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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
November 2, 2003
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
November 2, 2003
Large crowds of anglers are now making their annual visit to Southern Baja, they are enjoying the ideal fall weather, highs in the upper 80s, lots of sunshine, very little wind at all, beautiful offshore fishing conditions. Sportfishing fleets were scouting out a wide area, from the Pacific grounds to Vinorama, some of the most consistent action was found around the Gordo Banks, Iman and Vinorama. Most common catches included yellowfin tuna, dorado, wahoo, sailfish, skipjack, pargo, amberjack, cabrilla and grouper. Off the beach of La Playita pangueros were netting sardinas, but with the scores of boats to supply and the persistent high surf it did make for a waiting game to obtain the bait early in the morning. Water temperatures averaged 80 degrees and the clarity was really improving in recent days, clean deep blue water was found within several miles of shore.
Charters were using a combination of live bait techniques and trolling artificial lures. More numbers of fish were striking the live sardinas, particularly the yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 25 pound range, they would readily come up to chum and anglers using 20 to 30 pound line had more hook-ups. The same areas had huge schools of skipjack mixed in with the tuna, most of them weighing 3 to 6 pounds, but occasional over 10 pounds. The fish would become finicky at times with all of the boat pressure, but most boats were averaging 5 to 10 of the yellowfin per trip. Dorado are still not as numerous as the tuna are, but this last week did see more of the colorful acrobats appearing in the fish counts, found throughout the zone and mainly being caught near where the tuna are being located. Dorado preferred live bait, but others hit trolled feathers, average size ranged
10 to 20 pounds.
October did not prove to be very good for wahoo action, a scattering of ‘hoo were found, though nothing consistent, but with the start of November there has been more promising signs that these elusive speedsters will go on the traditional fall bite after all. Gordo Banks is now holding good-sized schools of wahoo, as they could be seen swimming into the tuna chunk bait chum lines, as well as free jumping early in the morning. Everyday there were many strikes reported, with the majority coming early in the day on skirted lead heads and Marauders. Other anglers had hook-ups while trolling with live chihuil on wire cable trap hook set ups, though the chihuil were unpredictable and not always available to catch. We look for this baitfish to become more cooperative in the coming weeks.
Other catches included some quality bottom fish, including dog toothed snapper (pargo), cabrilla, amberjack, yellowtail, pompano, triggerfish and grouper. This bite was a hit of miss deal, but for the anglers who were able to catch giant squid in the area of Vinorama, they were rewarded with trophy-sized specimens while using the fresh squid tentacles for bait. Anglers that were chunk bait fishing for tuna reported catching some pargo weighing as much as 50 pounds.
No significant numbers of billfish, though striped marlin are now starting to be caught on the Pacific side and a handful of larger marlin are still hanging around the offshore banks. Several good sized marlin were reportedly landed this past week, hooked while trolling live skipjack or small tuna. This required much patience and the majority of anglers were opting to chase more of the medium-sized gamefish, where they could find faster action. Sailfish provided variety for anglers targeting tuna with live sardinas, proving to be very sporty on lighter tackle.
Good Fishing, Eric
gordobanks.com
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