Anglers –
March 25,
2017
For some
reason this week was not so busy with tourists, in between waves of spring
breakers perhaps. The annual San Jose del Cabo traditional Fiestas have come
and gone now without any major incidents, though they are still in the cleanup
process on the grounds adjacent to the baseball park. Ideal weather patterns
continue, still a bit cool early in the morning, but daytime temperatures have
been reaching into the mid-80s, clear warm sunny skies. Still good numbers of
whales being seen, this now being their late season, getting ready to migrate
back to the northern feeding grounds.
Ocean swells
increased this week, making it very difficult for the bait netters to reach
inshore rocky areas where the sardinas were schooling. Other bait sources
included limited caballito, ballyhoo, squid and red crabs. Larger crabs were
once again found drifting to the surface on the Outer Gordo Banks and were
being gathered for use for bottom fish action. Currents have varied, not being
quite as strong as they had been, winds were a factor later in the week, then
settling down for the weekend. Ocean temperature ranged from 68 to 74 degrees
through most of the region, with the warmest areas being offshore of San Jose
del Cabo some 6 to 8 miles. Blue water has been found within several miles of
shore.
Last week
the big news was a great bite for wahoo during a time frame that is not typical
for this elusive gamefish, as they were found in schools close to shore off of
Punta Gorda. The combination of heavy pressure for multiple days and ocean
conditions that cooled off and became a bit greenish contributed to that action
fading out. This week the most productive bite was for red snapper, or locally
called huachinango, these are the true Pacific red snapper, found over offshore
structure, striking readily on various crabs baits, a few on yo-yo jigs as
well, these extremely prized eating fish average in the 5 to 12 lb. range, very
scrappy fighters on lighter tackle. The largest sized snapper were recently
coming from the Outer Gordo Banks, while other areas closer to shore were
producing a smaller grade or snapper.
Not much
going on for any surface action now, anglers at times were seeing the yellowfin
tuna showing on the surface, but they proved very finicky and with the lack of
sardinas due to higher surf conditions, this made it difficult to entice any
tuna strikes, very few were landed this past week. Dorado were even scarcer and
the billfish bite has been late to get going. We did hear of reports of striped
marlin near the 1150 high spot and even a couple of dorado, this area had
warmer water temperatures, so maybe something will finally start to happen
offshore.
Inshore
there has not been much besides some sierra and triggerfish, as water starts to
warm back up, we should see the juvenile roosterfish move in. Then later in the
spring as the mullet show up, that will attract the larger roosters and other
jacks.
The combined
panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out
approximately 60 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
9 yellowfin tuna, 6 amberjack, 14 yellow snapper, 11 flag cabrilla, 13 leopard
grouper, 420 huachinango, 21 sierra, 105 black skipjack and 95 triggerfish.
Good
fishing, Eric
This entry was posted in Fish Reports by Gordo Banks Panga