We
are still only seeing moderate crowds of tourists arriving, though we expect
that when school semesters all finish there will be more families going on
vacation. The weather definitely became more tropical this past week, we saw
scattered cloud cover much of the morning, burning off as the days progressed,
high temperatures in the upper 80s. There was some swirling gusting winds the
first part of the week, the second half we saw calmer conditions, afternoon
breezes picking up predominately from the south, though overall anglers emjoyed
comfortably fishing conditions. Swells increased some and currents were also
stronger than normal. Water temperatures ranged from 70 degrees around the
corner on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, to near 80 degrees on the Sea of
Cortez side, this is where the majority of the sportfishing fleets were
concentrated, From off of Chileno, to Red Hill, Cardon, La Fortuna, Iman, San
Luis and Vinorama.
Anglers
found that baitfish were less plentiful this past week, not much inshore
baitfish activity at all and the offshore grounds did have some small skipjack,
but no reports of bolito, should start seeing more of this favored food source
showing on the local fishing grounds soon. Limited supplies of caballito,
moonfish, jurelito were available in the marina area and the bait vendors also
were offering ballyhoo and slabs of squid.
Fishing
action was slower for the first part of the week, partly because winds limited
options, but later in the week we saw much improved action, particularly near
the San Luis Bank, where hog sized amberjack in the 20 to 80 lb. class were
accounted for, also some good wahoo action was encountered, as well as more
dorado than we had previously seen. Anglers used various baits and lures, a
combination of drift fishing, slow trolling and higher speed trolling all
produced strikes. We saw wahoo to 50 pounds and dorado up to 25 lb. Yellowfin
tuna were scattered, some hitting on squid and others while trolling smaller
hoochies and Rapalas, most of the tuna landed were in the 5 to 20 lb. range.
There were reports of charters landing as many as a dozen yellowfin trolling
off of Red Hill, while north of Punta Gorda most boats were only finding a
couple yellowfin in the their combined catch, but there was more chances at
variety in that direction, particularly for finding the wahoo, dorado and
amberjack.
Striped marlin
were found within several miles of shore, as well as further out on their
normal traditional grounds. Striking on baits as well as trolled lures, sizes
ranged from 50 to 130 lb. There was an unusual story this week of a 20 ft.
whale shark being seen swimming around inside the Cabo San Lucas Marina,
apparently this was event never witnessed before, normally this very elusive
species is encountered occasionally in the clear waters on offshore sea mounts.
Not much
roosterfish action reported, though there were at least some being hooked into
by hard core surf anglers, lack of inshore baitfish activity to attract more of
these prized fighters. Next month is usually the prime season for these sought
after gamefish.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita,
Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 78 charters for the week, with
anglers reporting a fish count of: 5 sailfish, 1 yellowtail, 28 striped marlin,
33 wahoo, 86 yellowfin tuna, 25 bonito, 26 dorado, 29 amberjack, 6 cabrilla, 15
yellow snapper, 14 sierra, 8 barred pargo, 5 parrot fish, 3 pompano and 200
triggerfish.