Everything is still calm on the weather front of the North Eastern Pacific. Last Sunday we did cancel out fishing charters due to heavy tropical thunderstorm activity early in the day, since then, the rest of the week has been dry and anglers enjoyed great ocean conditions. Water temperature are now ranging from 85 to 87 degrees, clarity is clean and blue in most areas, still a bit off colored inshore north of Punta Gorda.
Supplies of sardinas remained plentiful near the marina entrance and are now being found along beach stretches close to Cabo San Lucas, where they had not had these schooling baitfish available until recently. Most consistent action now has been for various sized yellowfin tuna, action was centered from Santa Maria to the Iman Bank and most of the yellowfin being accounted for are fish in the 10 to 20 lb. class, though other areas produced decent numbers of tuna 50 to 70 lb., with several fish up to 150 lb. landed. On the Gordo Banks a variety of sizes of yellowfin tuna were seen breezing on the surface, some of these were cow sized fish, though these fish proved finicky, with all of the natural food source and strong currents sweeping through, the fish are not always in the feeding mood. Best action for numbers of fish recently has been either near shipwreck of the Santa Maria area or around the Iman Bank, though the Gordo Banks also produced some quality action mid-week, before slower days later in the week.
Dorado and Wahoo action slowed back down, though there were some of these fish being found, just not a consistent bite. Strong current also limited bottom action to sporadic numbers dogtooth snapper, various pargo and snapper species. The warm water continues to attract rainbow runners into the fish counts.
Several black marlin were also landed this week, largest weighed in was a 335 lb. specimen, all of these were hooked into near the Gordo Banks, while trolling with chihuil, caballito or skipjack. This is the time when billfish grand slams are possible, as striped, blue marlin and sailfish are also now being found on local fishing grounds.
Not much inshore action this time of year, though local beach and dock anglers have hooked into a few snook recently, though these fish have proved very elusive this season, a handful of nice corbina to 10 lb. were also taken from the shore, as well as quite a few sierra off the San Jose Estuary, a bit early in the season for these fish, which do normally prefer cooler water.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 61 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 4 black marlin, 8 sailfish, 2 striped marlin, 15 dorado, 5 wahoo, 280 yellowfin tuna, 18 white skipjack, 8 bonito, 11 rainbow runner, 6 dogtooth snapper, 8 yellow snapper, 5 cabrilla and 13 barred pargo.