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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
September 17, 2006
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
September 17, 2006
Anglers –
Once again the Los Cabos residents found themselves preparing for another possible direct strike by a Hurricane, this one was named Lane and initially the projected path had it making landfall early Sunday morning somewhere between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo. In much the same scenario as with Hurricane John a couple of weeks ago, people were busy bracing their businesses, houses and other personal interests for the possible impact, highways were stacked up with cars, gas stations and grocery stores had long lines. In the meantime Lane had a mind of its own and forecasters were kept busy trying to predict the path of this latest storm with the best of their knowledge. The clouds started to sweep in over the lower Baja peninsula on Saturday, but nothing else ever happened, no rainfall, very little wind and only moderate ocean swells developed, all this as the storm veered sharply towards the east on a track near the resort city of Mazatlan on the mainland of Mexico.
So once again the Los Cabos area dodged a bullet, there are still several weeks left of the time period when tropical storms historically strike this area, so we will just cross our fingers and hope that this is not the year that one hits us. Crowds of tourists were now minimal, which is normal for this time of year, but by October the area will be bustling with visitors, now is the time to prepare for the busy fall season that is just around the corner. Several airlines canceled all fights on Saturday into Los Cabos; this decision seemed to be a little too cautious as the weather actually turned out to be ideal.
Ocean conditions remained favorable for most of the week, with relatively calm seas, a little breezy later in the afternoon, water temperatures averaged from 80 to 84 degrees. Anglers found excellent dorado action on the Pacific side of Cabo, finding quite a bit of storm debris that held good numbers of do-dos, most were medium sized fish in the 8 to 15 pound class, though a couple of monster bulls close to 50 pounds were also accounted for. Billfish action was limited, but there was a mix of sailfish, striped and blue marlin being found.
The most consistent action was located in the area towards the Sea of Cortez, from La Fortuna to the Iman Bank, this is where the large schools of yellowfin tuna have been concentrated for the past couple of months. This past week the tuna action did not show any signs of slowing down, anglers pretty caught as many as they wished, many deciding to return early, the fish were readily striking sardinas and it did not take long at all to fill a fish box up. When the fishing is that good you might as well come back in and have your catch filleted and put on ice as soon as possible so that it can be in the best possible condition. The tuna were averaging 20 to 30 pounds, but everyday there were some yellowfin up to 50 or 60 pounds found mixed in the same schools. There were also a handful of dorado found scattered in the same spots as the tuna, with most boats averaging one to three of them mixed in their daily catches. A few nice sized dogtooth snapper up to 40 pounds were found off the bottom while fishing with strips of skipjack or tuna, but overall the bottom bite was not that consistent due to a strong current that was running.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita sent out approximately 62 charters for the week, with anglers accounted for a fish count of: 4 sailfish, 2 striped marlin, 95 dorado, 350 skipjack, 495 yellowfin tuna, 7 dogtooth snapper, 12 cabrilla and 30 miscellaneous bottom species.
Good Fishing, Eric
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