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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
January 16, 2005
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
January 16, 2005
Anglers –
It appears that as winter weather continues to drown much of the country with ice, snow and rain, that more people are packing up their bags and heading to warm and sunny Baja, where skies have been clear and with no rain in sight. Early mornings have been dipping into the 50s in certain areas, but daytime highs are reaching well into the 70s and with exception of a couple of days the northern winds have resided and ocean conditions have been ideal for anglers. Water temperatures are dropping slowly and are now averaging 70 to 72 degrees through most of the region, swells are minimal and the water clarity for the most part has been favorable. Live bait supplies have been abundant for mackerel and sardinas, the sardinas continued to be found schooling inshore in the area of Santa Maria, so that has meant some waiting each morning for fleets out of San Jose del Cabo. Mackerel schools are now being found into the Sea of Cortez and we expect that this will attract more striped marlin towards this direction in the coming weeks. Overall the fishing action was excellent, with the most common daily catches being striped marlin, yellowfin tuna, dorado, sierra, pargo and roosterfish.
Good numbers of striped marlin are now being hooked off of Chileno, from 5 to 15 miles offshore, live mackerel has been most productive, but the billfish are also striking on trolled lures, with the petrolero color pattern being one of the top choices. Many charters that are targeting the marlin are landing multiple stripers per day, average sizes are ranging from 90 to 120 pounds.
With the cooler water now pushing in there were very few wahoo reported and dorado numbers were also on the decline, though most boats were catching one or two dorado in their overall catch, the majority of them being 5 to 10 pound fish, but there were some exceptions of larger bulls to 35 pounds taken, particularly earlier in the week. The yellowfin tuna action remained steady from Punta Gorda to La Fortuna, though in recent days the best bite developed late morning and early afternoon, pretty much exclusively on sardinas, it was not what you would call wide open, but many pangas were ending up with three, four or five tuna per day in the 15 to 25 pound range.
Most certainly the best bite of the week was over the weekend when anglers got into wide open action for pargo, the huachinango variety, on the various rock piles just to the north of Punta Gorda. The fish were striking on fly lined sardinas or with the use of lightweight sinkers and proved to be very fun sport of light tackle, with the fish ranging in sizes up to 12 pounds and providing anglers with top quality fillets. There was also a mix of cabrilla to 15 pounds and pompano up to12 pounds taken from the same spots.
Inshore action showed signs of rapid improvement with more schools of sierra moving in and also there was a strong showing of early season roosterfish that provided bonus action, as even fly fishermen were able to entice these jacks, most of them were weighing in the 8 to 15 pound class, but several 20 pound roosterfish were also accounted for.
Off of La Playita beach a total of 98 panga charters for the week produced an approximate total catch of 3 wahoo, 7 striped marlin, 185 dorado, 245 yellowfin tuna, 45 cabrilla, 12 pompano, 45 roosterfish, 65 sierra, 10 amberjack and 590 pargo.
Good fishing, Eric
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