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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
January 13, 2002
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
January 13, 2002
Wintertime weather has continued to be very pleasant, with scattered cloud cover, lots of warm sunshine and high temperatures from 75 to 80 degrees. There was some wind out of the west, affecting Cabo San Lucas, but the northerly winds, which can be so persistent at this time, have been all but nonexistent. Water temperature has ranged from 70 to 75 degrees, with the cooler water from the Pacific and the northern Sea of Cortez progressively working its way into
Los Cabos waters. Strong currents have remained a setback off of San Jose del Cabo, predominantly on the Gordo Banks, where conditions saw greenish water and the overall fishing action was just not up to local standards. For the first time since the starting of the fall season in October, sportfishing fleets are showing clear-cut signs that the tourist business is showing a sluggish start at the beginning of this New Year. With the combination of the terrorist attacks, slow economy, hurricanes and the sub par fishing it appears that the area could be in for at least a few months of slower times. Many people are also disenchanted with the continual rising high costs of visiting the Los Cabos area, especially the food prices and cost of transportation.
Supplies of sardinas off of San Jose del Cabo became even scarcer this past week, as on several days none of the small live bait could be found by the commercial pangeros. Even with the lower numbers of charters going out there was not enough of the bait to go around. There were other options of fishing with artificial lures and using chunk bait. Panga fleets continued to focus efforts on the Gordo Banks, this is where they have found the action to be more consistent. They have been scouting out other areas to the north and south, not finding anything better. The further north they have gone, the water has been cooler and greener, with mostly bottomfish being accounted for. The week did have a good start to it, with Sunday and Monday showing some quality action for the larger tuna, they were striking on the sardinas and chunk bait, but it was the chunk bait that more of the larger tuna were taken on, including the week's largest from La Playita, which was a 113 pound yellowfin. Many fish were coming in that weighing from 50 to 70 pounds. Then the rest of the week became spotty, with only a handful of the larger tuna being landed and more of the football sized tuna showing up. There were plenty of skipjack around to keep anglers busy, many of them were small and made good bait for trolling. Both dorado and striped marlin were accounted for by trolling these baits around the Banks, some of the more fortunate anglers had as many as four or five dorado in the 10 to 25 pound class, though typically anglers felt lucky to land one or two dorado. The billfish were not abundant, but there were reports of them being hooked up on a daily basis.
Off the various bottom rock piles catches included bonita, pargo, amberjack and cabrilla. The majority of them taken on yo-yo jigs, several of the amberjack weighed between 20 and 40 pounds, most of the other fish were less than ten pounds. Along the shoreline there was some fun light tackle action to be found for sierra, jack crevalle and roosterfish, the live bait was the best way to go, but there was also success found by trolling small rapalas, hoochies and feathers.
Good Fishing, Eric
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