March 16, 2008
Anglers -
Similar story this past week, quite a few tourists in town, though with money being tight due to the poor economy, people are watching their money, not spending as they normally might during good times. Not many anglers are in town, perhaps because of substandard fish reports in recent weeks. Weather has been great, almost perfect, cool early in the morning, with clear warm sunny skies reaching into the upper 70s on most days. Winds have not been such a factor from the north, but still have been unpredictable, at times out of the west, then north, east, before switching from the south. Water temperatures are ranging from 66 to 72 degrees, warmest currents found some 30 miles plus offshore.
Action for striped marlin in March often slows down as conditions are not stable and the fish seem to be more scattered, but we do expect the bite to improve soon as the weather continues to warm as the days gradually become longer. Marlin are being spotted throughout the zone, but are not aggressively attacking any baits or lures, this sometimes occurs when they are feeding on squid which are concentrated in deeper waters. There was a swordfish reportedly landed on Wednesday some 25 to 30 miles off of San Jose del Cabo, did not hear how large it was.
Yellowfin tuna has been the main species found further offshore, anywhere from 25 to 40 miles out, traveling with porpoise, most of these tuna are averaging 10 to 20 pounds and are still out of range for the average cruiser charter and until they come closer the panga fleets will most likely not be involved.
Inshore trolling for sierra, roosterfish and other jacks has been hit or miss, better reports came from the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, off of San Jose del Cabo and to the north there just has not been much activity being reported at all. It is truly a shame that commercial pangueros were able to get away with setting their gill nets in the areas from La Fortuna north to Los Frailes, this is an area where local official inspectors turn their heads and never seem to enforce the law.
Early in the week there was some very good action found off of Palmilla Point, mainly for small fire cracker sized yellowtail up to 6 or 8 pounds, also mixed in were Mexican bonito, amberjack and an occasional cabrilla or grouper. Anglers had success while using a combination of yo-yo jigs, rapalas and sardinas. By mid week this bite slowed almost to a standstill and fleets were once again heading north to the Iman or San Luis areas to see what they could find, this is where the bonito had been dominating the bite and where red snapper have been holding deep feeding on red crabs, showing little interest in other offerings.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 37 charters for the week with anglers reporting a fish count of:
106 Mexican bonito, 24 yellowfin tuna, 215 yellowtail, 32 amberjack, 19 huachinango (red snapper), 31 sierra and 16 cabrilla.
Good fishing, Eric
