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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
April 12, 2003
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
April 12, 2003
Crowds of tourists continued to be below normal for springtime standards in Cabo San Lucas, but as world events stabilize we expect things will turn around for the better soon. This past week we saw a dramatic change in weather, as sunny days warmed up into the 90s, the north winds all but resided and overall conditions were perfect. Water temperatures also showed an increase, now ranging from 70 to 74 degrees. Supplies of sardinas were very limited, but mackerel were plentiful from the Cabo Marina. Much of the action was now taking place in the areas from Chileno to the Gordo Banks, anywhere from 2 to 20 miles offshore, with the lack of the small live bait the inshore fishing was not all that productive, but offshore the bite was starting to heat up.
The numbers of fish was not huge, but the quality of the fish being taken was very impressive, daily catches included yellowfin tuna, striped marlin, wahoo, dorado, sailfish, sierra, jack crevalle, cabrilla, pargo and skipjack. Average catches per boat ranged from a few fish in combination to over one dozen, most numerous species being dorado and yellowfin. Most of the tuna were found from 10 to 20 miles from shore and more often than not they were associated with migrating porpoise. There were also still quite a few humpback whales hanging on late into the season. The tuna were hit or miss, some days they would be up on the surface and would readily strike on a variety of trolled lures and bait, while on other days they would come up to the surface sporadically, average tuna catches generally were two to six per boat, this is once the fish were located, everyday they seemed to be concentrated in a different area, sizes ranged from thirty pounds to over one hundred. Dorado were spread out through the same area and though there were not any large schools, there were ones, twos and threes being landed by each boat, hitting around an equal percentage on both lures and live mackerel, sizes were encouraging, most of them weighing from 20 to 30 pounds. Ocean conditions were flat calm over the weekend and the fishing action moved closer to shore, easy range for the panga fleets, as well as the cruisers. Most charters opting to target species offshore, because for the past week this is where the better action has been.
The billfish bite improved in recent days, many stripers could be seen on the surface, from 2 to 10 miles out and most boats targeting marlin with live mackerel averaged one marlin per day. Sailfish to over one hundred pounds were also caught this past week, rare for this early in the year, but this was most certainly an encouraging sign that warmer water is moving in. Another bonus was that wahoo started to show up into local waters, anglers told stories of skirted marlin type lures and tuna feathers rigged with mono taking strikes and being cut off and several wahoo were being landed each day, remember the big wahoo bite we had at the end of last April, maybe this is a sign of a coming repeat.
Along the beaches there were sierra, jack crevalle and some roosterfish being landed, but with the lack of sardinas, the preferred live bait, the action was somewhat limited. Off the beach anglers reported some great action for smaller halibut, hot spot was the San Jose Estuary.
Good Fishing, Eric
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