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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
April 2, 2006
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
April 2, 2006
Anglers –
With the start of the new month of April there are increased numbers of tourists traveling to the Los Cabos area for spring break vacation time. They have been greeted with ideal weather conditions, plenty of warm sunshine up to 80degrees and for most of the week very little wind at all. It is now a transition period when the climate is changing from day to day, water temperatures continued to be up and down, this past week the inshore water temperature actually dropped a couple of degrees, now averaging 69 to 70 degrees along the shoreline, with a warmer band of water of 71 to 72 degrees being found 15 to 20 miles offshore, this was inside the Sea of Cortez, around the corner on the Pacific the water continued to be in the 60s. Sportfishing fleets were concentrating their efforts from the 95 spot to the Desteladera Bank. Daily fish counts included striped marlin, dorado, skipjack, mako shark, sierra, snapper, amberjack, yellowtail and cabrilla. Bait supplies became a bit more limited in recent days, Cabo San Lucas had some mackerel and caballito available and off of San Jose del Cabo there was a mix of sardina and mullet being netted by the commercial panguero fleet each morning.
The striped marlin action had been found as close in as 5 to 10 miles from shore earlier in the week, but in recent days the warmer and cleaner water shifted further offshore, to 20 or more miles out and this made it tough for the smaller panga fleet to get into this action. Lots of marlin were in the area, on a days charter it was not uncommon to see as many as a couple of dozen fish tailing on the surface, but at times they did prove to be difficult to entice into striking, perhaps because of all of the squid now congregating in local waters. Despite the overall numbers of marlin being caught slightly down, there was still a good chance for anglers to catch several of them in one day. Striking on trolled lures, as well as cast or dropped back baits.
With the cooling trend of the water the dorado numbers dropped off once again, only a scattering of 10 to 30 pound fish were being found while trolling in the same areas where the billfish were found. Quite a few Mako sharks in the 50 to 80 pound class were seen on the marlin grounds as well, with many of them readily taking baits. Still no yellowfin tuna found in the Los Cabos region, though there were some favorable reports coming out of the Cabo Pulmo East Cape area on tuna ranging from 20 to 80 pounds, hopefully this is a sign that tuna will migrate south into local waters soon. There were several larger commercial pursiener vessels seen on the horizon, this is usually a sign that tuna activity is not too far away. Over the weekend there was some talk of wahoo action found offshore as well, with a handful of these speedsters hooked into while trolling marlin type lures.
Panga fleets continued to find good numbers of sierra close to shore, particularly in the area from Red Hill to Chileno, most of these fish were striking on smaller baits and weighing in the 2 to 5 pound range. Off the bottom in the same area there was a mix of snapper, yellowtail, amberjack and cabrilla being accounted for, though these species were not as consistent as were the sierra.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita sent out approximately 70 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 6 striped marlin, 8 mako shark, 5 dorado, 21 yellowtail, 26 amberjack, 45 bonito, 35 cabrilla, 14 pompano,
44 pargo (various varieties) and 660 sierra.
Good fishing, Eric
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