December 20, 2009
Anglers –
Crowds of visiting tourists are light now, as everyone is busy preparing for Christmas, we do except increased activity in the coming weeks. Even though the official start to the winter season is only days away we have been experiencing clear sunny skies with high temperatures close to 80 degrees, early mornings are becoming cooler, dropping into the upper 50s, so remember to bring appropriate clothing. Water temperatures are now averaging 76 to 79 degrees, which is one or two degrees higher than during the same time period last year. The north winds were much stronger this past week, this limited what options anglers had, but fortunately there was very good action found close to shore in protected areas. Live bait situation varied day to day, mackerel are now reportedly being caught off of San Jose del Cabo, sardinas have been more abundant towards the East Cape, though there are encouraging signs of these smaller baiffish rebounding near the Palmilla Point. Commercial pangeros were actually driving vehicles north to Punta Arena in the afternoons in order to net sardinas off the beaches and then keeping them on ice to sell to the charter boats in the morning, these fresh dead baits actually proved to be the best option for the inshore yellowfin tuna bite in recent days.
The weather conditions but a damper on the epic yellowfin tuna bite that happened during previous weeks, though the fish are still there, as a 183 pound tuna was weighed in on Wednesday, it hit a trolled bolito on the Outer Gordo Bank, if the wind settles down enough we expect more anglers will target the big tuna again. In the mean time a great bite for yellowfin in the 10 to 20 pound class has developed close to shore off of Cardon and Punta Gordon, drift fishing with dead or live sardinas was the productive technique for this. Winds were pushing off colored currents from the north into local waters and this seemed to slow down the consistency of the wahoo action, but these fish were still in the area and limited numbers were being accounted for from the same places where the inshore tuna are being found, wahoo were striking on trolled baits such as caballito and mackerel, as well as Rapalas and Yo-Zuris, sizes ranged from 20 to 40 pounds.
Dorado were not near as numerous as the yellowfin tuna, but most charters were catching an average of two or three, weights were mostly in the 5 to 15 pound range. Last year around Christmas time there were nicer sized dorado up to thirty pounds being caught regularly, so we are hoping with the mackerel now showing up locally that this will attract a larger grade of fish.
Striped marlin continue to provide bonus action for anglers targeting inshore species, many more biilfish are now being encountered off of San Jose del Cabo for this time period than last season, mostly striped marlin in the 70 to 110 pound class. We expect with the schools of mackerel now appearing on local grounds this action will only improve.
Sierra have moved along local beaches in large schools, though at this time most are smaller one to two pound fish, surely a larger grade of these cooler water fish will move in soon.
Not much to be reported off the bottom, a few pargo and cabrilla here and there, current has been swift, which makes it that more difficult to effectively work the rocky bottom spots.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 56 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
13 striped marlin, 110 dorado, 12 wahoo, 365 yellowfin tuna, 18 miscellaneous pargo, 13 cabrilla, 28 bonito and 216 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric
