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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
January 22, 2005
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
January 22, 2005
Anglers –
Anglers traveling to Southern Baja were enjoying excellent winter season fishing, particularly out of San Jose del Cabo where the local panga fleets have continue to have a bonanza bite of dorado, yellowfin tuna and pargo. Water temperatures have been ranging in the 70 to 73 degree range, with clean blue water being found within a couple of miles from shore. Ocean swells have been minimal, two feet or less and north winds have also been moderate, an average of six to eight miles an hour in the afternoons. There was much cloud cover and cooler air temperatures much of the week and even some light sprinkles on Thursday, but overall the weather was very pleasant. Live sardinas were abundant in the area of Santa Maria, but this meant the panga fleets to the north had to wait until 7 or 7:30 a.m. for the commercial pangueros to return with the daily supplies, it was worth the wait though because this was the preferred bait for the medium sized gamefish, mackerel were also available out of the Cabo San Lucas marina as well on the fishing grounds, where anglers could jig them up, they were the bait of choice for targeting striped marlin. A few pangas were catching live chihuil on the Inner Gordo Bank, which is unusual during this time of year and they also were the ones who accounted for a few lucky out of season wahoo. Humpback and Grey whales made a stronger showing this past week as well, with many of the mammals being spotted breeching and spouting daily throughout the region.
Last week it was the huachinango (red snapper) that were on such an incredible bite over the weekend, they were still present this week in less numbers, but it was the dorado that took up the slack and went on such an incredible bite through most of the week, the hot spot was close to shore off of Punta Gorda, live sardinas were the ticket to success and for several days it was absolutely wide open, the fish were averaging 5 to12 pounds, but there were other larger ones mixed in that ranged up to 25 pounds and boats were hooking into as many as 30 or 40 per day, of course many of them were being released, especially the smaller females, of course there was no fish and game inspectors checking the daily bag limits, which by the way is two dorado per angler. The needlefish also returned in greater numbers and kept anglers very busy rigging new hooks and untangling twisted lines.
Yellowfin tuna were not as consistent as were the dorado, but on certain days they did become fairly active off of Cardon to Iman, most of the time it was a later morning bite and live sardinas was once again the ticket to success, fish ranged from 8 to 25 pounds, with some pangas landing up to 8 yellowfin per day. A couple of larger tuna to 60 pounds were accounted for on the Gordo Banks, but these fish were not active on a regular basis and anglers had to have some luck on their side.
Striped marlin action continued to be very productive off of Chileno and off of the Pacific, many boats were catching multiple marlin per day, fish were striking both lures and live bait and ranging up to 140 pounds.
Inshore action for sierra and roosterfish slacked up compared to last week, though there were some fish being taken in different areas everyday, we expect this bite to improve as more baitfish move in along the local shorelines.
A roundup of the panga fleets launching off of La Playita saw approximately 116 panga charters account for 5 striped marlin, 465 pargo, 75 sierra, 25 roosterfish, 8 yellowtail, 5 wahoo, 348 yellowfin tuna, 45 cabrilla, 8 amberjack, 930 dorado and uncounted numbers of skipjack and needlefish.
Good fishing, Eric
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