were catching Mexican bonito, amberjack, huachinango, yellow snapper, cabrilla, sierra, roosterfish and other miscellaneous rockfish. Most of these fish are very good eating, but also they are not the highly sought exotic gamefish that most anglers travel to Baja for. Roosterfish were abundant, but for the most part continued to be the smaller grade of fish under ten pounds, only a scattering of larger specimens reported, most of them coming from the direction of the East Cape. The San Luis Bank produced some of the more consistent action for the local panga fleets, wide open action for bonito up to 8 pounds and at times quality red snapper (huachinango) to 14 pounds and amberjack up to 30 pounds were also accounted for.
The cruisers launching from the Cabo San Lucas Marina in recent days have found pockets of clean warmer waters some 20 to 25 miles straight out of the harbor and were finding good numbers of striped marlin and also a mix of dorado and yellowfin tuna, the tuna were not associated with porpoise, just found by blind strikes on lures, most of them 10 to 15 pound fish, the dorado that were accounted for ranged up to 40 pounds, though the billfish out numbered both dorado and tuna. With the unpredictable ocean conditions and hazy marine fog it was mandatory to be on a faster reliable boat with instruments, at least a good working compass.
East Cape and La Paz have been reporting good numbers of nice sized dorado and now that the warmer water conditions are working back in the direction south of Los Frailes we are expected that charters out of San Jose del Cabo will have improved offshore action in the coming weeks.
The combined panga fleets launching out of the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 48 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of:
1 yellowfin tuna, 6 dorado, 5 striped marlin, 27 amberjack, 274 Mexican bonito, 114 mixed pargo and snapper species, 16 cabrilla, 92 sierra and 185 roosterfish (released).
Good Fishing, Eric
