Black Marlin and 300 lb. Tuna taken from the Gordo Banks
Capt. Eric Brictson
December 31, 2009
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Happy New Year's!
December 31, 2009
Anglers –
Crowds of tourists increased during this past week, as New Year's Day approached local weather was wintrier, though most days the sun was shining. The exception was on Monday when a cold front swept through the area, bringing as much as two inches of rainfall throughout the day and the high temperature for the day only reached into the lower 60s, which is almost unheard of locally and maybe occurs an average of one day per year. Winds from the north are now more persistent, this has created a cooling trend for water temperatures, as well as pushing in greener currents. Water temperatures at this time are ranging from 73 to 77 degrees. The conditions have limited options for anglers, but despite the not so favorable conditions anglers did report some respectable catches, hopes are that the weather will settle down and we can start the new year of 2010 off with some quality fishing action. Whales like the cooling waters and are now being seen in greater numbers with each passing day.
Obtaining sufficient supplies of live sardinas continue to be problematic, more often than not there were only minimal amounts to go around, not enough to use for chumming, as would be normal when using the sardinas for bait. Mackerel also became scarcer, as seems to be the normal scenario during the full moon phase. Large schools of skipjack moved into the area off of San Jose del Cabo where mackerel normally school and this has scattered the baitfish.
Due to the limited bait supplies anglers are using what bait is available and a combination of trolling lures. Sierra have moved in along coastal stretches in big numbers, hitting most readily on sardinas, but also whiling to strike on smaller sized hoochies and Rapalas. Dorado were still in the area, but not easy to find, some smaller dodos were found close to shore and a handful of dorado up to 25 pounds were encountered further from shore where charters were mainly targeting striped marlin. The best marlin action is now on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas where the concentrations of stripers are, though the billfish are not as numerous in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Hugo Pino, the famed La Playita Pangero, landed a 400 pound black marlin off of the Gordo Banks while trolling a hard to come by bolito for bait on Monday during rainy weather conditions.
Another highlight of the week was an estimated 300 pound yellowfin tuna that was landed by Nino Rochin on Tuesday, Nino is a long time La Playita pangero and was using a larger sized skipjack for bait, because the preferred smaller sized bolito were hard to find. This likely will be the last of the 300 pound super cow sized tuna to go down on record for the year of 2009, when approximately a dozen yellowfin of over 300 pounds have been accounted for by the local fleets fishing in vicinity of the Gordo Banks. A few other yellowfin up to 150 pounds were also landed off of the Banks this week, but the conditions were the main factor in limiting how many boats even concentrated on this area, the baitfish were also becoming progressively harder to come by, but most baits that were slow trolled did result in strikes by either tuna, marlin, dorado or sharks.
As water temperatures drop and we transition into winter conditions the elusive wahoo are becoming harder to find, though everyday a few of these speedsters are being landed by anglers trolling the areas from Punta Gorda to La Fortuna, the wahoo that were brought in weighed from 15 to 50 pounds, striking on skirted lead heads, rapalas and larger baitfish. Every year is a bit different, last year at this time the weather was warmer and wind was not so much of a factor, the wahoo actually stayed around through the first couple of weeks of February. If this cooling trend continues the chances are that the remaining wahoo will be seeking out warmer southern waters in the coming weeks.
Very little bottom fishing is now going on, too much current to really be able to concentrate on the rock piles. We expect to see this action become more of an option soon, as it is the time to start looking for some snapper, pargo, cabrilla, amberjack and hopefully another strong run of migrating yellowtail.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 118 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
1 black marlin, 2 sailfish, 17 striped marlin, 8 hammerhead shark, 508 sierra, 14 roosterfish, 16 wahoo, 67 dorado, 58 yellowfin tuna, 28 bonito, 8 amberjack, 11 cabrilla and 13 pargo.
Good Fishing, Eric
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