Rancho Leonero
Not much has changed since last week. The summer conditions typical of this time continue. Pretty much all the action is around bill fish. Good bait is available, caballitos and dead ballyhoo. If I were choosing one or the other I would take the ballyhoo .Most fish were taken on rigged ballyhoo this week. We continue to be disappointed by the lack of sardinas in our area.
The bill fish bite continues in the same area about 6 to 12 miles straight out(NE).Most boats getting multiples. Mixture of live bait, rigged ballyhoo and plastic.
This week the captains found a floating chunk of whale blubber which provided great dorado action. They feasted off this for 2 days and later were unable to find it. Good fish in the 40 to 50 lb class. Good bulls continue to be taken amongst the marlin and sails.
Wahoo continue to be taken daily. The fish in the 50lb range all seem small compared to last week's 100 pounder!!! The trick is to be prepared with the right tackle. Some anglers are getting bit off on marlin gear. A lot of trolled Ballyhoo baits were chomped off behind the hook as well. A good time to target these fish.
Bottom fishing has improved a bit but is not where one should waste too much of the day working the reefs.
Some good roosters this week. The lack of sardinas did handicap the fly fisherman some.
All in all a great fishing week.
All the beaches produced roosterfish and jacks. Bottom fishing was slow, the fish are just not around all the regular reefs.
San Jose del Cabo - Gordo Banks
Late spring crowds of tourists are relatively light, as many families are busy preparing for school graduation events and in planning stages for their summer activities. Ideal time to travel to Southern Baja, weather is not too warm yet, highs near 90 degrees and Pacific breezes have kept conditions comfortable. Southern swells are now steady and are attracting surfers from around the world. Ocean water temperatures are on the rise, now ranging from the mid to upper 70s throughout the zone, from Cabo San Lucas to north of Los Frailes. There were some unpredictable shifting winds on some days, but for the most part anglers found very comfortable offshore conditions. Most of charters fleets are concentrating efforts in the direction of warmer currents, the water temperatures on the Pacific Banks remain in the 60s.
There are more mullet moving along inshore stretches, but not in massive schools as we have seen in past seasons, most common baitfish available through the commercial bait suppliers were caballito, being found in the marina area, with some moonfish, jurelito and mullet mixed in. Ballyhoo are being sold by suppliers, they were good offshore baits to rig for striped marlin or dorado.
Striped marlin action has been found scattered all throughout the zone, most of the time from 5 to 20 miles from shore, the stripers were striking on lures and various baits. No huge numbers, but some charters were accounting for multiple fish days.
On the Gordo Banks and other high spots, anglers were able to find bolito and skipjack, trolling small hoochies early in the morning was the best chance, these preferred baitfish were working well for surface trolling. Dorado are being encountered in limited numbers, scattered throughout offshore grounds, there were isolated reports of finding larger concentrations of dorado associated with floating debris, but other than that most charters did well to find just one dorado. This is the season when we typically see a greater percentage of large sized dorado and recently there have been a few nice bulls to 35 pounds accounted for.
Only an occasional report of any yellowfin tuna action, mostly smaller sized, found while trolling on the normal offshore marlin grounds. With the ocean conditions shaping up how they are, we do expect to hear more reports of tuna activity. Same story for wahoo, only a handful of these elusive speedsters were being reported, though you never know, these fish do really prefer ocean currents that average in the upper 70s, we are nearing that now, so anything could happen if anglers are at the right sport at the correct time.
Roosterfish action remained steady inshore, every day we are hearing of fish in the 40 pound or larger class being hooked into while slow trolled just outside of the surf zone. The season started early for these prized fighting gamefish and is still going strong. Despite locals enjoy capturing and eating these jacks, these fish have dark red meat, can grow to 100 pounds, they are not known for eating quality, but rather for their aggressive surface strikes, unpredictable acrobatics and powerful runs, anglers need to take the future protection of this species into their own hands and practice the sport of catch and release.
Same story should be mentioned for striped marlin, this so called protected gamefish species is being blatantly exploited, sold commercially as though there are not even any laws against this illegal black market business. Whatever the problem, lack of official personnel or particular priorities, lead to this sad situation, while costs of local fishing licenses have reached inflated rates, certainly there should be funds to enforce existing regulations. Further thoughts also have to go in the direction of why authorities continue to allow commercial inshore gill netting to be practiced, this form of fishing does irreversible damage to this fragile fishery, something has to be done to abolish these gillnets before they completely destroy this unique and diverse World Class fishery.
This is now the season when dogtooth snapper, pargo colorado, amberjack, pompano, leopard grouper and other species follow baitfish schools close to shore and this action had showed great early season promise, but with recent sightings of expanses of set gill nets, this has coincided with a sharp drop off on inshore action for anglers. Global population increases commercial pressure on this fragile inshore fishery, the situation needs to be monitored and given a chance to survive.
The combined local panga fleets launching from La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 70 charters this past week and anglers reported a fish count of:
4 sailfish, 22 striped marlin, 2 wahoo, 9 hammerhead shark, 5 yellowtail, 18 amberjack,
16 cabrilla, 24 dorado, 55 various pargo species, 18 dogtooth snapper, 14 sierra, 4 yellowfin tuna, 16 pompano, 32 jack crevalle and 135 roosterfish.
Cabo San Lucas -Gaviota Fleet
The Pacific striped marlin were the fish of the week and the "Gaviota IX" was the high boat for the week, landing 8 marlin, (releasing 7) for five days fished. There were 13 off shore fishing days and 1 inshore fishing day that resulted in 18 stripers, 17 released and 1 dorado for the off shore waters along with 3 yellowtail and 3 skipjack for the 1 inshore fishing day. All of the fishing this past week was on the Sea of Cortez side of Cabo as the warmer waters stretched from Cabo San Lucas Bay, north and easterly throughout the entire area.
Cabo Climate: Mostly sunny, clear and hot days with pleasant evenings. Temperatures ranged from 68 nights to 97 daytime highs. Definitely hats, sun glasses and sun screen conditions for the week.
Sea Conditions: The Pacific side remained a bit windy with prevailing westerly surface winds and sea temps that were cold, from about 62-65 from the finger bank south to Cristobal, rising to 68-69 from there to Cabo Falso, then a 4-5 mile band of 74 degree water from Cabo Falso to Cabo. From Cabo and beyond into the Sea of Cortez, the temps ranged from 77-80 degrees. All of the Sea of Cortez side remained very fishable with mostly calm conditions and excellent water clarity.
Best Fishing Area: The 1150 Fathom Spot on the Sea of Cortez side of Cabo was the "hot spot" for the past week with about 90% of the action in that area.
Best Bait/Lure: Fish that were coming in on the lures were eager to take the live bait dropped back as the lure was removed from the water. The lures worked pretty good for some of the boats but getting the fish to "stick" on the lures is not nearly as sure a thing as the live bait drop back method.
Live bait supply: Caballitos were the mainstay of the live bait supply and were readily available at the $3.00 per bait rate.
Fishing continued to be wide open this week down on the East Cape. This week started off with a bang when the Balihoo arrived early from a day of fishing and to everyone’s surprise, they had a 172# yellowfin tuna. It was the first real cow that we had seen this season, so the fleet was excited. A few hours later a 109# wahoo came to the dock. This was by far the biggest wahoo of the season to add to an already incredible wahoo season. The dorado also improved and we saw some of the biggest dorado of the season come to the dock this week. The biggest of the week came from the gang from Keep’n It Reel with their very impressive 63# bull on Tuesday. They also landed 4 other dorado over 40#. Tuesday was also a great day for Tuna with a pair of cows coming to the dock. One was landed on the Bite Me weighed in at 103# and the other was landed on La Migra weighed in at 115#. The next two days brought wind to the East Cape, but fishing continued as usual. We saw lots of billfish, Tuna, dorado and even some nice pargo.
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