April 1, 2012
Anglers –
The spring season has officially arrived and many people are now traveling to the Los Cabos area to enjoy the ideal weather conditions and all of the available activities offered. This is the weekend that in Southern Baja clocks will be changed one hour forward, several weeks later than in the U.S. You could not ask for a nicer climate at this time, clear sunny skies with high temperatures of about 80 degrees. In recent days the winds have all but diminished, slight breeze just to keep the air refreshing.
Warming days have helped ocean conditions settle and water temperatures are now on a warming trend, most of the region is now ranging from 70 to 72 degrees. Supplies of sardinas have remained plentiful, this past week the bait netters found the baitfish more abundant off the beaches near Vinorama. In the marina there have been options for live caballito and fresh frozen ballyhoo. Early in the week there were a couple of larger blue and black marlin landed, both in the 500 pound class, both were caught off of larger sportfisher's based out of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina, we did weigh the one blue marlin in for Daniel Fisher, taken on Sunday, March 25, off of his 35 ft. Cabo, the "Fisherman", it weighed in at 515 pounds.
Offshore action improved in recent days, off of San Jose del Cabo, 15 to 20 miles out, charters were finding good numbers of striped marlin, seeing the marlin free jumping, tailing in the swells and anglers were also taking blind strikes while trolling. Boats have been averaged 2 or 3 and even more hook ups per mornings. Rigged ballyhoo, caballito and lures have all been working. Dorado were spread out and not being found in as great as number as were the marlin, but a few bulls in the 30 to 40 pound class were accounted for. Dorado were encountered closer to shore as well, just outside of where boats were finding continued wide open action for sierra. As water temperatures rise we expect to see more numbers of dorado and other pelagic species to arrive. The next couple of months offer ideal weather and a wide variety of options for anglers, always an exciting period, never know what can happen from day to day.
While sierra continued to dominate the inshore action, there have been very good numbers of early season roosterfish, particularly off the San Jose del Cabo hotel area, with average size ranging from 5 to 15 pounds. Trolling live bait was the best technique for hooked up with wild and powerful jacks. Fly fishing anglers were getting in on this action too, having a blast enticing the sierra and roosterfish, both species are very sporty fighters on light tackle.
This is the time when we usually find improved bottom action as well, recently there have been red crabs sporadically drifting to the surface and anglers able to find these pelagic crabs were using them for baits for Pacific red snapper (huachinango), sizes ranging 5 to 12 pounds. An occasional hog sized yellowtail or amberjack would eat these baits as well. Grouper were making their presence on the rocky reefs, many hook ups were lost to cut lines in the rocks, though one gulf grouper of 110 pounds was landed from a La Playita panga on Thursday. Quite a few hammerhead sharks were now congregating on the structure and were keeping anglers busy re-baiting hooks. A few mako sharks were reportedly found in the open water, juvenile sized. A couple of wahoo were also hooked into this past week, this is the time of year when warm water fish start to move back on to the local fishing grounds and anything can happen on any given day.
The whale watching season is now coming to an end, though these mammals still are being seen daily at this time, mostly humpbacks, a handful of whale sharks have been sighted off of San Jose del Cabo and towards the north, they always seem to arrive when red crabs are in the area, one of their favored food sources.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 77 charters this past week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
32 striped marlin, 1 wahoo, 4 mako shark, 15 hammerhead shark, 30 dorado, 3 yellowfin tuna, 435 sierra, 55 roosterfish, 12 pompano, 10 yellowtail, 13 amberjack, 28 cabrilla, 8 grouper, 66 yellow snapper, 89 huachinango and 22 bonito.
Good fishing, Eric
