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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
November 19, 2006
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
November 19, 2006
Anglers –
Large crowds of anglers continue to arrive in Los Cabos and everyone was enjoying the pristine fall season weather, clear skies with highs in the mid 80s. Up to this point the north winds have not been too much of a factor and ocean conditions have been comfortable. Sportfishing fleets fished the waters from the Golden Gate Bank on the Pacific to inside the Sea of Cortez, north to Los Frailes. Most common daily catches include dorado, yellowfin tuna and striped marlin, with an outside chance at a wahoo and a few other miscellaneous species. Water clarity was clear and blue within a couple miles of shore and water temperatures ranged from 79 to 82 degrees throughout most of the region.
For the past several months live sardinas were plentiful in the area of La Playita, but this past week was a different story, the preferred baitfish moved out of this area and were now being found further south, from Palmilla to Santa Maria and they were of smaller size. This meant that the local panga fleet now had to back track in order to obtain bait and this contributed to all around more difficult fishing for the San Jose fleets.
Cabo San Lucas charter boats reported excellent action for dorado on the Pacific, particularly on the more distant Banks. Action was wide open on both lures and bait and the fish were quality sized, ranging from 15 to 50 pounds. The dorado action inside the Sea of Cortez was much more scattered and the fish were of smaller size, most of them weighing less than twenty pounds.
Wahoo action was very slow, only about one in a dozen charters accounted for one fish and many of them were taken incidentally while fishing for tuna or dorado with small baits and only monofilament. Anglers that were targeting these elusive fish specifically were not reporting much action at all. We still are hoping that there will be a late season bite on these fish, water temperatures are holding above normal and hopefully these prized gamefish will become more prevalent in the coming weeks.
Larger yellowfin tuna continued to be found on both the Inner and Outer Gordo Banks, though the numbers of fish actually landed were not significant, the quality was definitely there, as many fish that weighed from 50 to over 100 pounds were brought in this past week. Several fish that would have topped 200 pounds were hooked into, only to be lost after extended battles. Most successful techniques were using fresh dead sardinas in a chum line, chunking with skipjack or cocinero and trolling with chihuil. Fluorocarbon leaders of 50 to 90 pound also proved to be an advantage.
Not much going on for bottom fishing, though there were a handful of cabrilla, grouper, pargo, rainbow runners and amberjack accounted for, most of them taken on whole baits that were drifted over rock piles, also a few on yo-yo jigs.
Inshore there were skipjack, sierra, jack crevalle and roosterfish, but these fish were not large, most of them under five pounds. For this reason the majority of anglers are still targeting offshore species.
Billfish action was good for striped marlin on the Pacific and outside of Chileno, up to thirty miles out. On Saturday there was a double hook up on blue marlin reported from a cruiser out of Palmilla, they were fishing within one mile of Cabo Real and using lighter forty pound gear, after losing one of the blues they did manage to land the other one after a five hour battle and it weighed in the 400 to 450 pound range.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita sent out approximately 226 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 7 striped marlin, 14 sailfish, 345 dorado, 18 wahoo, 225 white skipjack, 338 yellowfin tuna, 9 grouper, 14 cabrilla, 5 amberjack, 20 pargo, 15 rainbow runners, 18 roosterfish and 72 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric
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