Report by
Cass Tours
Fishermen's Fleet - La Paz
THE FISHING IN LA PAZ HAS BEEN GOOD, NOT GREAT. THE LAST THREE DAYS HAVE BEEN OUR FIRST STRONG BLOW OF THE FALL, AND THAT IS LIMITING. STRIPED MARLIN, A FEW DORADO, AND SOME BITTEN OFF RAPALA'S HAVE KEPT FOLKS ENTERTAINED AND FILL UP THE FREEZER AS WELL, SO WHILE NOT EXCELLENT, IT AIN'T BAD.
San Jose del Cabo - Gordo Banks
This is now peak Fall Season for the Los Cabos region and tourists are now arriving in large numbers. The weather is just about perfect now, highs in the low 80s, lows mid 60s, sunny skies, varying winds, now becoming more predominate from the north. We are now enjoying very pleasant weather conditions.
Water temperatures averaged in the 80/83 degree range throughout this past week. Clean blue water, baitfish on the fishing grounds, things looking good, but ever since thepassing of the WON Tuna Event, anglers have found that the fishing action has slowed and spread out more, anglers were having to patiently search for limited catches of yellowfin tuna, dorado, wahoo, sailfish and other species. There has been heavy pressure now for months on baitfish schools and anglers had to search and often wait to find available sardinas and caballito from the commercial pangeros.
The season’s first northerly winds blew in on Tuesday, gusting to 25 mph through most of day, on and off several days, though tapering off compared to that first day. This made for very wet and choppy seas, more powerful towards the north, anglers could find protected calm waters towards Cabo San Lucas and on the Pacific, a difference of thirty nautical miles can mean a huge difference in wind patterns in this area.
Anglers did report yellowfin tuna off of the La Fortuna, Iman and Gordo Banks. These fish ranged from 20 to 100 pounds, the largest tuna found were the fish schooling on the Gordo Banks, conditions seem to shut down action, though quality yellowfin are still on these grounds and with water temperatures still favorable we should see continued opportunities of finding cow sized tuna. The action was slow this past week, wind did not help at all, with the breezes residing this will hopefully help put things back on track. These tuna have been striking various baits, dead, live or chunk, with lots of chum needed to get them up in the feeding mood anglers reported success while using lighter and longer fluorocarbon leaders. On La Fortuna and the Iman Bank, catches included yellowfin tuna, wahoo, rainbow runner, sailfish, pargo and bonito, no significant numbers, mainly in ones or twos,
Trolling with live chuihil on the Gordo Banks was producing hook ups on yellowfin in recent days. Only a handful of fish being accounted for now, some of them quality sized, there are fish in the area and any given day this bite could bust wide open. Despite these things the majority of people are having a good time.
Dorado were more numerous in the direction of Cabo San Lucas, trolling medium sized lures to find the schools and then using bait worked well on fish in the 5 to 20 pound size. Wahoo have been slow to become active this season, spotty action for the past month, this weekend, on Saturday, was the first time these fish really went on a frenzied bite, for the handful of panga anglers that were trolling the Iman Bank on this morning, they reported taking as many as a dozen big strikes for wahoo, landing up as many as 6 fish per boat, sizes up to fifty pounds, some anglers did not have as high of hook up ratio. Anglers had most of these strikes while trolling live caballito or chuhuil, some wahoo also hit high speed trolled lures. Very encouraging news on the wahoo and there were favorable reports also from the Gordo Banks, as larger sized yellowfin tuna were accounted for the past couple of days.
On November 20, the planned La Playita Wahoo Tournament is scheduled, a one day event with various jackpot categories, also the keys to a new car will be up for grabs in a separate raffle. Hopefully the wahoo will wake up in time for this event, which either way will be a fun event.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 248 charters for the week, with anglers accounted for, 2 blue marlin, 3 striped marlin, 23 sailfish, 68 wahoo, 226 dorado, 118 yellowfin tuna, 9 dogtooth snapper, 14 yellowtail, 18 rainbow runner, 44 pargo, 30 triggerfish, 35 bonito 6 pompano and 12 hammerhead shark.
Cabo San Lucas - Gaviota Fleet
Hot boat for the week was the "Gaviota VII" landing the only blue marlin, (a smaller fish under 200 lbs.) and 13 of the 14 wahoo for the week, (mostly in the 25-50 lb. range). What was really interesting this past week was the lack of yellowfin tuna following the Western Outdoor News Tuna Tournament. It was almost as if the tuna arrived just for the Tournament event and then, evaporated, as if they never existed. Truly amazing because the Tournament was a very busy tuna catching period. The fishing report for a combined total of 36 days fished reflected 1 blue marlin, 7 stripers released, 2 roosterfish, 14 wahoo, 1 yellowfin tuna and 155 dorado. The "Fish Cabo" reported dorado to 35-40 lbs. this past week.
Cabo Climate: Mostly sunny & clear days in the early week with some passing clouds showing up later in the week and temps that ranged from a cool 59 att nighty to 86 daytime highs.
Sea Conditions: From the Finger Bank to the Golden Gate Bank, the temps were 79-80 and moving southerly and around the corner at Cabo San Lucas and up to the Gorda Banks, slowly rising to 82 and stable.
Best Fishing Area: Clearly, the Pacific side continues to be the location for the fishing action.
Best Lure/Bait: Live bait and rigged ballyhoo were working equally as well for the billfish and dorado.
Live Bait Supply: According to Roberto Marquez, owner of the Fish Cabo Fleet, the live bait supply was OK for the week but many of the boats were taking 50-50 on the live bait and frozen ballyhoo for rigging. Prices were the same for either.
After what seemed to be months of below average fishing, which in reality was about 4 weeks, we finally got to see some decent fishing just in time to close out the year. Some times things just don’t work in your favor, but at least those who were down on the East Cape the past few weeks got to enjoy some good fishing. The big news this last week was the much awaited reappearance of the dorado, and not the peanut size we had been seeing. These were nice dorado up to 30lbs. Guest reported dorado to the north and to the south, and I even saw a kayaker fishing just off the beach land a nice 25lb. dorado which took him about 20 minutes to land. Most boats were coming in with limits on dorado each of the last few days. The billfish numbers have also been holding steady, as they have been all summer and fall. Last week the Salt Patrol Marlin tournament took place at Hotel Palmas De Cortez and they were able to land and release more than 90 billfish in three days. We also had a nice Black Marlin landed last week that weighed approximately 225lbs. A small black as far as blacks go, but it was nice to hear that they are still out there after going so long without hearing any reports of blacks. The tuna bite has been far to the south near Gordo Banks and most anglers have not wanted to make the run down there with the wind that we have been having down here. We also are starting to see more and more sierra coming to the dock as we move into sierra season. Some of the other species we saw this week included wahoo, pargo, jacks, cabrilla, bonita, pompano and ladyfish. The air temperature is a very comfortable 80-85 in the day and the over night low is in the mid 50’s. Water temps. continue to drop and we are now seeing upper 70’s to low 80’s. There are some great winter rates which are now available, so we hope to see you in the East Cape soon! 