January 27, 2008
Anglers -
Wintertime in Los Cabos continues to see only moderate numbers of tourists and they have been enjoying pleasant weather conditions, scattered cloud cover and actually on Tuesday there was light rainfall throughout the morning, high temperatures have averaged 75 degrees. Winds have been predominately from the north, ranging from 10 to 20 miles an hour, this has continued to push in cooler ocean currents off of San Jose del Cabo, now averaging 68 degrees, outside of the 95 spot off of Chileno there is a temperature break of 73 degrees. There were mackerel, sardinas and some caballito available for live bait, mackerel being the best choice for offshore billfish action and sardinas the better option for the smaller gamefish inshore.
Anglers reported improved action close to shore for sierra and roosterfish. Sierra were striking best on trolled sardinas, but would also hit on lures such as Rapalas, hoochies and yo-yo's. The area just off of Punta Gorda has produced some particularly large sierra in recent days, a handful of specimens in the 7 to 10 pound class. The local beach stretches were holding schools of roosterfish, just south of Punta Gorda off of La Laguna, has been a hot spot for the roosters which have been running in the 4 to 6 pound range, a few larger fish mixed in, fun action on light tackle.
With the north wind being prevalent, you had to choose the right time to be able to fish effectively off these bottom spots. When the conditions cooperated, anglers using yo-yo type iron jigs accounted for some quality catches of huachinango (red snapper), amberjack, Mexican Bonito and cabrilla, with the majority of these species weighing 8 to 15 pounds.
Whale watching is now at its peak, both humpback and grays, also there have been manta rays, sea lions and porpoise to add to the entertainment. On the offshore fishing grounds many marlin were seen free jumping, repeating jumping high out of the water, for no apparent reason except just for the fun of it, always exciting to witness. The action for striped marlin is continuing to shift closer to Cabo San Lucas and into the lower Sea of Cortez, charters working the waters around the 95 spot have been averaging one or two stripers per outing, while on the Pacific some boats are still scoring double digit catch and releases. These same areas are also producing late season action for dorado, with some anglers reporting as many as four dorado in the 15 to 20 pound class while trolling marlin type clones and medium sized feathers.
Not much going on for yellowfin tuna, a handful of reports of anglers finding tuna mixed underneath schools of porpoise further offshore, these fish were in the 15 to 20 pound class. The action off of Vinormama, which had been producing good numbers of tuna on Rapalas and sardinas came to a standstill, as only a few yellowfin were reported by the entire La Playita fleet. The Mexican bonito were basically the closest species that the panga anglers were finding that were related to the yellowfin, once located the action could be fast and furious on yo-yo jigs for these scrappy fighters that averaged 4 to 7 pounds.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 46 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 4 striped marlin, 9 yellowfin tuna, 205 Mexican bonito, 25 amberjack, 11 yellowtail, 21 cabrilla, 82 pargo (huachinango), 9 dorado, 184 roosterfish and 148 sierra.
Good fishing, Eric