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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
October 29, 2006
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
October 29, 2006
Anglers –
Lots of activity now in Los Cabos, thousands of anglers traveling south now to get in on the excitement of the world’s richest marlin tournament, the Bisbee’s Black and Blue. Sportfishing operations, including both cruiser and panga fleets, have been operating at capacity levels. The week started off with the formation of a late season Hurricane named Paul, originally it developed in an area southwest of Cabo San Lucas, but then changed course and headed in the direction of the Southern Baja peninsula, gradually loosing strength and on Wednesday morning when it passed within some 50 miles of Cabo it was a mere tropical depression. Paul’s main impact was rainfall, anywhere from 1 to 4 inches of measurable rain fell in various areas, ocean conditions were stormy and the Cabo marina was shut down for the days of Tuesday and Wednesday and there was also no launching of panga fleets in any of the locations out of San Jose del Cabo, this meant a lot of lost business since fleets had full schedules of charters scheduled for those days. Fleet operators were very busy trying to reschedule and accommodate clients the best they could. By Thursday fleets were back in action and the Bisbee tournament was changed to a two-day event instead of the normal three-day. Friday we experienced wind up to 18 miles an hour from the north, the first significant blow from that direction of the season, this made for rough seas, but over the weekend conditions settled back down and were ideal once again. Water temperatures were still a bit above average for late October, ranging from 84 to 86 degrees.
Tournament time also means heavy pressure on the bait supplies and the local fishing grounds. Despite the storm scattering schools of sardinas into new locations the commercial pangueros were able to find sufficient supplies. Yellowfin tuna remained the dominant catch for the charter fleet and most of the action continued to be off of San Jose within one mile of shore from off the Estuary to La Laguna. Before the storm, on Monday the bite was wide open for yellowfin tuna in the 20 to 25 pound class, but since the storm the action has dropped off considerably, the size of the tuna was also down to about an 10 to 15 pound average. The color of the water is a little murky, but not bad, the main factor in the bite slowing down seems to be the build up of a heavy concentration of boats, since this apparently has been the only area that is producing any consistent action. Charter boats over the weekend reports average catches of tuna down to 2 to 5 per boat.
Only a handful of dorado were found mixed in and most of them were smaller fish, some larger bulls were reported further offshore and more so on the Pacific by boats targeting billfish.
Local San Jose del Cabo pangueros reported that the yellowfin tuna were coming up and biting early, but once the cruisers and yachts from Cabo San Lucas have been arriving the action has quickly vanishing. Apparently these Cabo operators have a different set of rules of courtesy while fishing. It is pretty much common sense that if you see other boats with fish feeding in a chum line and hooking fish that you do not motor right through the boiling fish, but that is not how many of these cruiser skippers operate, they go right into the boiling fish and scatter the bite for everybody. You would think that they would have the knowledge that it would be more courteous to just go up current and start chumming themselves and drift through the same area, apparently not, they have their own set of protocols.
Wahoo season continues to show no signs of coming to life and everyone is just crossing their fingers that it will be late season for these elusive gamefish.
Other miscellaneous catches included a mix of pargo species, amberjack, sierra, rainbow runners, sailfish, grouper, skipjack, pompano, triggerfish and cabrilla.
The combined panga fleet launching off of La Playita beach sent out approximately 154 charters for the week, with anglers accounted for a fish count of: 3 wahoo, 1 roosterfish, 2 striped marlin, 11 sailfish, 54 dorado, 860 yellowfin tuna, 225 skipjack, 24 pargo, 8 cabrilla, 4 grouper, 16 sierra, 14 rainbow runners, 7 pompano, 8 amberjack and 15 triggerfish.
Good Fishing, Eric
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