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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
September 29, 2002
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
September 29, 2002
We are now in the midst of another transition period, as the fall season has officially arrived. Days were mostly sunny, some scattered clouds, with high temperatures in the 80s and the lows dipping to the 70-degree mark. The week started off with relatively calm seas, but the conditions progressively deteriorated towards the weekend, as winds from the south picked up and made for some very bumpy offshore conditions. This stirred the water up and the color turned greenish, particularly closer to shore, water temperatures still averaged close to 80 degrees throughout most of the zone. Live bait became more scarce, the large schools of sardinas and mullet off of the
La Playita area had diminished and anglers required patience in the morning to wait for their chance at obtaining a days supply of the bait. This was also the week following the full moon, which typically is not one of the more favorable periods, of course there are many other factors to also deal with. There was some excellent catches for a variety of gamefish reported, but overall the bite was not consistent and the hot spots were changing daily.
For the few lucky anglers that fished in the area off of Red Hill on Wednesday, September 25, they enjoyed incredible action on wahoo, the fish were found within one half mile of shore while trolling lures, pangas reported from 4 to 6 wahoo apiece and were returning to beach early. Most of the wahoo were in the 25 to 40 pounds range, though a couple others tipped the scales to 75 pounds. The next day was a different story, only a few odd wahoo strikes were reported and anglers had to struggle to find 3 or 4 dorado. The most consistent action has been for dorado, which have been mostly school-sized fish of 5 to 15 pounds. The best action was found while trolling bait, but some of the larger bull dorado that were landed came further offshore by the cruiser fleets targeting billfish or tuna, several dorado were reportedly landed that weighed in the 50 to 70 pound class. Pangas generally had average catches of 3 to 5 dorado per day, but these averages dropped on the days that were too choppy to affectively target the preferred fishing grounds.
The yellowfin tuna action that had been so dominant further offshore, slowed this past week, with the major factor being the rough seas and the passing of the full moon. It was a hit or miss scenario, with some tuna still being located schooling with porpoise, sizes ranged from 25 to100 pounds, with most of the fish found at least 20 miles offshore, from Chileno to outside of the Gordo Banks. There were also a couple days when the striped marlin action was very good, with the cruisers averaging a couple each per day. Several larger black and blue marlin were reported from the area around the Outer Gordo Banks, ranging up to 350 pounds. There were good-sized schools of bolito, skipjack and small yellowfin tuna (2 to 4 pounds) hanging around the banks, but the numbers of billfish actually hooked was minimal. A couple of wahoo were also taken off of the Inner Gordo Bank, as well a handful of dorado and sailfish. The better action for the medium sized fish was closer to shore, the areas of La Fortuna to the Iman Bank was one of the more productive areas for the panga fleets. Off the bottom there was a mixed bag of grouper, amberjack and pargo being found for the few anglers that decided to target these rocky spots and on the days when the weather allowed.
Good Fishing, Eric
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