April 20, 2009
Anglers -
With Spring Break now over the crowds of tourists are lighter than were in recent weeks. We continue in this seasonal transition period, with ocean water temperatures ranging from as low as 66 degrees on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas to as warm as 73 degrees off of the Gordo Banks area. Unstable conditions now, one day wind from the south, next from the north, also strong currents to deal with, hard to predict from day to day where the water will be calmer or cleanest. Sportfishing fleets are now concentrating their efforts in the direction of the warmer water where they have found mixed success on Striped marlin, dorado, bottom and inshore species. Live bait became more scattered over the recent full moon period, though most mornings the commercial pangueros were able to net sufficient supplies of sardinas. The main concentrations of humpback and gray whales are now migrating back to their northern feeding grounds.
Billfish action slowed way down over the full moon, striped marlin were spotted from Chileno to Desteladera and some were hooked into, most of hook ups were on live bait and for anglers that did not have the bait they reported that it was not easy to entice the fish into striking the lures. Even with bait, much of the time the marlin just were not interested, though the stripers were seen free jumping and tailing on the surface. The billfish were averaging 100 to 150 pounds.
Yellowfin tuna remained very elusive, few tuna were accounted for, though there were some encouraging signs of quality sized fish being spotted amongst pods of porpoise, though for the most part they were not interested in what anglers had to offer. Anglers were actually hooking into more black skipjack or jack crevalle associated with the porpoise than tuna. We anticipate as conditions stabilize and northern winds reside, giving the water a chance to warm and clean up, that we will see improved offshore action in the coming weeks.
With the water conditions rapidly changing, dorado counts were down this past week, off colored cooler currents apparently being the main factor for this. A few dorado ranging 5 to 20 pounds were mixed in the overall catches, found offshore while targeting billfish, as well as near shore while fishing around structure. The month of May is when we typically see increased activity for the larger bulls, as they move onto the local fishing grounds, so this will be something to look forward to.
Since the offshore action has not been consistent many of the charters are concentrated closer to shore where anglers were using live sardinas, hoochies, rapalas and yo-yo jigs, accounting for a wide variety of mostly smaller species. Most common catches have been sierra, most of them weighing just a couple of pounds, but at times fish up to eight pounds were encountered, there have also been fair numbers of early season roosterfish in the area, some of them weighing up to fifteen pounds, the largest inshore species now being found have been the jack crevalle, with some of these powerful fish now weighing over 25 pounds, cabrilla, yellow snapper, bared pargo, cabrilla, triggerfish, bonito, amberjack, yellowtail and pompano have rounded out the catches.
The combined panga fleet launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 46 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
3 striped marlin, 4 hammerhead shark, 1 rainbow runner, 14 yellowtail, 12 dorado, 5 yellowfin tuna, 13 amberjack, 17 jack crevalle, 28 roosterfish, 22 cabrilla, 25 bonito, 8 pompano and 234 sierra.
Good fishing, Eric
