Fishermen's Fleet-La Paz
The front edge of the great dorado invasion continues to linger. Big fish, most in the 40+ class, but it hasn't broken wide yet. The water is still a mixture of just warm enough, and not, with no shoals of flying fish yet, and they haven't spawned on the buoys, which would be normal by now. Every day really big dorado come in, but not on every boat. To augment that the cubera bite continues at your favorite spot, be it Roca Traversada, El Castillo, or Punta Perico, the marlin bite at the 88 for stripers and small (sub 250lb.) blues continues, and some cabrilla, roosters, and amberjack are to be had inshore.
East Cape-Rancho Leonero
Water- Still much colder than normal, inside 75 outside 82-83. Clear and clean water, morning westerly breezes, with the normal afternoon south/easters.
The front edge of the great dorado invasion continues to linger. Big fish, most in the 40+ class, but it hasn't broken wide yet. The water is still a mixture of just warm enough, and not, with no shoals of flying fish yet, and they haven't spawned on the buoys, which would be normal by now. Every day really big dorado come in, but not on every boat. To augment that the cubera bite continues at your favorite spot, be it Roca Traversada, El Castillo, or Punta Perico, the marlin bite at the 88 for stripers and small (sub 250lb.) blues continues, and some cabrilla, roosters, and amberjack are to be had inshore.
East Cape-Rancho Leonero
Water- Still much colder than normal, inside 75 outside 82-83. Clear and clean water, morning westerly breezes, with the normal afternoon south/easters.
Air- Very pleasant, cooler than normal days, highs still in the 80's, cool mornings.
The very good fishing continues. Lots of variety, Yellowfin, Dorado,
and Striped Marlin, all species are close and most boats are scoring all
three daily. The bite this week is even better than last. Lots of
Stripers (our best bill fishing in over ten years). 2 to 6 are being
released daily, all boats targeting bill fish are releasing at least 2.
The Dorado fishing has improved over the past week, with more quality
fish to 55# hitting the beach than past weeks. The Yellowfin are under
the Porpise and biting aggressively. Inside lots of Amberjack in the
25-30# class. The Roosterfishing has been slower than normal this week.
The colder than normal water has not hurt the fishing, Boats are working
the temp. breaks, with good results...
Billfish- Wide open Striped Marlin fishing, mixed with a few Sails. The
bite has moved South, ten to fifteen miles off Pulmo and Frailles.
About a 50/50 bite on lures and bait. All anglers scoring at least one,
most 3 or 4.
Dorado- Better fishing, double the number of Dorado taken last week.
Big bulls are common, largest this week 55#. Mixed with the billfish...
Yellowfin- 10 to 30 miles offshore, under fast moving Porpise. Almost
all football sized this week, a few 25#er's. Fun fishing, limits if you
can find them. This is our third straight week of decent tuna fishing.
Taking Hoochies and cedar plugs...
Inside- Lots of Amberjack inside on the drop offs. 25 to 30# fish are
common. Taking heavy iron and live Caballito. The Gallo's are not around
this week, due to the much colder water than normal.
Gordo Banks - San Jose del Cabo
The summer season has just begun and on the Eastern Pacific we have already seen the third named tropical storm, as this week Hurricane Cosme developed off the coast of Manzanillo, before heading on a westerly path, coming within 300 miles of Cabo San Lucas and quickly encountered cooler water causing it to dissipate, never did threaten land. We never did feel more than a few sprinkles of rain, though the ocean swells quickly rose up to fifteen feet high on Tuesday and Wednesday, before residing on Thursday and Friday. Local ports of Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Los Cabos were closed to all boating activities, red flag conditions, by late Thursday morning the ports were reopened for operations.
The summer season has just begun and on the Eastern Pacific we have already seen the third named tropical storm, as this week Hurricane Cosme developed off the coast of Manzanillo, before heading on a westerly path, coming within 300 miles of Cabo San Lucas and quickly encountered cooler water causing it to dissipate, never did threaten land. We never did feel more than a few sprinkles of rain, though the ocean swells quickly rose up to fifteen feet high on Tuesday and Wednesday, before residing on Thursday and Friday. Local ports of Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Los Cabos were closed to all boating activities, red flag conditions, by late Thursday morning the ports were reopened for operations.
This latest storm system brought in more tropical and humid weather,
high temperatures were staying in the 80s, mild for this time of year,
thick marine haze, almost fog, has been hanging over the Southern
Peninsula and Pacific breezes are keep conditions comfortable. Anglers
had encountered turned over inshore water conditions prior to this
recent storm, which stirred things up even more and it could be a while
before the water cleans and warms back up. In the mean time more
consistent action was being found offshore, in the direction of the
warmer currents north of the Gordo Banks and towards Los Frailes. This
is where sportfishing charters have been finding decent numbers of
striped marlin, a few sailfish and dorado also on these same fishing
grounds. Offshore trolling with lures, looking for signs of activity,
seeing some marlin on the surface and taking blind strikes by a few
larger sized dorado that are starting to move into the area, also a few
wahoo in the mix. Dorado to over 40 pounds were accounted for, just
there are no numbers to speak of yet, though if you happened to
encounter any type of floating debris you could be in for a wide open
bite. This is definitely the time of year where anything could happen on
any given day.
The epic roosterfish action that had been happening close to shore has
come to a standstill as the water temperatures fell, water turned
greenish and baitfish scattered. There is warmer water near 80 degrees
now on the offshore grounds towards the north. The inshore rock
outcroppings from Cardon to Vinormama have produced some quality sized
amberjack, weighing up to 80 pounds, these fish are striking on surface
trolled live baits, preferably moonfish, mullet or caballito. Shallow
water areas of less than 50 ft., these fish migrate close to shore
during this early part of summer, searching for congregated baitfish,
also these are the same rock piles that hold dogtooth snapper and
various grouper, good luck keeping them away from the rocks after
hooking up. These are fragile reefs, susceptible to heavy boat pressure,
not an area where the entire fleet can successfully target, with
increased tourism and local population there is added pressure,
additionally there are many more spear fishermen targeting these easily
accessible spots. This is now the peak season for this inshore fishery,
within several weeks this action typically would start to shift onto the
deeper, more spread out rocky structure, such as the Iman and San Luis
Banks, these grounds are much larger and can handle more pressure.
The combined panga fleet launching out of Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent
out approximately 58 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a
fish count of, 1 wahoo, 25 striped marlin, 13 dorado, 16 amberjack, 12
pargo colorado, 10 yellow snapper, 6 dogtooth snapper, 14 cabrilla, 15
jack crevalle, 5 hammerhead sharks, 4 sierra and 12 roosterfish.
Gaviota Fleet - Cabo San Lucas
The "Gaviota IX, skippered by Captain Christian Lopez, led the billfish catches this past week and released 9 of his 10 stripers for the week with the bulk of the catches coming from the 95 fathom spot. The "Tuna Time" reported in today with a 4 striper release day, also with the bulk of the fish coming from the 95 fathom spot. The overall combined totals for a total of 20 days fished reflected 23 stripers, (21 released) 7 dorado, 2 roosterfish and 32 skipjack for their efforts and that included the slump on Monday & Tuesday. Tomorrow starts the first day of the Stars & Stripes 2-day tournament, an all-charity event, that for the first time will board from the docks in Cabo San Lucas instead of from the beach at Chileno. The organizers were concerned for safety issues with the residual swell activity creating wave action from the beach front at Chileno Bay. There was no wind today and it is likely to be a calm ocean for tomorrow's event and if it is, they will probably board from the Chileno Bay Beach area on Saturday morning.
Cabo Climate: A mostly cloudy week with temps that ranged from 69 nights to 96 daytime highs. Some intermittent sunshine as the week progressed but not too much. Surface winds coming in from the SSE at 10-25 mph during the early part of the week but calming considerably by late Thursday and into the weekend. Hurricane Cosme whisked by Cabo about 100-plus miles offshore and provided a southerly swell pushing at the lower end of Baja but no damage to the area and better yet, no closures to the Port.
Sea Conditions: The Pacific current has pushed cool water back around the end of the peninsula and into the Sea of Cortez, all the way to Punta Arenas, and extended about6 8-9 miles offshore on the Sea of Cortez side, Past the 8-mile mark the waters were much warmer from just outside the 1150 fathom spot and along the 1000 fathom curve, northerly, with temps that ranged from 76-79 degrees. Winds flowing in from the SE at 10-25 mph and some residual swell from the hurricane, but all is expected to subside by Thursday evening with the end of the week on a plus mark.
Best Fishing Area: It varied a little this past week but for the most part, the best striper bite was in the 95 to the 1150 fathom spot areas and in the Gorda Banks area.
Best Lure/Bait: Live bait was by far the best but some fish were being taken on the artificials.
Live Bait Supply: Live bait remained readily available right through the full moon phase and continued to be mostly caballitos, (aka goggle eyes on the east coast). Price remained at $3.00 per bait.
The "Gaviota IX, skippered by Captain Christian Lopez, led the billfish catches this past week and released 9 of his 10 stripers for the week with the bulk of the catches coming from the 95 fathom spot. The "Tuna Time" reported in today with a 4 striper release day, also with the bulk of the fish coming from the 95 fathom spot. The overall combined totals for a total of 20 days fished reflected 23 stripers, (21 released) 7 dorado, 2 roosterfish and 32 skipjack for their efforts and that included the slump on Monday & Tuesday. Tomorrow starts the first day of the Stars & Stripes 2-day tournament, an all-charity event, that for the first time will board from the docks in Cabo San Lucas instead of from the beach at Chileno. The organizers were concerned for safety issues with the residual swell activity creating wave action from the beach front at Chileno Bay. There was no wind today and it is likely to be a calm ocean for tomorrow's event and if it is, they will probably board from the Chileno Bay Beach area on Saturday morning.
Cabo Climate: A mostly cloudy week with temps that ranged from 69 nights to 96 daytime highs. Some intermittent sunshine as the week progressed but not too much. Surface winds coming in from the SSE at 10-25 mph during the early part of the week but calming considerably by late Thursday and into the weekend. Hurricane Cosme whisked by Cabo about 100-plus miles offshore and provided a southerly swell pushing at the lower end of Baja but no damage to the area and better yet, no closures to the Port.
Sea Conditions: The Pacific current has pushed cool water back around the end of the peninsula and into the Sea of Cortez, all the way to Punta Arenas, and extended about6 8-9 miles offshore on the Sea of Cortez side, Past the 8-mile mark the waters were much warmer from just outside the 1150 fathom spot and along the 1000 fathom curve, northerly, with temps that ranged from 76-79 degrees. Winds flowing in from the SE at 10-25 mph and some residual swell from the hurricane, but all is expected to subside by Thursday evening with the end of the week on a plus mark.
Best Fishing Area: It varied a little this past week but for the most part, the best striper bite was in the 95 to the 1150 fathom spot areas and in the Gorda Banks area.
Best Lure/Bait: Live bait was by far the best but some fish were being taken on the artificials.
Live Bait Supply: Live bait remained readily available right through the full moon phase and continued to be mostly caballitos, (aka goggle eyes on the east coast). Price remained at $3.00 per bait.
