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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
December 28, 2003
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Anglers -
December 28, 2003
The Christmas holiday brought with it increased numbers of vacationers traveling to the Los Cabos area, with winter conditions now chilling the United States there will only be more people backing their suitcases and heading to this southern destination to soak up some warm sunshine. Through Christmas Day the weather was ideal, warm days, little wind, with high temperatures around 80 degrees, but in the days immediately following the cold north winds once again became persistent. The wind particularly affected the sportfishing fleets based out of the East Cape and San Jose del Cabo areas, limiting where or if they could even comfortably fish, but mean while out of Cabo San Lucas this same wind did cause much problem at all and in fact the seas were very calm. Striped marlin were being hooked up in quantity off of Cabo Falso, dorado were found spread out in small schools, pargo made up the bulk of the bottom action and sierra dominated the activity along the shoreline. Live bait supplies consisted of mackerel, caballito, sardinas and mullet. There has been 70 degree water moving south from Los Frailes, being slowed down by a strong current from the south, inshore off of San Jose the water has now dropped into the 70 to 72 degree range, while offshore to the Gordo Banks and around the corner to Todo Santos the water was averaging 74 to 76 degrees.
Yellowfin tuna action almost came to a standstill, but the striped marlin bite picked up the slack, with anglers finding a wide-open frenzy off of Cabo Falso. Attracted by schools of mackerel, the stripers were being found from 3 to 8 miles from shore, early in the week there were days when boats were landing 3,4 and even 5 billfish, though by the weekend the numbers did drop off. Marlin were also found off of Chileno and the 95 spot, Fish were seen feeding and fining on the surface and were striking lures as well as bait. Dorado were found spread out throughout the region and boats averaged 2 to 5 per day. The majority of the dorado were in the 10-pound class, but there were also fair numbers of larger 20 to 30 pound bulls being accounted for. Using live sardinas were most productive, either drift fishing or on the slow troll. Wahoo proved to be scarce, but were being found in limited numbers, with the best chance now on the Pacific Banks trolling with lures.
The charter fleets out of San Jose del Cabo were concentrating on the Gordo Banks until the winds finally blew them off over the weekend. They found fair numbers of both dorado, pargo, skipjack and at times found it difficult to work through all of the needlefish, seagulls and pesky sea lions. Though for the past week the yellowfin tuna have not wanted to cooperate at all, perhaps the very strong, river like current contributed to putting them off the bite. Many humpback whales were now moving into the Sea of Cortez and pods of porpoise were also encountered.
Sierra mackerel were found along the shoreline, hot spot was off of Red Hill and in front of the Hilton Hotel. These little speedsters were averaging 2 to 5 pounds, fun on light tackle, they hit on live sardinas, rapalas, hoochies, as well as on flies. For the time being it looks as though the commercial gillnetting has slacked off, hopefully it is not just for the Holidays. This inshore fishery is very valuable, especially during the wintertime, when at times the offshore conditions can become nasty, sierras are scrappy fighters and make very tasty fish tacos as well.
Good Fishing, Eric
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