Yellowfin
Tuna, Red Snapper Keep Anglers Busy ~ December 17, 2016
Anglers –
December 17,
2016
We are now
seeing light crowds of tourists visiting, this is always the pattern during the
couple of weeks before the Christmas Holiday. People are busy with preparations
now, this slack time gives us all a little more freedom to take care of
personal agendas, actually a relief to have a lighter schedule in order to
catch up on other things that have been put aside through the busy fall season.
Winds were much lighter this past week, though it was cooler early in the
morning, temperatures down in the 50s, though daytime highs did reach up near 80
degrees. While most of the U.S. and Canada are enduring frigid conditions, we
are enjoying the great Southern Baja climate.
There are
now large concentrations of mackerel, with sardineta mixed in, being found
several miles off of the San Jose del Cabo hotel zone, this is always a
favorable sign that this food source will attract more gamefish, most notably
striped marlin and dorado. So far we have seen a few dorado and marlin in this
area, but no significant numbers. We are also coming off of a bright full moon,
which can cause feeding habits of gamefish to change. Ocean water temperature
has been averaging in the 75 to 77 degree range, which is still a few degrees
higher than normal for this time frame. Water clarity was greenish on the
grounds north of Punta Gorda, depending from day to day where you were, some
areas were off colored, though blue water was also found near these same
grounds, currents moving through, changing daily, a lot depends on how
persistent the north winds is. The annual whale migration is behind schedule
this season, same thing happened last year, we do expect to start seeing more
numbers of both humpback and gray whales soon.
Anglers were
using strips of squid to target the yellowfin tuna, Punta Gorda continued to be
one of the more productive areas, yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 30 lb. range were
schooling on these grounds. Some days the fish would not bite until later in
the day. There were porpoise found a bit further from shore that were holding
yellowfin tuna as well, charters were chasing these schools down and dropped
strips of squid and hooked similar size tuna. There were some much larger tuna,
to over 150 lb. still holding on the Gordo Banks, though the only fish that
were being hooked were by local anglers fishing the twilight bite, as the sun
was setting, one local panga came in with three tuna in the 150 lb. class on
Thursday evening.
This week
there was good action on red snapper (huahinango), found close to shore off of
Punta Gorda, same place where the yellowfin tuna bite was, the snapper were
hitting on the strips of squid and ranging from 4 to 10 lb., mixed in were some
triggerfish to 8 lb. as well as a locally rare sheepshead of about 24 lb. A few
scattered wahoo on these same grounds, though not many are being landed, an
occasional fish to 40 lb. As the moon darkens and if conditions remain calm
enough, we do expect for the wahoo to go on another bite.
The combined
panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out
approximately 71 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
3 striped marlin, 285 yellowfin tuna, 19 dorado, 9 wahoo, 1 sheepshead, 6
pompano, 18 yellow snapper, 4 leopard grouper, 290 huachinango, 13 sierra, 3
barred pargo, 1 mako shark, and 180 triggerfish.
Good
fishing, Eric
Posted in
Fish Reports
Author: Gordo Banks
Posted on
December 17, 2016 by admin-pangaMan