August 17, 2008
Anglers –
Much of the same story this past week, hot days with high humidity, choppy ocean conditions on the Pacific and calmer seas in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Ocean water temperatures are ranging from 82 to 88 degrees. At this time there is Tropical Storm Iselle building in strength off of mainland coast of Mexico, this system is predicted to follow a northwesterly path keeping it some distance from any land fall, but also could bring some much needed thunder showers to the southern Baja California region in the next couple of days.
Moderate crowds of anglers caught a wide variety of species this past week and overall the action was heating up some, perhaps on the verge of breaking wide open. Earlier in the week there were reports of yellowfin tuna in the 100 pound plus range that were encountered some 20 miles offshore from the Jaime Bank to straight outside of Cabo San Lucas, some of these tuna were found traveling with larger porpoise that were in small pods, other yellowfin were found on blind lure strikes. Smaller football sized tuna are now moving onto the inshore fishing grounds from Red Hill, Santa Maria, La Fortuna and Iman, striking on sardinas and hoochies type lures.
Dorado action has remained consistent, more so in the direction of San Jose del Cabo, the majority of the dorado being landed were under 20 pounds, but there were also a percentage of larger bulls over 30 pounds accounted for. More dorado seemed to be found within several miles of shore than further out. Billfish were spread out and more numerous off of Cabo than in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, striped marlin, sailfish and blues were all found, not in huge numbers, also a few heartbreak stories of monster marlin breaking off.
The panga fleet out of La Playita have been consistently catching limits of dorado and now there were more football yellowfin appearing the fish counts. Some very impressive specimens were landed in recent days, including roosterfish to 60 pounds, grouper to 120 pounds, dorado to 40 pounds and dogtooth snapper to 55 pounds.
Local inshore anglers have found some snook action recently, mostly in the vicinity of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina, either early in the morning or late afternoon, striking on sardinas.
As long as the weather holds we anticipate the action to only improve in the coming weeks, hopefully the storms will keep their distance and we can avoid any disasters for the next six weeks or so.
The combined panga fleets launching from the La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos area sent out approximately 57 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
4 sailfish, 2 striped marlin, 7 hammerhead shark, 3 grouper, 22 roosterfish, 238 dorado,66 yellowfin tuna, 4 amberjack, 16 jack crevalle and 9 dogtooth snapper.
Good Fishing, Eric
