Wahoo and
Yellowfin Tuna Keep Anglers Busy ~
November 19, 2016
Anglers –
November 19, 2016
The fall season is now
starting to wind down, still quite busy this past week, with visiting anglers
and sun worshipers, though not quite as crowded as it was the previous weeks.
With Thanksgiving Holiday scheduled this next week, we will see more families
arriving, though many people do prefer to stay at home for these holidays and
from now until Christmas Holidays we will see the normal slack period for
tourists, this is just not the time frame that many people are traveling, as
they are more preoccupied with the approaching holidays.
We felt strong north
winds through the first half of the week, then we had a couple of very calm
days, before the wind picked back up late in the week, crazy weather patterns,
still quite warm, reaching near 90 degrees. Ideal temperatures actually, early
morning lows averaging 70 degrees. Early week there was a late season Tropical
Storm Tina which formed farther off to the southwest, as fast it had developed,
it dissipated, as it moved over cooler water. All around the water temperatures
from Cabo Sab Lucas towards Los Frailes has been ranging from 82 to 85 degrees,
three or four degrees warmer than what would be normal for this time of year.
This should prove favorable for fall type fishing action to last all the way
through December.
Bait options continued the
same, slabs of squid, caballito, ballyhoo available from bait vendors and
opportunities to catch skipjack and chihuil on the offshore grounds, for use
trolling live or drift fishing as. Combined factors of swells, strong northerly
winds and the full moon phase, made for several tougher days, though anglers did
catch some quality fish. Most productive areas were from Chileno, Gordo Banks,
1150 Spot and Iman Bank. Most common gamefish being encountered were yellowfin
tuna, wahoo, dorado, and late season black and blue marlin.
Yellowfin tuna action was
good to start off the week, increased wind made it tough to drift fish on the
Outer Banks, but some quality sized tuna were accounted for, quite a few fish
to 100 lb. and at least a half of dozen over 200 lb. Also there was good action
found a couple of days for smaller tuna found traveling with porpoise, close to
shore and moving fast, strips of squid was the main method of hooking up. The
larger yellowfin were striking on baits such as skipjack or chihuil, either
drifting or slow troll, in the vicinity of the Outer Gordo Banks. Same grounds
have been producing some billfish strikes, both black and blue marlin were
hooked into. One angler had quite a story of hooking into a 40 lb. plus
yellowfin tuna, then during the fight a huge black marlin inhaled the hooked up
tuna and the battle was on with the marlin, as the fish was spooling off
hundreds of yards of line and being chasing down by the super panga skipper,
after close to 30 minutes of that the marlin heading deep, line went slack and
then heavy again, but now the marlin had spit out the three and a half foot
tuna, which to their amazement was still alive and continued to fight until
they brought it to gaff, this whole scene took over two hours.
Wahoo was the main
species being targeting closer to shore, from Cardon to the Iman Bank, good
numbers of these prized fighting fish were being accounted for. Trolling with
live chihuil was the most productive, ballyhoo and caballito worked as well.
Also limited numbers hit on trolled lures, though far more strikes were reported
on bait, versus lures. Many fish were seen following baits, but were finicky at
times, other times action was fast and furious, with wahoo fishing, a good
average percentage seems to be about one fish actually landed for every three
strikes, many things happen, very fast fish, with hard bony jaws, slashing at
baits, not just strike and swallow like most fish. Many charters accounted for
two, three and even up to five wahoo, sizes ranged from 20 to 45 lb.
Dorado numbers increased
toward the end of the week out of San Jose del Cabo, still only a handful of
these fish being found in this area, more number were reported from the
Pacific, though reports were varied from different sources. We saw quite a few
dorado in the 15 to 20 pound class, though we had more wahoo in the fish
counts.
Bottom fishing was very
limited, only an occasional snapper and triggerfish, wind made this even
harder, water temperature still warm, more bottom action when currents cool
some. Commercial pangeros did catch a few nice sized yellowtail off of the
Gordo Banks, so that is encouraging, maybe something will happen on this. We do
expect to be targeting the tuna, wahoo and dorado through this month and next.
No inshore action to report, except for a few roosterfish and sierra.
The combined panga fleets
launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 166
charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 blue marlin, 4
black marlin, 4 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 320 yellowfin tuna, 46 dorado, 165
wahoo, 11 yellow snapper,4 leopard grouper, 12 bonito, 14 huachinango, 4
roosterfish, 14 sierra,14 rainbow runner, 6 surgeonfish and 45 triggerfish.
Good fishing, Eric
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