January 18, 2009
Anglers –
Crowds of tourists are now relatively light in the Los Cabos area, this is typically the same scenario after the holiday season, as people are now back to work and school, while planning their next vacation. With the world economy in dire straits this is most certainly affecting any potential travel plans as well. While many areas across the continental United States are suffering through record setting freezing temperatures, here in Southern Baja we are enjoying mild pleasant conditions, early mornings are dipping into the 50s, but days have been sunny and warming to 75 degrees. Winds are now more predominant from the north and this has attributed to cooler water temperatures, local water temperatures are now fluctuated from 68 to 72 degrees and the current has been turning over water conditions, making them greener closer to shore, but cleaner waters have been found several miles offshore. Whale watching is now in full swing and will be peaking in the next couple of months.
Schools of mackerel baitfish are now congregating on all of the regular spots off of the San Jose del Cabo region and this has attracted more striped marlin, as they start to move in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, after having provided months of wide open action for Cabo San Lucas anglers on the Pacific fishing grounds. In recent days the fleet has found feeding striped marlin off of Palmilla point, four to five miles from shore, fish are ranging 80 to 120 pounds. The same area has produced dorado action, as has inshore areas from Punta Gorda, Cardon, La Fortuna and Iman. The dorado action has been very good considering that we are in the month of January, boats have been limiting on a regular basis, while releasing other fish as well, fish have been ranging mostly 8 to 20 pounds.
There have been reports of yellowfin tuna found 20 to 30 miles offshore traveling with porpoise and in recent days a bite for yellowfin has developed on the Iman Bank, tuna to fifty pounds were landed by anglers that were drift fishing with live sardinas, many hook ups were broken off due to anglers using too light of tackle that was being used to target the smaller dorado in the same place. There was also still an outside chance at hooking into a wahoo, Punta Gorda seems to be holding some of the last schools of wahoo that have not yet headed south to warmer waters. The wahoo were hitting later on in the morning on trolled baits and weighing up to 30 pounds.
With the cooler water moving in this has also brought in the season's first big influx of sierra and they have been eager to strike on both sardinas and trolled hoochie lures. Most of these fish are weighing 1 to 4 pounds. In the same beach areas there have been very good numbers of roosterfish, some of them topping the 20 pound mark, though the majority of them are juvenile size and definitely should be released.
Still no consistent action being found off the bottom, though some huachinango (red snapper) are being hooked into while using live mackerel for bait, as well as a handful of amberjack and of course there are always the hungry and aggressive triggerfish.
The combined fleet of pangas launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 57 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 sailfish, 14 striped marlin, 9 hammerhead shark, 11 wahoo, 32 yellowfin tuna, 342 dorado, 122 sierra, 68 roosterfish, 13 amberjack, 7 cabrilla, 19 huachinango and 29 triggerfish.
Good Fishing, Eric
