July 25, 2010
Light crowds of tourists are now visiting the Los Cabos area and are being greeted by typical July weather patterns, warm sunny days in the mid 90's with high humidity. No tropical storms on the horizon at this time in the Eastern Pacific, though some rainfall would be much welcomed. Forecasts were predicting 20 to 30 % chances of scattered thunder showers and finally early this morning (Sunday) we had a couple of hours of steady rainfall. Ocean conditions have been calm with some medium sized swells in the direction of San Jose del Cabo, while out of Cabo San Lucas they have had southern winds ranging up to 15 mph, overall anglers have enjoyed very pleasant seas with water temperatures now warming rapidly, as high as 85 degrees in certain areas.
Bait supplies have been fairly consistent for caballito and mullet, with giant squid and sardinas available only for the East Cape fleets. The most popular and productive fishing grounds this past week was outside of the San Luis Bank, around four miles from shore, with water depths ranging 190 to 240 feet. With thirty or more combined panga, cruiser and yacht charters congregating here to target the schooling yellowfin tuna, which have ranged in sizes from football models up to 233 pounds, with the average tuna weighing in the 30 to 80 pound class. Most charters have accounted for 2 to 6 fish per morning. These yellowfin have been a bit shy due to the clarity of the water and the heavy boat pressure. Action has come on cut squid and sardina, with the East Cape fleet having the advantage of the fresher bait, while San Jose del Cabo fleets have mostly relied on frozen giant squid that are imported from the East Cape by the few commercial pangeros whiling to work overtime night shifts.
Off the bottom, on these same tuna fishing grounds, anglers were finding increased counts of huachinango and Mexican bonito that were striking on yo-yo jigs. These fish ranged up 10 pounds and provided fun sport on lighter tackle. Dorado action was spread out, more fish being found closer to shore than further offshore, no concentrations and mainly small schools of fish averaging 10 to 20 pounds, with an occasional exception of fish to 30 pounds or more.
Surprisingly there were quite a few wahoo being encountered off of the Gordo Banks and north over the Cardon, La Fortuna and Iman Banks. These fish were encountered throughout the morning, not necessarily very early, in fact most charters were fishing the tuna first, because that action proved to be best early and then they might try a little high speed trolling for wahoo afterwards, where they had a chance at picking up a fish or two that were averaging in the 30 to 50 lb. range.
Inshore action still produced fair numbers of quality sized roosterfish and dogtooth snapper to 50 lb. while trolling larger live baits. In recent days we have started to notice that the dogtooth snapper are now making their seasonal swift from inshore to the offshore rock piles, as a handful of dogtooth were accounted for while drift fishing baits over the high spots, same method being used for tuna.
Billfish are being found throughout the area, no specific spot that was wide open, just scattered action being reported, but there is now a chance to encounter all local species of striped, blue and black marlin, as well as sailfish, which with the warmer current now prevalent should be showing up in greater numbers. A 500 pound class black marlin was seen free jumping by many of the boats that were targeting the yellowfin tuna near San Luis, it is time to start slow trolling the football sized yellowfin on heavy tackle, in fact one boat did just that, only problem being that they mistakeingly left the reel in gear when a large marlin struck the bait and the fish did not have the chance to swallow the bait.
The combined panga fleet launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 55 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
1 blue marlin, 2 sailfish, 5 striped marlin, 19 wahoo, 32 dorado, 122 yellowfin tuna, 65 bonito, 86 red snapper (huachinango), 15 dogtooth snapper, 2 yellowtail, 16 amberjack and 12 cabrilla.
Good Fishing, Eric
