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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
November 20, 2005
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
November 20, 2005
Anglers –
The month of November continued to attract large crowds of anglers through this past week and everyone was enjoying the pristine fall season weather. Clear sunny skies in the low 80s, most of the week the north wind did blow and this limited where sportfishing fleets could effectively work, though by the weekend it did lay down some and gave anglers more options. Charters were searching waters from the Pacific to inside the Sea of Cortez and catching striped marlin, yellowfin tuna, dorado, wahoo and other species, though fish counts were down from last week due to various factors such as the full moon, more wind, current and less bait available. Water temperature was now on a cooling trend, averaging 77 to 80 degrees, swells were moderate for the most part, except offshore on the days when the wind blew, this created white caps up to eight feet. Bait was a bit harder to obtain, with live sardinas proving to the be the bait of choice for inshore tuna and dorado action, it was worth the extra running around to find the bait in the morning, especially since trolling with lures has not been very effective lately.
Striped marlin continued to be active on the Pacific, though the bite did slow down compared to last week when boats were releasing up to a dozen stripers per day. The main concentrations of marlin was 30 to 50 miles away from the Cabo marina, making a very long ride for anglers, especially with the unpredictability of the wind. Dorado were found to be scattered and scarce, no particular spot where they could be found, moving in small schools of fish weighing from 5 to 30 pounds, striking on trolled lures and bait, about every couple of charters were finding one or two of them in their all around catch.
Wahoo went on a good bite last week, but the action really only lasted for a few days, until a couple days before the full moon, when the wind also kicked up and the water became a bit murky. The hot spot was north of Gordo Banks, from the Iman Bank to the other side of Vinorama, but this spot can get hammered by the north wind and was hard to get to for the first part of the week. A few wahoo were accounted for everyday, but that was for scores of charters, so basically at this time the odds were not high of landing one of these highly sought after speedsters, though it is still prime season for them, as the moon wanes and crowds lighten up, we are expecting the wahoo to go back on the chew.
Yellowfin tuna and white skipjack dominated the inshore panga action, with two most popular spots being Santa Maria and the Iman Bank. The live sardinas that were being sold continued to be very small, but the fish seemed to like them just fine. The area within one mile of the shore off of Santa Maria saw boats catching almost as many fish as they wished to, more white skipjack than yellowfin tuna on the average, with the fish ranging from 4 to 12 pounds. On the days when the weather allowed and the pangas were able to reach the Iman Bank, they found less skipjack and more tuna of quality size, yellowfin up to 30 pounds, with the average ranging about 15 to 20 pounds.
There was a strong current running for the entire week, this made doing any bottom fishing tough, though there were a handful of cabrilla, grouper, dogtooth snapper and amberjack accounted for, most of them taken on larger whole baits that were drifted over rock piles.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita sent out approximately 112 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 1 blue marlin, 3 striped marlin, 8 sailfish, 55 dorado, 27 wahoo, 1,250 white skipjack, 580 yellowfin tuna, 12 grouper, 22 cabrilla, 4 dogtooth snapper, 15 amberjack, 8 roosterfish and 38 sierra.
Good fishing, Eric
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