Hurricane Blanca passed off to west of Cabo San Lucas last weekend, although everyone was heeding the warnings and preparing for worse conditions, this system never really amounted to much, very little rainfall at all was felt, though on Sunday night there were some wind gusts up to 50 or 60 mph the blew through the Los Cabos Region. Sportfishing fleets were shut down for three days due to stormy conditions, resuming operations on Tuesday. Ocean conditions were a bit stirred up, water was off colored and fleets were searching all the known local grounds for signs of the best possible action. Ocean currents were strong, even though swells diminished, water temperature ranged from 76 to 80 degrees through most of the area. Baits supplies of caballito and moonfish were being found in the Puerto Los Cabos Marina channel, only scattered numbers of mullet now showing up and no signs yet of sardinas.
Center of the most consistent action was found around the 25 spot, off of La Fortuna, inside of the Iman Bank. This is where hog sized amberjack have been testing the skill and strength of anglers, with fish to over 60 pounds being accounted for. These fish were striking on live baits while either slow trolling or drift fishing over the rocky structure. The few charters that did use downrigger equipment had particularly good results. Various varieties of cabrilla and pargo rounded out the catches from this area, with one more golden phased leopard grouper being accounted for.
Dorado were spread out, though a percentage of charters were finding limited numbers of these fish, with a few larger bulls starting to be accounted for. With the water now being an off colored greenish blue, we have not had any wahoo action this past week. Yellowfin tuna were also scarce during this past storm shortening week, though on Wednesday one angler did report losing a nice yellowfin, of an estimated 80 pounds, right as it neared the boat.
Striped marlin were spread out through the region, one charter boat had a double hook up close to shore while trolling ballyhoo, marlin were also found further offshore. There were reports from a couple different private sportfishers of landing cow sized yellowfin tuna while traveling offshore and encountering porpoise.
This is always the time of year when we see big roosterfish moving into the local inshore grounds and in recent days we have seen roosterfish up to 65 pounds landed, still no big numbers, but these fish are definitely in the area now. There were also some dogtooth snapper starting to appear along shore, near the rock outcroppings, these fish will test even the most skilled of anglers.
Presently we are closely monitoring the progress of Tropical Storm Carlos, as this system is forecast to move in the direction of Southern Baja by next Wednesday.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 52 charters for the shortened week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 8 striped marlin, 19 dorado, 3 yellowfin tuna, 1 golden leopard grouper, 34 amberjack, 15 cabrilla, 3 dogtooth snapper, 4 pargo colorado, 2 sierra, 10 yellow snapper, 12 jack crevalle, 8 bonito and 20 roosterfish