 |
 |
WEATHER: Once again we have had a week of sun and fun here in Cabo. This time of year the spring break crowd is gone, the number of cruise ships calling at our port is down and the temperature has started to climb. Not too high, just into the low 90’s during the day and the low 70’s at night, but that’s just perfect for me! With this kind of weather a lot of our friends have returned from the cold north while many of the winter residents have gone home to prepare for spring back there. Just a very nice time of the year!
WATER: We have had light afternoon breezes for the first part of the week changing into light morning breezes later in the week, but nothing heavy enough to cause problems out on the water. A prevailing northwesterly direction has meant that the water on the Sea of Cortez has been very nice with only slight swells and wind chop while the Pacific side of the Cape has had slight swells and mostly slightly choppy conditions. Water temperature on the Pacific side has remained cooler than on the Cortez side with that wrap around the Cape from the east I mentioned last week still happening. Offshore on the Pacific side it has been 67-69 degrees while closer to the beach, say 4-5 miles off the beach and 10 miles to the north the warmer 74-degree water has prevailed. Of course the cooler water has meant green conditions and on the Golden Gate Bank reports were of very green conditions. On the Sea of Cortez we have had consistent 74-75 degree water across all the areas with just a slight tinge to it.
BAIT: There were many more Caballito available this past week than there were Mackerel, and they were both the normal $2 per bait. I did not hear anything about Sardinas.
FISHING:
YELLOWFIN TUNA: The tuna bite in our area dropped off again although a few boats were able to get into small pods of porpoise that were holding then. The tuna that were caught were not large ones; most of them were in the 10-15 pound range. A good catch this past week would have been four or five tuna. Most of them were found to the south at a distance of 10 miles and more, a few more were found around the 1150 area. Red and orange colored lures in the smaller sizes sort of imitated the squid they were feeding on.
DORADO: Once again the numbers of Dorado slowly increased over the numbers caught last week. It seemed that about 20% of the boats were flying a yellow flag or two when they returned this week. Most of the fish were found in the same areas as the Striped Marlin and they were also stuffed on squid. One nice thing is that the average size has been fair, not a lot of the little slipper size (5-8 pounds) were caught, most of the fish were around 12-15 pounds.
WAHOO: What Hoo once again, and I was surprised since we are in a full moon phase. Maybe the water just has to warm up a bit more?
INSHORE: There were reports from the anglers and Captains of large numbers of small Roosterfish once again just off the beach on the Pacific side between the arch and the lighthouse. These fish have been pounding small Caballito and the boats often had to return for more bait. The size was small with an average of 5 pounds, but a few larger ones, to about 15 pounds, were caught in the same area every day. I had an angler tie into a very large Sierra on Tuesday in this area. He fought the fish on line around 15 pounds in strength and said the Sierra would have weighed about 20 pounds (this is an experienced angler and Captain saying this). Of course when I told them that it might have been a possible line class world record they were mad they had filleted the fish! There have been some nice Pargo in the 20-30 pound class start to show off of the rocky points and live bait slow trolled deep has been the key for the larger ones. Adding to the excitement of fishing this way is the possibility of hooking up to some of the 30-40 pound Yellowtail that are still around. There are still many of the smaller ones, but as I said last week, not in the numbers we had been seeing. Even with the inshore action being good, many of the Pangas are targeting Marlin since they are so close right now.
NOTES: My golf game continues to improve; I am now consistently breaking 100. Don’t laugh, that is quite an improvement for me! I am looking forward to fishing this coming week; I just hope things keep popping out there! This weeks report was written to the sound of my dog snoring in the background, she had a hard day at the beach this morning! Until next week, tight lines!
EVERYONE MUST HAVE A PASSPORT TO TRAVEL TO AND FROM MEXICO!!!!!
Until next week, Tight lines!
George & Mary Landrum, Juan & Manuel
Report: SAN JOSE DEL CABO, May 4, 2008
Tourism continues to be at below normal levels due to the poor economy in the U.S. The area endured a heat wave this past weekend, just as residents throughout Southern California felt. Ocean conditions were mostly calm with cleaner water moving closer to shore, water temperatures ranged up to 76 degrees, continuing to steadily warm as the summer season approaches.
Anglers are finding a variety of species, from yellowfin tuna, dorado and striped marlin offshore, to sierra, yellowtail, roosterfish and pargo closer to shore. Sardinas remained abundant around the Puerto Los Cabos Marina jetties. Mackerel were scarce, there were some smaller sized skipjack that could be caught on the fishing grounds for use as bait for striped marlin. Most charters were accounting for one to two dorado per outing, sizes ranged up to 25 pounds, fish were striking a variety of lures as well as trolled baits. The bite for small sized yellowtail continued to be strong off the main beach hotel resort area off of San Jose del Cabo, mixed in were Mexican bonito. The Inner Gordo Banks area was producing a handful of 30 pound class yellowtail for anglers working yo-yo iron jigs, a few huachinango (red snapper) were taken by this same manner. Over the weekend anglers reported seeing yellowfin tuna in the 200 pound range feeding and breezing on the surface of the Banks, but these fish could not be enticed into taking any offerings, even though they would feed on chummed sardinas. One grouper of 130 pounds was landed on 30 pound tackle off of Palmilla Point, the story was that a small sized yellowtail hit on a trolled rapala and once hooked headed to deeper water, where the grouper ambushed the fish and became hooked on the same set up, lucky to land such a specimen on such light tackle.
Last week we talked about the Mexican Navy patrol continuing to seemingly pick on the local La Playita panga fleets, inspecting the same pangas over and over again for their proper paper work, fishing permits, safety equipment etc... Not exactly the best method to help promote the already slack tourist industry. Over the weekend a true crime was witnessed in the areas just offshore of Santa Maria to Chileno, this is the region where the yellowfin tuna had finally moved in and were producing limit style fishing action for the local sportfishing fleets, not overly large fish, but very fun and tasty, averaging 10 to 20 pounds. A commercial fleet consisting of one dozen full sized purseiners moved within two to five miles from shore, proceeding to set their nets and capture hundreds of tons of these juvenile sized yellowfin that could of have provided continued action for the sportfishing fleets for months to come. But, they have all but been decimating now, only a few straggler tuna are now being caught. What a shame that the government still has not put an end to this type of corruption, it makes you wonder if the Navy armada was paid off with some mordida to look the other way, but how could they expect to get away such a crime in front of such a large city where they were operating in such easy view of everyone? Even if these commercial vessels did have legal permits to fish in these waters, you would think that they would have intelligence and courtesy not to do so blatantly in plain sight of so many people. The same Navy patrol boat captain who has been in charge of harassing the local panga fleets was asked why these purseiners were allowed to come so close to shore and set their gear, his answer was simply that they are paying good money so they deserve these fish. Great, that really makes the sportfishing community feel good, we definitely know where their priorities are. All we can do is let the public know what has happened and hope that somehow we can put the pressure on the authorities to do their jobs. In a real world this rogue Navy Captain should be detained and all of the purseiners involved should face punishment, including confiscation of their vessels. Doubtful anything will even come of this, it did appear on National T.V. and in the local papers, so perhaps fleet commanders will feel some pressure.
The local panga fleet launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 41 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a catch of: 2 mako shark, 17 striped marlin, 36 dorado, 124 yellowtail, 118 Mexican bonito, 166 yellowfin tuna, 18 roosterfish, 122 sierra, 28 combined pargo species and 12 cabrilla.
Good Fishing, Eric
|
||||||
|
Copyright © 1997 - 2008 The Fish Sniffer. All rights reserved. R & D Web Dynamic Website Design...Problems, Comments: E-mail us please ... Privacy Statement
|
