San Jose del Cabo Fish Report March 26 - April 1

[Gordo Banks]

April 1, 2007
Anglers –

The official local spring break vacation has now started and vacationing tourists are also arriving in large numbers to the Los Cabos area. As the weather is steadily warming everybody is excited to get involved more in outdoor activities. This coming weekend is when local families traditionally pack up camping provisions and head for the beaches, though access to many of their favorite locations is now limited due to all of the development along the coastal stretches. This past week the weather was not as crazy and unpredictable as it was last week, there was none of the thick marine fog or heavy south winds to deal with, though the north wind did blow at an average of 10 to 15 miles per hour for most of the period. The water conditions are on an improving trend, clearing and averaging 68 to 71 degrees, as the days start to heat up we expect the water temperature to warm accordingly.

The fishing action was not quite as exciting this week for the San Jose del Cabo panga fleets, last week the red crabs attracted huachinango (red snapper) to the surface, but this week the action was more spread out. The most consistent bite was early morning action for yellow snapper close to shore off of Cardon while drifting with sardinas in about fifty feet of water, these fish were particularly aggressive the first couple hours in the mornings, tough fighters on light tackle, averaging 4 to 8 pounds. Mixed in the same area there were also some leopard grouper (cabrilla), barred pargo, flag cabrilla, sierra, roosterfish, surgeon fish and amberjack. On the rock piles a bit further from shore, in 100 to 150 feet of water anglers using yo-yo iron jigs reported mixed success for cabrilla, pargo and amberjack.

Very few dorado encountered in recent days, yellowfin tuna were scattered as well, with some action being found offshore traveling with schooling porpoise, not a consistent bite and the yellowfin that were encountered were mostly in the 10 to 20 pounds range. No tuna were reported closer to shore or on the Gordo Banks. A couple of 20 to 30 pound wahoo were caught off of Punta Gorda on trolled mackerel, but apparently this was just a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Early in the week there were concentrations of mackerel found around the Outer Gordo Bank and this attracted striped marlin, which were encountered feeding on the balled up baitfish. This activity vanished and the billfish action once again became spread out to areas of the Pacific and off of Chileno. With the coming full moon we expect this next week will also prove a bit more difficult for the striped marlin action.

Whales are still providing entertainment, though their numbers have diminished some. Several commercial shrimp trawlers have been in the area and if you were able to make the right connection there were some good deals on freshly caught shrimp available.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita sent out approximately 56 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 8 striped marlin, 3 mako shark, 11 dorado, 15 amberjack, 14 bonito, 33 cabrilla, 10 pompano, 8 surgeonfish, 14 roosterfish, 86 sierra, 2 wahoo and 295 pargo (various species).


Good Fishing, Eric