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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
February 9, 2003
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
February 9, 2003
This past week there were several days of cloud cover and some slight sprinkles, but for the most part sun worshiping tourists were not disappointed, as on the majority of days there was plenty of warm sunshine and high temperatures near 80 degrees. This is now the time when the wind from the north can become a nuisance, but recent trends have been unusually calm, though on the Pacific there were a few days where anglers reported choppy seas, the Sea of Cortez has been flat calm all week. Ocean temperatures were ranging from a cool 70 degrees on the Pacific to as warm as 74 or 75 off of San Jose and in the vicinity of the Gordo Banks. Schools of mackerel have become particularly abundant throughout the area and supplies of sardinas have also increased off of the San Jose Estuary. With the uncertainty of the economy and impending treats of war against Iraq the crowds of tourists have been below normal levels.
Most common daily catches included striped marlin, yellowfin tuna, dorado, skipjack, sierra, grouper, pargo, yellowtail and cabrilla. The marlin bite continued to be very productive on the Jaime Banks, where boats were reporting as many as two, three or four marlin per day, most of them being hooked while drifting live baits down deep. With the schools of mackerel now moving off of San Jose this has attracted more striped marlin activity into this area as well and over the weekend even the local panga fleets were reporting as many as two marlin per day. Trolling live bait or casting to tailing stripers seemed to be the best bet off of San Jose. Several sailfish were also accounted for, which is very uncommon for the month of February.
Yellowfin tuna were found schooling underneath porpoise, anywhere from 5 to 15 miles from shore, most of them were football-sized fish of 5 to 12 pounds. Larger yellowfin tuna to over one hundred pounds continue to be seen on the Gordo Banks, but this past week they proved to be very shy and were difficult to hook up. Apparently the abundance of baitfish in the area has been keeping them full. Chunk bait fishing with freshly caught skipjack accounted for most of the tuna taken from the Banks, though a few did hit on live sardinas. Every morning the tuna would be seen on the surface, creating large boils and occasionally jumping completely out of the water. With the combination of chihuil, skipjack, mackerel, red crabs and shrimp all in the vicinity, this made the fish shy away from any offerings from anglers, much persistence and patience was needed to have a chance at hooking into one of these quality tuna. Thought is that once all this bait activity thins out some these tuna should become easier to entice.
Dorado action off of the San Jose area continues to be very impressive for this time of year, as they are being found from as close to one-quarter mile of shore, as well as on to the offshore fishing grounds. Trolling with live bait was the best technique and sizes ranged from 10 to 30 pounds, most boats had two to four dorado per day. Along the shoreline there were sierra available, but the majority of anglers were now targeting larger species. Off the beach there were reports of sierra, jack crevalle, pompano and cabrilla (near rocks) and with all of the baitfish moving in we expect this inshore fishing to improve.
As we get further into winter there is now more bottomfishing starting to be done and results have been impressive for pargo, cabrilla and grouper, strikes have come on various baits, as well as on yo-yo style jigs. Several yellowtails up to 30 pounds also were found off the Gordo Banks, striking on both chunk bait and whole chihuil.
Good Fishing, Eric
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