April 6, 2009
Anglers –
A new month, same old questions, where are the normal spring time crowds? and when will the yellowfin tuna show up? It appears that the answer to where all the tourists are is going to be one that lingers for quite some time as the world economic crisis is far from over. The answer to the second question of when will the tuna show up will hopefully be solved sooner, as in recent days there were encouraging signs. The weather is now ideal, sunny skies, highs in the 80s, what else could you ask for? The recent pattern of gusty breezes picking up mid day from the south continues, but the morning ocean conditions for the most part have been comfortable, especially in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Water temperature has ranged from 70 to 74 degrees, now on a seasonal warming trend, it is also the time of year when fishing action starts to heat up offshore.
Anglers are finding a variety of options, from offshore, bottom and inshore. The most consistent action continues to be found closer to shore for a mix of sierra, jack crevalle, roosterfish and a few pompano and pargo. Slow trolling with live sardinas has been the most productive method, the live bait has been plentiful and is now being netted in close proximity to the Puerto Los Cabos marina, this means no more back tracking for the La Playita panga fleets. The sardinas have been of very nice size, definitely not pinners. A handful of golden jacks, pompano, leopard grouper and pargo colorado were appearing in fish counts, this is the time of year these species move into shallow rocky structure.
The fishing grounds off of San Jose del Cabo and to the north are starting to see more schooling of mackerel and sardinetas, this is also attracting gamefish such as striped marlin, dorado, thrasher and mako shark, as well as yellowfin tuna. There have been promising signs in recent days that the action near Desteladera is about to break wide open. On Wednesday, several panga charters from La Playita reported finding limited action for both yellowfin tuna and striped marlin, also sighted were many jumping thrasher and mako sharks.
Giant squid are now in local waters and the commercial fleet have been filling up with these on days they were not targeting sierra of pargo. Still no sign of pelagic red crabs being encountered swarming on the surface of the offshore fishing grounds, this is the time of year for them, this can really get the huachinango (red snapper) into a feeding frenzy, we hope this happens this year, last year we never did see much activity for the crabs, can be very exciting sport to catch the snapper on the surface while using light tackle and these small baits.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 53 charters this past week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
3 striped marlin, 7 yellowfin tuna, 94 dorado, 23 bonito, 4 yellowtail, 16 amberjack, 5 mako shark, 8 golden jack, 13 pompano, 47 pargo, 26 roosterfish, 18 cabrilla, 15 jack crevalle and 305 sierra.
Good fishing, Eric
