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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
August 27, 2001
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
August 26, 2001
After the rainsquall last week, the parched Baja desert finally came to life and practically over night it turned a tropical green color. Though the drought continues this week, as no more precipitation was reported and days were hot and humid. There was more wind out of the south this week, it made for slightly choppy seas, but it also helped keep air temperatures somewhat cooler. The water temperature continued to range from 80 to 85 degrees and the clarity has improved, with clear blue water found further offshore, some of the inshore waters were still greenish. The southern swells were making themselves present and the panga fleets have particularly taken extra precautions while launching off the beach through the surf zone. Crowds of tourists are light now, as is usual for the end of summer, but for the anglers that have made the trip, it has proved to be well worth their while. Live bait supplies continue to be plentiful, with the bait of choice for the medium sized gamefish being sardinas. Overall catches included black and blue marlin, sailfish, yellowfin tuna, dorado, skipjack, pargo, roosterfish and a few wahoo.
The action for tuna on the Outer Gordo Banks shut down on Monday, very strange deal, going from wide open to not one tuna caught, just over night, the action switched back to the Inner Bank and closer to the point off of Punta Gorda. Most common catches were yellowfin tuna and dorado. The tuna were hitting best on sardinas and were averaging 15 to 50 pounds, with many of them going 35 to 45 pounds. Fly lining live baits on 20 to 50 pound tackle was the standard technique, but it was also very affective to add a half ounce rubber core sinker to your line, hook sizes ranged from 1/0 to 4/0. More of the typical summer season schooling dorado are now showing up throughout the area, they are weighing mostly in the 10 to 20 pound class, but an occasional monster bull to 50 pounds was mixed in. They have taken a variety of trolling lures and once found would readily hit whole or strip baits. Average daily catches per panga was about 6 to 12 fish in combination.
The action for billfish has continued in the area of the Gordo Banks but this week the problem was finding the right sized bait to troll with, the skipjack and smaller yellowfin were illusive. There were marlin taken from the pangas out of La Playita, both black and blues, with the largest being a 280 pound black caught by skipper Jimmy Arista. Of course there were many other stories of big marlin hook ups that were lost. If the weather cooperates this coming weekend could be a hot one for the big marlin, it will be nearing their favorite full moon feeding time.
Not much going on along the shoreline now, though there were good reports from Cabo San Lucas of roosterfish action. Out of San Jose it has been mainly needlefish that were patrolling the waters near shore. There were some pargo being taken by anglers in the same areas where they were fishing for tuna and dorado, most of the pargo were in the 6 to 10 pound range but a couple of them were the larger dog tooth snapper species that tipped the scales to 25 pounds.
Good Fishing, Eric
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