South Winds
meant Cold Water, Scattered Action
This past
week was dominated by the weather conditions, more than by the light crowds of
anglers getting into some fast and furious fishing action. After last Sunday
being a great day, as forecast, we saw high pressure systems from the north,
coinciding with low pressure areas from the south created the perfect
environment for the south wind to develop and be persistent for four straight
days, finally residing by Friday. Winds blew steady at 20 to 25 mph, with gusts
to over 30 mph, rare to have so many days in a row of this strong of wind from
that direction. After enduring the season’s first major heat wave the previous
week, we saw temperature cool off back to late winter type conditions, lows in
the 60 and highs in the upper 70s. The main impact the south wind had for
anglers, besides keeping most charters tied to the dock through Thursday, was
how the water clarity became turned over, Pacific currents pushed cold and dirty
water into the Sea of Cortez, reaching all the way to north of Los Frailes,
this dropped ocean temperatures from the 78/80 degree range down to a chilly
67/68 degrees. This is a drastic change overnight, now the weather has settled
down, but this will take some time for conditions to rebound to how they were,
offshore from San Jose del Cabo there are now areas where water is 72/74
degrees, a few nice days of calmer weather and we should see water temperatures
back into the mid-70s.
The rapid
change in conditions put a halt to any consistent fishing action that had been
happening prior to the south winds. There had been good marlin action offshore,
also a mix of dorado, wahoo and yellowfin tuna to round out the surface action.
Also we were seeing better quality off the bottom structure, namely for
amberjack and a few dogtooth snapper, both of which prefer warm water
conditions. So now with the colder water we heard of a few striped marlin being
encountered outside of the Gordo Banks and towards Iman Bank. Most panga
charters were concentrating efforts near San Luis Bank and off of Cardon and La
Fortuna, where they found some of the Eastern Pacific bonito, yellow snapper,
leopard grouper and triggerfish.
The only
thing good to say about the conditions this past week, is that the climate was
comfortable as far as temperature was, a relief from the hot weather and most
likely the last cold wave of the season we will feel, with the major heat of
the summer season just waiting for us in the very near future.
Cold water
seemed to even scatter the available baitfish, pangeros were now working
overtime to find jurelito, caballito and some moonfish, of course there are
still some ballyhoo and squid slabs also being offered.
For the few
days that charter fleets were even able to operate this week, the most
consistent action was found closer to shore, either slow trolling or drift
fishing baits and also some action found on yo-yo style jigs. A lot of changes
surely will happen in the coming weeks and conditions do warm back up to the
normal patterns.
Just prior
to the water turning over due to persistent south winds, we saw some decent
roosterfish action accounted for off of inshore grounds, San Luis and the San
Jose del Cabo Hotel zone both produced roosterfish in decent number, fish to 25
pounds were landed.
The combined
panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out
approximately 42 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
9 striped marlin, 2 wahoo, 3 dogtooth snapper, 5 yellowfin tuna, 90 bonito, 4
dorado, 6 amberjack,11 leopard grouper (cabrilla), 2 pompano, 32 yellow
snapper, 4 sierra, 8 barred pargo, 22 roosterfish and 75 triggerfish.
Good
fishing, Eric.
This entry
was posted in Fish Reports by admin-pangaMan.