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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
December 15, 2002
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
December 15, 2002
Pre-Holiday crowds are now light, as most people are now preoccupied with shopping and preparing for Christmas. For the tourists that are traveling to Los Cabos, they have been enjoying great weather, days have been warm, with plenty of sunshine, the high temperatures close to 80 degrees. There was little wind this past week and ocean conditions were calm for the most part, water temperature has continued to cool off and now was averaging 75 to 76 degrees, clarity varied as well, with blue water being found further offshore. Bait was plentiful, with sardinas and caballito both available from the commercial pangueros. Anglers found that the action was spread out, there was no particular hot spot and fleets were scouting out areas in all directions. Overall the most consistent bite was for the smaller gamefish found closer to shore. With the water now on a cooling trend, it is the time of year when certain species start to migrate south and other fish that prefer the cooler temperatures will be migrating into local waters.
Panga fleets were mainly targeting dorado, yellowfin tuna and sierra, but also were catching a mix of bottomfish. Billfish were found on the Pacific, with striped marlin making up the majority of this action, though the bite was not consistent. Needlefish continued to be a pesky problem for anglers trolling with live sardinas in search of dorado and tuna. Some days the needlefish would not allow the other fish to even have a chance, but on other days they were not so aggressive and the yellowfin tuna would readily come up to chummed sardinas. Anglers had best success using lighter tackle, as the tuna did prove to be line shy, sizes ranged from 10 to 20 pounds. The area within one mile of shore, from the Hyatt Hotel to Santa Maria proved to be the best bet for finding the yellowfin tuna. There was a report of a couple of 60 to 70 pound class tuna caught on chunk bait from the Gordo Banks and hopes are that this might be the start of something, the Banks have been lacking tuna activity for a long time. Dorado were found throughout the area, with the larger fish coming from the Pacific, most of the ones found on the Sea of Cortez side were less than 20 pounds. Average daily catches consisted of three or four tuna and a couple dorado per boat, on most days anglers were able to catch as many sierra as they wanted, though average size was only several pounds, this was exciting action for the younger children and also great for fish tacos.
With the lack of any real consistent offshore action more charters are now starting to break up the action by searching for some bottomfish, they found mixed success on a variety of great eating fish, including pargo, cabrilla, pompano and grouper. These fish were striking on a variety of baits and on iron yo-yo style jigs. During the coming winter months this should be a common game plan.
Good Fishing, Eric
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