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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
February 13, 2005
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
February 13, 2005
Anglers –
Tourists visiting Los Cabos were greeted with more winter like weather through most of the week, in fact Friday afternoon the skies opened up and dumped some major rainfall throughout the rest of the day and until Saturday morning when the sun finally came out to start drying things out. This was much need rainfall, but it also made a mess of streets and the main highway, dangerous driving conditions, whoever designs these roads just never really learned proper drainage systems. Very unusual to have such weather systems cross the Southern Baja Peninsula at this time, maybe it has something to do with the slight El Nino effects or the way the jet stream across the United Sates has been flowing, what ever the reason the parched local desert landscape does appreciate it. The high surf from last week has gradually diminished and now we are back to normal conditions, winds have not been much of a factor either, overall this made for comfortable fishing conditions for the moderate crowds of anglers. Water temperatures ranged from 70 to 72 degrees through most of the region and clarity was improving once again after becoming a bit cloudy from the recent swell. Still plenty of opportunities for whale watching, with sightings of humpback and gray whales being very common. Live sardinas continue to be very scarce and the main bait available now has been mackerel, some days anglers off of San Jose were able to jig them up themselves, but in recent days this became more of a hit or miss deal and most anglers were buying the bait from commercial pangueros when they found the opportunity to do so.
Striped marlin continued to provide good action for anglers offshore, both the Pacific and Sea of Cortez were producing, the areas off of Chileno and the 95 spot put out good numbers of the billfish, striking on both lures and bait, ranging up to 150 pounds, with boats averaging 1 to 3 stripers each day, with other missed opportunities. Areas from 5 to 15 miles offshore were most productive. Mixed into the catches were dorado, with more of them actually being found nearer to shore, the dorado were one of the main species now being caught by the panga fleets which were concentrating closer in. The area of Punta Gorda continues to be one of the best places to find them while slow trolling with bait. In fact the dorado fishing has been just short of phenomenal for February, this can be the time where these tropical fish become scarce and head south looking for warmer currents, but so far they have stayed around and boats are averaging three to five fish per day in the 15 to 25 pound class, nice sized fish for winter time, it has been more like summer or fall fishing.
Yellowfin tuna catches dropped to all most a standstill, mainly because of the lack of the preferred sardina baitfish. A handful of tuna did strike on mackerel and on trolled lures, but they were very few and far between. It is the time of year when charters start to target more bottom fish and this week there were some impressive fish taken off of the various bottom rock piles, numbers were not high, but there was some quality, included were pargo, amberjack, yellowtail, gulf grouper, cabrilla, golden grouper, bonito and triggerfish.
With all of the schools of mackerel in the area this also brought in some Mako sharks and the combined fleet was accounting for several of them each day, weights ranged from 40 to 150 pounds.
The La Playita panga fleets sent out approximately 78 charters for the week and anglers accounted for an overall catch of 195 dorado, 15 yellowfin tuna, 25 bonito, 180 pargo, 1 golden grouper, 25 amberjack, 10 yellowtail, 2 gulf grouper, 18 cabrilla, 6 striped marlin, 4 Mako sharks, 50 triggerfish and 4 rainbow runners.
Good Fishing, Eric
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