Still Waiting for Bite to Become Consistent Day to Day
Capt. Eric Brictson
August 24, 2012
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
August 24, 2012
Anglers –
What a difference some much needed rainfall can make, in a matter of days the landscape in Southern Baja has blossomed into a lush green tropical desert oasis. Presently there are no new named storm systems in the Eastern Pacific, the coming weeks is when historically there has been the highest percentage of hurricane activity. This entire week there have been threatening clouds and isolated rain squalls offshore and to the north of the International airport, common pattern for late August. Humidity is high with all of the moisture in the area, I guess we can say the drought is over for now, despite still needing more rain, the amount of rain that fell last week was significant and a great relief for the entire region.
Ocean swells have settled, there are now comfortable sea conditions for anglers, as there are no storms presently kicking up high winds. Water clarity is clean throughout, at least from 5 miles offshore and out. Currents have remained particular strong, making any bottom fishing particularly challenging, ocean temperatures ranged from 82 to 85 degrees. Quite a bit of floating debris encountered in recent days, due to last week's flooding.
The Puerto Los Cabos Marina was holing schooling caballito, jurelito and moonfish, all being used for bait, while there were also some sardinas beginning to return to the jetty entrance area, still limited for these smaller baits, larger schools of these preferred baitfish are now found along the beaches north of Vinorama. Offshore fishing grounds are attracting sizable schools of skipacjk, all sizes, from tiny, smaller than mackerel size on up to fifteen pound bruisers. We are seeing abundant food supply on the local grounds, despite the more than favorable all around conditions the local fishing action remains substantial off as compared to typical summertime consistent fish counts. Global weather patterns is making it harder to predict what is going on, we are seeing a possible el Nino condition now develop off of Southern California, last time that really happened, I remember that we had an incredible winter bite on species such as sailfish and wahoo.
Even though we normally would expect to see more productive daily fishing action on larger sized catches, we are seeing the bite show signs of improvement, just that it has not been consistent from day to day. Some anglers were more fortunate, encountered floating debris that held larger dorado to 30 pounds of more, while the majority of the other boats are finding small sized dorado, particularly closer to shore, offshore there has been a better chance at finding a larger sized bull. Most of the yellowfin tuna recently were associated with porpoise activity, weighing 10 to 30 pounds, though there were some larger tuna reported on the Pacific side of CSL, one 205 lb. yellowfin was landed last Sunday by Renegade Mike. No tuna have been reported from the Gordo Banks and only a handful of smaller yellowfin have been accounted for on the grounds from Iman to San Luis Banks. More tuna seem to be found south towards Cabo San Lucas at this time, a lot can happen from day to day during the late summer, both the weather and fishing conditions become even harder than normal to predict.
Billfish action produced striped marlin, blues and sailfish, quite a few sails now moving in with the warmer currents and plentiful food supply. A few wahoo also being reported, lure strikes while trolling on the familiar tuna, dorado, billfish grounds. Using small to medium sized hoochie type or feather lures have been working well.
Commercial pangeros are continuing to produce quality red snapper, grouper, triggerfish and even an odd yellowtail, they are fighting strong currents and departing the docks in the predawn hours.
The recent rain resulted in breaking the San Jose Estuary open to the ocean, this got the snook to wake up and a handful of these prized fish to over 30 pounds were caught by a group of die hard locals who work this area when the favorable periods arrive, it was a higher tide bite, near noon, when the snook decided to feed, one person caught three himself in a short period of time, while his father landed a 30 pounder.
The combined panga fleet out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 78 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 wahoo, 8 sailfish, 236 dorado, 58 yellowfin, 2 yellowtail, 8 amberjack, 7 grouper, 17 cabrilla, 76 huachinango (red snapper), 38 pargo and 14 bonito.
Good fishing, Eric
More Fishing Reports:
