Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
July 27, 2008
Anglers –
Crowds of tourists visiting the Los Cabos area are relatively light and will most likely continue at this level until the more popular fall season. This July has shaped up to be one of the warmest and humid in recent history, this has been a result of the nonstop tropical storm develop from the south, though much needed rainfall has not been received, the series of storms have been close enough to stir up ocean conditions and raise the humidity to sweltering levels. The most recent storm system is named Tropical Storm Genevieve, it has proved to be the weakest and more distant of any that have passed to the south the past couple of weeks.
Ocean conditions have now settled, clean blue water is being found within several miles of shore, water temperatures have surged and are now averaging from 82 to 86 degrees. Anglers have reported seeing large schools of flying fish on the fishing grounds and everything has appeared ripe for wide open action, the major problem though has been that catches have not been up to Cabo standards for what they would normally be like at this time of year. No one has an exact answer as to what the reason might be, rather they are optimistic that fish counts should steadily improve at any time. This is based mainly on the fact that to the north, off of the East Cape, La Paz and Loreto regions catches were consistent, particularly for nice sized dorado.
It has been difficult to find any bolito in recent days, they are one of the preferred baitfish of the larger gamefish. Perhaps the strong current that has been pushing through the area is keeping the baitfish down and once this river like current slacks the action should return to how it should be. Fleets have been relying on structure fish such as amberjack and various pargo species to provide sufficient action, for much of the past week this bite has proved to be tough, too much current to effectively drift over the rock piles. A handful of amberjack and snapper have been accounted for, most of these fish were hooked while working yo-yo jigs up and down off the high spots. This style of fishing can be fun when rewarded with freight train strikes, but can also be endurance testing when there is a strong current and extreme humidity combined with very few strikes.
The high surf conditions had keep boats from trolling the shoreline, but now that swells have diminished this has become another option, though the roosterfish action seems to have tapered off compared to earlier in the month, though several quality roosters in the 30 to 50 pound were accounted for. Dogtooth snapper action has also slowed closer to shore, this is the time when these fish generally migrate back out to the deeper rock structure, so expect to hear more reports of them being hooked up in the deeper waters, but also the current needs to slack for this to happen.
Over the weekend there were increasing numbers of dorado being accounted for, the fish ranged in sizes from 5 to 45 pounds. Trolling with bait resulted in the higher percentage of strikes, though a percentage of fish were taken on trolled lures, including small hoochies that were intended for catching bolito baitfish to be used for slow trolling. Best areas for the dorado now seem to be from the Gordo Banks towards San Luis.
Yellowfin tuna have been reported in very limited amounts, most of them coming on blind strikes from boats targeting billfish further offshore. Marlin action slowed during this latest full moon phase, though quite a few striped marlin were being seen on the surface, it was another story getting them to bite, more sailfish started to appear with the warmer waters.
The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos area reported sending out approximately 41 charters for the past week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 3 sailfish, 2 striped marlin, 1 blue marlin, 5 yellowfin tuna, 59 dorado, 25 amberjack, 23 huachinango (snapper), 33 yellow snapper, 5 pompano, 18 bonito, 6 rainbow runners, 7 hammerhead sharks, 15 jack crevalle, 9 sierra and
29 roosterfish.
Good fishing, Eric
