November 16, 2008
Anglers '
The weather in Southern Baja has finally started to feel more like it normally does during the fall, mornings are becoming cool enough where it warrants wearing a sweat shirt of jacket of some sort and the wind from the north is more prevalent with each passing day. In fact the wind has fallen in to the pattern of starting out of the west early in the morning, before switching from the north by mid morning and turning from the south in the afternoon. Water temperatures are still slightly above normal for this time of year, averaging 80 to 82 degrees throughout most of the region, though certainly with the cooler mornings and winds from the north the water will be on a cooling trend in the coming weeks. With all of the major fishing tournaments now completed the crowds of anglers are tapering off, but surely there will be another wave of vacationers showing up during the coming holiday season.
The outstanding striped marlin bite continues on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, with the hot spot being the Golden Gate, double digit catch and release days are standard for anglers catching striped marlin averaging 90 to 140 pounds, striking mainly on live mackerel. Charters have commonly accounting for 10 to 15 striped marlin per trip, also a surprising high number of sailfish still hanging around late into the year. Dorado are being found as well, though not nearly in the numbers as were the marlin. Actually more dorado are now being found in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, though it has not been as consistent as during previous weeks, a matter of finding the school and taking advantage of the opportunity. Reports from the East Cape area were that fleets encountered debris of drifting whale skin and really got into a fast and furious dorado bite, though apparently they do not enforce the catch limits in that area, as anglers were keeping double digits of the dorado, which everyone know only have a two fish per angler limit in Mexican waters.
The supplies of sardinas which had been so abundant for months have now become very limited, in fact the commercial pangueros were not able to find any of the bait near the Puerto Los Cabos Marina rock jetties and are now having to work hard to scrounge minimal supplies off of the Palmilla area. Charter boats in the past few days have had to endure waits of up to one hour in order to obtain minimal amounts of the live sardinas. Then they back tracked towards the Iman Bank where if they were luck arrived before the tuna bite had ended. The yellowfin tuna were biting well on the live bait early in the morning, but it took quite a bit of chum to get the tuna up on the surface in the feeding mood and once the bait supply ended the fish disappeared just as fast. So some panga charters landed as many as 8 or more tuna, while scratched for one or two, sizes ranged 15 to 30 pounds. The giant squid started to bite again near Punta Gorda and some boats reported success with using strips from these freshly caught 40 pound creatures.
Not much success trolling lures lately, only an occasional dorado or if you really were fortunate and put in enough time you might have a chance at an elusive wahoo strike.
A few snapper, cabrilla, amberjack and triggerfish rounded out the action off the bottom rock piles, though much of this past week the seas were a bit too choppy to effectively be able to work the bottom.
The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 148 charters, with anglers reporting a fish count of 7 striped marlin, 1 black marlin, 3 sailfish, 21 wahoo, 75 bonito, 312 yellowfin tuna, 405 dorado, 9 amberjack, 11 cabrilla, 64 huachinango (red snapper), 58 triggerfish and 12 rainbow runners.
Good Fishing, Eric
