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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
May 25, 2003
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
May 25, 2003
Ideal late spring weather conditions are attracting more vacationers to sunny Baja, temperatures are nearly perfect, highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s. There continued to be a marine type fog layer surrounding the Los Cabos area, but a couple of windy days helped clear most of it away. Swells were persistent and this was keeping surfers busy and local sportfishing fleets a bit more cautious.
Water temperatures on the Pacific dipped down into the 68-69 degree range, while on the Cortez side the water averaged 72 to 74 degrees. Every since this past full moon, ten days or so, the overall fishing action has tapered off and fish counts were down, but ocean conditions are ever changing and we do anticipate improvement soon. Live bait was available, but not as readily as it normally is, there was a mix of mackerel, mullet and sardinas.
Action close to Cabo San Lucas came to almost a standstill, as the warmer water is now being found from Chileno to Vinorama, this being where fleets are now concentrated. Fish have been spread out, no particular hot spot. Striped marlin action had been very good, but the number of fish sighted was down from previous weeks, as were the numbers of hook ups. Stripers were being encountered anywhere from 2 to 15 from shore and strikes reportedly came on live mullet, mackerel and on trolled lures. There have been large quantities of squid in the area and the fish were gorging on them. Though numbers of marlin were less, the sizes of the fish now being accounted for has increased, sizes ranged from 100 to 180 pounds. Dorado were being caught in the same areas, but mostly in only ones and twos and further offshore in the warmer blue water, sizes were in the 10 to 40 pound class. Wahoo catches were also few and far between, but there were a handful being landed on trolled lures, best areas were off of the Gray Rock, Red Hill and Vinorama, and average fish weighed 30 to 50 pounds.
With the surface action now slow, more anglers were started to break up the day and search out inshore or bottom rock piles, they did not find spectacular results, but there was a variety of fish being accounted for, including amberjack, pargo (dog toothed), cabrilla, sierra, skipjack, jack crevalle and roosterfish. Most numerous were the dog toothed snapper (8 to 25 pounds), they were found close to the rocky beaches and were coming up on trolled bait, with their favorite being live mullet. They were shy and proved tricky to hook, many hook ups were being cut off on the swallow rocks, stout tackle was a must. Anglers fishing yo-yo jigs off of the bottom rock piles to the north of Punta Gorda landed several nice amberjack and cabrilla, but this bite was also off from normal standards. Still a few sierra being found, and as is usual for the end of the season, the fish landed are mostly over 5 pounds. Roosterfish activity has gotten off to a slow start, some fish to
25 pounds were landed this past week while slow trolling live bait along the local beaches, but now that more mullet are migrating inshore this should bring in more of these prized fighting gamefish.
Local commercial pangueros continue to use their non-discriminating gill nets to target all of the species that roam along the shoreline and they are doing a very devastating job on stripping the areas from Palmilla to Punta Gorda clean of any fish at all. This is an extremely destructive form of fishing, even though they are working under legal permits, it is a serious situation for the future of this region that was once thought to have unlimited resources. Action needs to be taken immediately, unfortunately it does not seem to be a priority of the Mexican Government.
Good Fishing, Eric
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