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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
July 17, 2005
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
July 17, 2005
Anglers –
We are now into the middle July and Cabo weather is warming up daily, enough sunshine to please even the most fanatical worshipers, though crowds of visitors remained on the slow side. No new storms brewing to the south at this time, as the Atlantic tropical storm season is once again dominating the news stories and has been very active, with Cancun now in the direct path of a major hurricane, we know how it feels to go into storm preparation mode and then play out the waiting game, we wish them luck, so far we have been fortunate for the past two years and doubt we can count on making that three.
We wish we could say that fishing has finally broken wide open, but that would not be the truth, the water conditions have continued to vary everyday, early in the week it warmed up into the 80 degree range and with a shift in the current dropped into the lower 70s and even cooler around the corner of Cabo on the Pacific, and this happened overnight. So just like the weather and water conditions the fishing action has been different everyday, actually this past week was much improved over last. The main species found offshore has been striped marlin, spread throughout the region from 5 to 20 miles from shore, striking on lures and various baits, sizes ranged from 70 to 130 lb., the fish were full of medium sized squid, which app
arently have been their main food source in recent weeks. Most charters targeting marlin accounted for at least one fish landed and others caught as many as three or four marlin in one morning. Maged Rasheed visiting from the Southern California area had perhaps one of the best fish stories for “the big one that got away” this past week, while fishing on a super panga with skipper Tony with Gordo Banks Pangas on Thursday, July 14 th, he was slow trolling with a live bolito on the San Luis Bank when they had a freight train of a strike, line was emptying off his reel in a hurry and they had to quickly chase the fish down to keep from being spooled, when the fish surfaced and cleared the water in several spectacular jumps they realized what they were hooked into, appeared to be a blue marlin in the 500 to 600 pound class. To make the long story short, Rasheed battled the monster on his two speed reel, that only had a 60 lb. fluorocarbon leader and actually held up perfectly for nearly three hours, when the blue marlin was finally loosing energy and near the boat, this when the leader finally broke and the fish gained its freedom. So the larger marlin are starting to show up in local waters, though only a handful of them have been reportedly hooked.
Dorado counts were still near record lows for this time of year, but in recent days they have started appear more frequently, a couple of nice sized bulls weighing up to 40 pounds were accounted for, trolling with live bolito in the San Luis Bank. The same bank was producing yellowfin tuna on trolled bait, most of them were in the 25 to 35 pound class, though a few larger ones were mixed in the same school. This was not a sure bet bite by any means, but for several days mid week the panga fleet out of La Playita were averaging one or two of the yellowfin per boat. The numbers would have been higher but there were large schools of jack crevalle in the same spot and they were even more aggressive than were the tuna, and weighed 25 pounds plus, fighting as hard as the tuna, though not providing the sought after fresh sushi fillets.
Along the shoreline there were still some dogtooth snapper and sierra around, but the main catch was roosterfish, not as many as back in mid June, but this past week the bite for them improved and most anglers trolling live mullet along the shoreline did have their chances at hooking up with a trophy sized roosterfish, with most fish going in the 25 to 55 pounds class.
The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita sent out approximately 58 panga charters for the week with anglers accounting for an overall fish count of:
48 striped marlin, 44 dorado, 82 yellowfin tuna, 56 roosterfish, 16 sierra, 18 pompano, 28 amberjack, 15 bonito, 36 yellowtail snapper, 22 cabrilla and approximately 200 miscellaneous rockfish.
Not much to report from surf fishermen, though at least one nice snook was landed off the beach of La Playita on Friday and a couple of other lost hook ups were reported, so maybe this bite will develop in the coming weeks.
Good fishing, Eric
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