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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
October 14, 2006
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
October 13, 2006
Anglers –
Anglers traveling to Los Cabos are being greeted with ideal weather conditions, clear sunny skies, tropical, with high temperatures in the upper 80s and early mornings have just begun to have a slight fall chill to them. Ocean conditions were calm, no swell to speak of at all, water temperatures are still above normal, averaging from 86 to 88 degrees. It feels like there might be an El Nino current on the horizon for this winter. Sardinas have remained the bait of choice and are being found in abundant supplies off of La Playita, being netted each morning by the commercial panguero fleet. Sportfishing charters are working in all directions, from the Pacific to the Sea of Cortez, the most common catch was yellowfin tuna, with also a scattering of billfish, dorado, wahoo and various bottom species.
This entire week there has been unbelievable wide-open action for yellowfin tuna, the center of the activity was about one mile offshore, directly in front of the new Puerto Los Cabos marina project, which is now nearing completion in the area of La Playita. Scores of pangas, cruisers and yachts are coming from as far away as Los Barriles and Buena Vista to get into this bite. The tuna have been averaging 20 pounds, some a little smaller and some a bit larger, anglers have been returning regularly by 10 a.m. back to the beach with full limits and more of tuna. Also mixed in the same area were a few sailfish, striped marlin and roaming schools of medium sized dorado, but all these species found it very difficult to compete with the aggressive feeding frenzy of the yellowfin.
Schooling tuna were found throughout the area, but none were in the numbers as in the area off of La Playita, this has been an unprecedented bite for such close proximity of the panga launching area. The Jaime Banks area has been holding larger tuna to over one hundred pounds, though this spot is primarily suited for larger boats. The Outer Gordo Banks produced a handful of larger yellowfin in recent days as well, anglers trolling baits such as bolito and smaller skipjack landed tuna close to 100 pounds.
Several pangas from La Playita got into the fall season’s first wahoo action this week, nothing spectacular and not consistent from day to day, but at least these elusive speedsters are started to show signs of waking up and becoming more active. So far most of the wahoo landed have been from the area of the Inner Gordo Banks and on trolled lures, particularly the Yo-Zuri Hydro Mag in Purple or Orange. The wahoo that were caught weighed in the 25 to 40 pound class. We are waiting for the water temperatures to drop down into the 80-degree range, this will usually help entice the wahoo into striking more aggressively. Chihuil baitfish have been able to be jigged up on the same banks and a couple of wahoo were also taken while slow trolling these candy baits, we look forward to better baitfish action later in the fall season, last year for some reason the Chihuil never wanted to come up.
The more consistent billfish action has been found off of Cabo San Lucas, a mix of sailfish, striped, blue and black marlin. There was at least one nice black marlin accounted for by a cruiser from Palmilla on Friday, it hit on a trolled skipjack near the Gordo Banks and weighed approximately 400 pounds.
The combined panga fleets out of La Playita sent out approximately 96 charters for the week with anglers accounted for a fish count of: 14 sailfish, 5 striped marlin, 98 dorado, 1,425 yellowfin tuna, 9 wahoo, 6 amberjack, 22 miscellaneous pargo, 15 sierra and 14 cabrilla.
Good Fishing, Eric
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