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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
July 13, 2003
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
July 13, 2003
Now in the heart of July, southern Baja is becoming warmer and a bit more humid with each passing day. Crowds of tourists have been below normal standards and this summer is on track to be the slowest in the past five years, hopefully the economy rebounds before long. The weather is feeling more tropical now, this week there was Tropical Storm Enrique that developed off of mainland Mexico before heading on a westerly track some four hundred plus miles distant from Cabo San Lucas. This storm attributed to somewhat unstable weather conditions, there was much scattered cloud cover, though no rainfall was recorded, but there were some strong gusty winds in the afternoon and the ocean swells were the largest that they have been this year to date. Anglers found only fair action for a mix of billfish, dorado, bottomfish and inshore species, with striped marlin being the most common offshore fish and roosterfish and jacks dominated the shorelines. Water temperatures bounced back up to 78 - 80 degrees, though water was a bit cloudy due to choppy seas, as conditions settle down we expect the water clarity to improve and the offshore gamefish activity to increase. Live bait became more scattered along the shoreline, but on most days there were sufficient supplies of mullet and in the Cabo marina caballito and mackerel were available.
On July 13 the local La Playita pangas were not able to launch due to high surf, but the swell has peaked and they should be back in business in a day or so. Throughout much of the week the best bet for catching fish was closer to shore, slow trolling live mullet for roosterfish produced fish to over forty pounds and there were also some healthy jack crevalle to twenty pounds mixed in, along with a few stray sierra to eight pounds. The shallow rocky areas had good numbers of pargo, triggerfish, cabrilla, but most of these fish were less than ten pounds, with the exception of few grouper up to thirty pounds. Fishing with chunk or whole baits proved to be the best technique, though some of the nicer specimens were taken on yo-yo style jigs.
The yellowfin tuna and dorado action came to a standstill, with only limited numbers of scattered fish being accounted for, there was better action found for striped marlin, peaking early in the week, before the full moon hit over the weekend. Many stripers were being spotted tailing on the surface, frequently within a few miles of shore, but more often than not they would refuse to take the live baits. Actually trolling with lures produced a higher percentage of hook ups, as the fish have been feeding on the abundance of squid in the region and could be enticed by the trolled skirted lures. An influx of small marlin was seen, averaging 40 to100 pounds.
A handful of wahoo were reported, most of them in open waters, but at least a couple of them were also taken from the Inner Gordo Banks. There is lack of food fish offshore, as more schools of bolito, skipjack and football sized yellowfin appear this should attract the larger sought after gamefish, things seem to be running a couple weeks behind schedule.
Surf fishermen off of the La Playita area accounted for several quality sized snook this past week, with one monster 46 pound fish taken, landed on a sardina by local panguero Hugo. Other snook to thirty pounds were landed, all on bait, snook like the action of the higher surf. Other catches included halibut, croaker, roosterfish and jack crevalle.
Good Fishing, Eric
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