San Jose del Cabo Fish Report Feb. 17

[Gordo Banks]

February 17, 2008
Anglers -

Moderate crowds of tourists visiting Los Cabos were enjoying mild winter time temperatures, very pleasant, scattered cloud cover, enough sunshine to stay warm and highs in upper 70s. It was not easy to predict the wind patterns, as they were randomly switching from the northwest, northeast and then out of the south. Water temperatures fluctuated from 65 to 72 degrees, the warmest areas found outside of Cabo San Lucas, near the Jaime to Golden Gate Banks. Cooler currents once again moved into the region from Vinorama to the Gordo Banks. Strong currents have been fluctuating up and down, this has affected the fishing action accordingly. There were good supplies of live mackerel and sardinas available, mackerel being the better option for offshore and the sardinas for inshore. The annual migration of whales is now at its peak, scores of humpbacks or grays can be seen on any given outing.

The striped marlin bite has slowed, but the billfish were still being found spread out from the Pacific banks into the Sea of Cortez. Early in the week the stripers were found within one mile off of La Laguna, near Punta Gorda, actually were spotted jumping while charter boats were trolling along the beach for roosterfish, this is an area where deep water comes close to shore and at times can attract the larger gamefish. The marlin were spotted in small groups tailing on the surface and would readily strike on live mackerel when presently properly. There were some reports of yellowfin tuna found further offshore, but this was unpredictable and the local pangas were not finding any tuna to speak of closer to shore. Mexican bonito were as close as they were coming to tuna, these fish averaged 3 to 6 pounds and the most consistent spot for them was on the San Luis Bank.

Anglers did report landing some quality sized yellowtail while working yo-yo jigs on the rock piles from the Gordo Banks to Iman. Some of these fish were very impressive, in the 30 to 50 pound class. There were also a mix of snapper, cabrilla and amberjack found off the bottom, though at times it was nearly impossible to fish these spots due to the swift current. Commercial pangueros told stories of waiting until the current switched late in the afternoon and finding better action. The yellowtail were at times seen feeding on the surface and also would strike live mackerel.

Close to shore it was smaller sized roosterfish and sierra that were dominating the action, best bet was slow trolling with live sardinas. There were schools of ballyhoo seen and this attracted a few off season dorado into these inshore beach stretches.

The combined fleet of pangas out of La Playita reported approximately 40 charters for the week, with anglers having a fish count of: 5 striped marlin, 7 dorado, 2 mako sharks, 28 pargo, 310 Mexican bonito, 88 sierra, 19 cabrilla, 27 amberjack, 92 roosterfish and 17 yellowtail.

Good Fishing, Eric

[Deno]

Thanks for the report I’ll be there in July.

[Deno]

Eric I was checking out your reports, lot of familiar faces in your pictures.
I’ll be fishing with Daniel Fisher, do you know him? Deno

[Gordo Banks]

Yes, I do know Daniel, he is a very knowledgeable angler, especially for those big marlin!