December 21, 2008
Anglers –
Everyone is now busy preparing for Christmas, not many tourists in town now, but that will certainly change in the next couple of weeks. With the official start of the winter season just days away the weather here in Los Cabos have been unseasonably warm, days are still reaching 80 degrees and it has not been too cool in the evenings, though a light sweater of jacket might be advised. Ocean water temperature is holding at about 75 to 77 degrees now and this has helped keep the surface fishing action consistent. The winds out of the north and south have started to become more prevalent, but have not become too persistent or a nuisance yet. Scattered cloud cover, light swells and all around great conditions for this late in the year.
The marlin bite continues to amaze everyone on the Golden Gate Bank, where schools of mackerel continue to attract stripers in big numbers. Slow trolling live bait on the surface has been the best bet. Sardinas and caballito have been available from commercial pangueros and are being used to target the medium sized gamefish. Dorado have been abundant off of the San Jose del Cabo region, anglers have been catching easy limits on fish ranged to over 20 pounds. Fish were striking on various baits and lures, with most of the action being found within several miles of shore.
Since this last full moon period the yellowfin tuna have had a case of lock jaw. Larger sized tuna are now on the Gordo Banks, they can be seen coming up and feeding or breezing the surface, but getting them to strike has been a different story. Each day a handful of the yellowfin are being hooked into, most all of these fish are weighing fifty pounds or more. Some tuna are also being found moving with porpoise and at times anglers were able to hook up on trolled baits in this same vicinity, these proved to be nicer sized tuna as well, none of the little footballs now, if only the tuna decide to bite better, this could turn into some epic action, they are definitely in the area.
Though the dorado have been hard to stay away from, there are still some nice late season wahoo to be had. The areas of Punta Gorda, Cardon and La Fortuna are producing fish on a daily basis, some anglers are landing up to three or four wahoo in a morning, trolling various lures and also on caballito, the problem with trolling the live bait is that the dorado and needlefish have been voracious. The wahoo have ranged in sizes 15 to 50 pounds and it looks like there will be a chance at catching these elusive mackerel until the new year, as long as the water conditions stay favorable.
Not much to be reported off the bottom or along the shoreline now, mainly just surface action for the tuna, wahoo and dorado, I guess we cannot complain about that, it will be soon enough that sierra and snapper are dominating the action.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 39 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
3 striped marlin, 276 dorado, 47 wahoo, 24 yellowfin tuna, 28 miscellaneous pargo, 18 white skipjack and 9 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric
