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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
January 7, 2007
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
January 7, 2007
Anglers –
With the start of the New Year there has been good-sized crowds of tourists visiting the Los Cabos area and they were enjoyed mostly sunny skies and ideal wintertime weather conditions. It is the time of year when the north wind kicks up and this season has not been any different, with breezes ranging from 10 to 20 miles per hour for the majority of the week. Water temperatures are now steadily dropping and are averaging from 71 to 74 degrees, clarity has been stirred up and greenish, particularly in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, the cleanest and warmest areas are on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas. There have been sufficient supplies of live bait, with both mackerel and sardinas available most days.
Despite the decent crowds of tourists, there were not that many anglers in town, fleets out of the Cabo Marina were busier than were the operations to the north, this is because the better action was found in the water near Cabo, especially for the consistent striped marlin action that was found from Chileno, to the old lighthouse and towards the Golden Gate Bank.
Striped marlin counts continued to be respectable, but were down from previous reports, possibly due to the full moon and greener water that had moved in. Most of the stripers were found anywhere from 3 to 12 miles from shore while trolling lures and dropping back baits once fish came into the lure spread, others were hooked while casting to tailing fish or by drifting baits down deeper. Sizes of the marlin ranged from 90 to 140 pounds. Dorado were also found in smaller schools in the same areas and charters were averaging one or two of them in their daily catch, with weights averaging 10 to 20 pounds. With the cooling water temperatures this is the time when dorado become more scattered and numbers of them caught fall off accordingly.
Yellowfin tuna action also dropped off, there were a couple of days when the tuna came up late in the morning and provided some action, but they were not consistent and there were more skipjack dominating the action on the Gordo Banks and Iman where the yellowfin had been biting the previous week. The few tuna that were accounted for were striking on either chunk bait or sardinas and ranged in the 15 to 40 pound class.
With the offshore surface action tapering off anglers are starting to search for action closer to shore and off the bottom. So far this option has proved to be hit or miss, there should be more sierra moving in, now that cooler water and more baitfish are congregating along the shoreline, but so far the numbers of sierra have been disappointing. There were some quality pompano up to 15 pounds taken off of the Cardon area, but this was from one small area and the fish would only bite for a short period each morning and with the strong northerly winds gusting it was not easy to stay on the spot. Anglers using yo-yo jigs over the various rock piles hooked into a few cabrilla, pargo and amberjack and we anticipate doing more of this style of fishing in the next couple of months.
The combined panga fleets from La Playita beach reported sending out approximately 37 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 5 striped marlin, 1 wahoo, 24 yellowfin tuna, 145 skipjack, 38 dorado, 42 pargo, 15 cabrilla, 26 pompano, 65 sierra, 8 roosterfish, 16 bonito and 11 amberjack.
Good fishing, Eric
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