February 19, 2011
Anglers –
Crowds of tourists increased this past week, as the weather conditions warmed up, we enjoyed clear sunny days that reached 80 degrees and with light winds this made for great conditions offshore for visiting anglers. Ocean water conditions averaged 69 to 71 degrees throughout most of the area, with a warmer current of 73 to 74 degree area 12 to 15 miles offshore of San Jose del Cabo.
As the waters on the local fishing grounds warmed a few degrees in the past ten days, this apparently helped improve the all around fishing action. Definitely the most talked about bite has been the yellowfin tuna out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina, which were now schooling on the Inner Gordo Banks. Word spread quickly as charters were catching an average of two to six tuna per morning while drift fishing with live and dead bait. With as many as fifty charter boats congregating on this spot it made for heavy pressure and the yellowfin were finicky. Anglers using lighter leaders of 30 to 40 lb. reported the best success. As much bait as possible was needed to help entice these fish into a feeding frenzy where they could be fooled into striking the hooked bait. With limited supplies of sardinas and high demand, this made for a bait supply situation, in fact San Jose del Cabo charters were traveling some twenty miles north , near Vinormama, in order to obtain limited amounts of sardinas. But these baitfish were necessary in order to catch these tuna, which were averaging in weight from 15 to 50 pounds, with larger species to over one hundred pounds seen feeding in recent days.
Could be time to break out some heavier tackle and try chunk fishing with cut skipjack, one pangero told a story of hooking into a monster tuna on Thursday while chumming and chunking with fresh skipjack, I guess the gear he was using was simply not stout enough and they never had a chance at slowing the cow.
In recent days there were increased numbers of striped marlin encountered, everyday there were handful of these billfish hooked into while anglers were targeting the tuna with sardinas, these fish ranged from 100 to 120 lb. One incredible catch of an 80 pound wahoo was accounted for on Thursday by an angler using only a sardina for bait and mono leader, no wire, this also occurred on the Inner Gordo Bank.
Earlier in the week there was good action found for yellowtail, amberjack and a few other bottom species. The area of Cardon was consistent for anglers using sardinas and yo-yo jigs in depths ranging from 120 to 160 feet. The amberjack were mostly in the 15 to 25 pound class, yellowtail average 6 to 10 pounds, but almost every day we saw a one or two thirty pound plus class yellowtail mixed in with the smaller schoolies. Strong currents continue to make bottom fishing a difficult and at times unpractical option, as at times it became so swift over these rock piles that it was not easy to reach bottom and then even harder to avoid snagging rocks and losing gear.
The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 75 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 9 striped marlin, 6 mako shark, 8 dorado,166 yellowfin tuna, 22 Mexican bonito, 32 sierra, 18 roosterfish, 5 wahoo, 28 huachinago, 28 amberjack, 14 cabrilla, 142 yellowtail and 15 yellow snapper.
Good fishing, Eric
