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Fishing Report for San Jose del Cabo, Baja
Capt. Eric Brictson
May 13, 2006
San Jose del Cabo - Saltwater Fishing Report
May 13, 2006
Anglers –
The weather conditions in Los Cabos is now paradise like, clear sunny skies, with high temperatures in the upper 80s, very little wind inside the Sea of Cortez. On the Pacific there were rough seas and water temperatures in the 60s reported. Overall the ocean was relatively calm and was very comfortable for anglers. Swells are now starting to increase from the south as is normal during the month of May, this was not a problem for panga charters launching from the beach of La Playita, especially since the new breakwater for the Puerto Los Cabos Marina is nearly completed. Water temperatures from Cabo San Lucas to Los Frailes have averaged in the 74 to 76 degree range. The fishing has not been wide open and varied from day to day, but there was good variety and the striped marlin fishing continued to be the highlight for anglers targeting the blue water offshore action. All of the activity is now taking place in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. The fishing grounds from the 95 spot to the Gordo Banks and Desteladera were most consistent, lots of baitfish in the area, particularly skipjack and bolito, sardinas and mullet were available off of the beach of La Playita.
Striped marlin could be seen feeding on the surface and at times they were found in close proximity to shore, only several miles out, they were striking best on bait, methods included slow trolling on the surface, casting to tailing or feeding fish and drift fishing bait down deep, as well as many other that were blind striking on lures, average marlin caught weighed 100 to 150 pounds and many charters targeting billfish accounted for multiple catches per day. Dorado continued to be scarce and scattered, with every few charters encountering maybe one of them while trolling lures or bait, no specific area was better than the other, there just were not many of the do-dos around yet, but with the water on a warming trend that should bring in more fish. The dorado that were landed weighed up to 30 pounds.
Yellowfin tuna action was also slow, most of them now being found with schools of porpoise, but each day they seemed to be in a different spot and the few anglers that were lucky enough to be in the right place had a few tuna of 10 to 25 pounds. The big showing of yellowfin on the Gordo Banks slacked this past week, though a few 200-pound class tuna were seen on the surface feeding, though they were tough to hook into, still lots of red crabs in the area and the tuna seem to be gorging on them. One 200-pound class yellowfin tuna was landed on Saturday, May 13 th by La Playita panguero Eduardo Guluarte, this monster hit on a trolled bolito on the Outer Gordo Bank and took close to two hours to land.
Wahoo were being caught in limited numbers each day, scattered from the Gordo Banks north to San Luis and striking on various skirted lures, Rapalas and Yo-Zuris. Many schools of wahoo were reported seen free swimming, but they were spooky and most anglers felt very lucky if they even landed one of them. Average sizes for the wahoo that were landed ranged from 30 to 45 pounds.
Other action included shallow water fishing for various species of pargo, pompano, cabrilla and yellowtail. They were striking on bait and weighing 5 to 25 pounds, dogtooth snapper to 50 pounds were hooked into but these fish were located in such swallow water and were so powerful that they proved almost impossible to pull away from the rocks before they cut the leaders. On Wednesday, May 10 th the red crabs were found in mass quantity on the surface near La Fortuna and panga anglers who got into this action will not soon forget seeing the schools of huachinango feeding on the surface, they would readily take the red crab baits that were drifted into the frenzy, quality red snapper weighing 8 to 14 pounds. Sierra and jack crevalle provided the bulk of the inshore action, though a handful ofroosterfish are starting to be seen feeding along the local beaches and more schools of mullet are now moving in close to shore. We look for the roosterfish action to really pick up in the coming weeks.
The La Playita panga fleet sent out approximately 65 charters for the week and anglers produced a fish count of: 8 striped marlin, 14 dorado, 6 yellowfin tuna, 36 sierra, 15 pompano, 11 amberjack, 9 yellowtail, 290 various pargo species, 16 cabrilla and 12 wahoo.
Good Fishing, Eric
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