CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT
Capt. George Landrum
Fly Hooker Sportfishing
www.flyhooker.com
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
February 7-13, 2011
Weather: Perhaps our cold snap is over for now as we are seeing slow increases in our lows and highs. This week the lowest I registered at home was 58 degrees as opposed to 53 degrees last week. Our highs are actually breaking the low 80's and getting into the high 80's! We had a few clouds pass over us on the 9th but other than that we have had mostly clear skies.
Water: If there is one constant about the ocean, it is that nothing ever stays the same! Surface conditions this week were great on both the Pacific side and the Cortez side of the Cape. Small swells on the Cortez at 1-3 feet, only 3-5 feet on the Pacific and spaced well apart. The big change was in the water temperatures. It has stayed cool, and actually dropped a bit. At the end of the week we had the coldest water in our area at 61 degrees close to the beach up around the Punta Gorda area, and the band of cool water continued to stay very close to the shore as it continued to the south and wrapped around the Cape. By the time it had gotten to our beaches it had warmed to 65 degrees, but that was still cold enough to make my Golden Retriever shiver when she came out, and me not to want to go swimming! As the cool water wrapped around to the Pacific side it plumed offshore. This 65 degree water stretched across the San Jaime Banks and the Golden Gate Banks as well, and everything inside of there was the same 65 degrees. Outside of the shoreline 2 mile wide cool water band the temperature was a consistent 70 degrees.
Bait: Caballito were available at $3 per bait. There were not as many as we hoped to see and not many Mackerel either, but an assortment of other, not so great baits were there. There were decent sized Sardinas available as well if you were one of the first out, and they were $25 a scoop.
FISHING
Billfish: This past week showed that we can be a little optimistic about upcoming weeks. While still not wide open by any means, there are more and more Marlin showing up every day. Many more are being seen that are being hooked up, and most boats are getting a shot at a few every day. That is a big change from what we were seeing just a few weeks ago! If we ever get schools of Mackerel to show up we should see a very significant increase in the number of Striped Marlin associated with them. As it is now, approximately 30 percent of the boats are getting hooked up, and about half of them are getting the fish to the boat. The sad thing is that many of these fish are being brought to the docks. It has been slow fishing for a while and instead of releasing the Marlin, a lot of the boats are trying to get mounts made (guilting the clients into getting one), or taking the meat to sell (against the law), anything to make a few extra dollars without thinking about how much money that fish could bring in if it was caught again. Sigh...
Yellowfin Tuna: Well, the water calmed down, but unlike my prediction last report the fishing for Yellowfin did not improve, or at least hasn't improved yet. There are still scattered schools of fish to be found along the temperature break running below the San Jaime and west of the San Jaime and the Golden Gate Banks, and some of them are decent fish, up to 80 pounds this week. Unfortunately they are really a hit or miss proposition as they will be in one spot one day and gone again the next. While there have been fish to 80 pounds, most of them have been footballs in the 10-12 pound range. A good catch this week would have been 6-8 fish with a few boats , mainly the first ones on the school, getting limits of five per angler.
Dorado: I would pretty much give up on Dorado for the next few months. If any are caught they will be stray fish, the water is just too darn cold to hold them!
Wahoo: Just coming up on the full moon and guess what? Yep, we had a client on Friday land a 70 pound Wahoo while fishing for Marlin! You just never know. It sure tasted good when filleted, the steaks pocketed with a butter/lemon/cilantro mix, dusted with flour, dredged in beaten eggs, rolled in minced Macadamia nuts, browned in a skillet and finished off in the oven. A peach salsa on top with a side of cous-cous and we were in heaven!!! You can get the recipe on our website.
Inshore: The swells died down and the Pangas were once again able to get up the Pacific coast. The cool water made the inshore fishing better for both Sierra and Yellowtail. We had anglers and friends who did well fly fishing for Sierra using sardinas as chum, limiting out on fish averaging 4 pounds. Others did well in the slightly deeper water yo-yo'ing for Yellowtail that averaged 14 pounds with a few fish going as large as 30 pounds. Of course it was a matter of the right place at the right time as they could move as far as ½ mile up or down the coast overnight. You had to work for them! The were also a few Roosterfish to be found (surprisingly as they normally do not like water this cold). They were not extremely aggressive but we did have one angler who was bit three times on the fly, but they were short strikes and he could not get a solid hook-up. Other fish that were caught were some grouper in smaller sizes and a few very nice Pargo to 25 pounds.
Notes: This week I don't need to have socks on as it has warmed up in the house! Finally done with the front and rear door jambs, thank you Bill Ison, master carpenter! Unbelievable but true, the new Solmar Grande is charging $28 for 2 eggs, potatoes any way you like, and toast with coffee for breakfast. Isn't anyone there in touch with reality, I can go downtown and get the same thing for 30 pesos!! The main Marina has raised their rates 10%, now a charter boat is paying over $1,200 U.S. A month for a 30 foot slip, plus power and water, and if you are a day late with payment they chain the boat to the dock. If you have a charter and come down to find the boat chained, cut the lock and go fishing to earn the money to pay the slip fees they charge you $100 U.S. to replace the lock! Still plenty of whales to look at out there. I am out of here in a few minutes to go play golf at Cabo Real. Let's see, fishing, golf sunshine, warm weather, a nice house, beautiful and mostly understanding wife, great pets, gee, it sucks to be me! My music this week is once again the king of blues, B.B. King on the 2008 Geffen Records release “One Kind Favor”. Until next week, tight lines!
Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
February 13, 2011
Anglers –
It appears the coldest weather has now past, recent days have been mostly sunny, at times moderate cloud cover, overall conditions were on a warming trend compared to last week. Winds were still unpredictable, most of the time coming from the north, at times swinging out of the south. Ocean water temperatures raised a couple of degrees this week, now averaging 69 to 72 degrees, warmest areas now near the 95 spot, outside of Chileno.
Finding any sufficient supply of sardinas became difficult this past week, minimal supplies of this bait source were netted near Palmilla, hardly enough to have the needed chum for possibly chumming up the yellowfin tuna that have been schooling off of Santa Maria, these tuna were in the 15 to 25 pound class, but were very finicky and lots of bait was needed to have the best opportunities.
The most consistent fishing action has been closer to shore, over rocky structure, typically in depths ranging from 100 to 150 feet. Anglers used a combination of sardina, red crabs (when available) and yo-yo style iron jigs to catch a wide range of species, including red snapper (huachinango), cabrilla (leopard grouper), amberjack, yellowtail, yellow snapper, triggerfish, bonito, black skipjack and shark. These fish were all great eating species, averaging less than ten pounds, but also a few larger fish to over 20 pounds were accounted for. On an average morning charter groups could expect to catch three, four or five different types of fish and anywhere from 5 to 15 total landed.
Stretches close to shore were holding sierra, roosterfish and at time yellowtail. Slow trolling with sardinas was the most productive method of finding action, though anglers also reported success on hoochies and Rapalas.
Pelagic red crabs are being found on the local fishing grounds, this has been more of a commercial pangero deal than sportfishing. Each day these pelagic crabs are found on the surface, varies daily as to exactly where. These small crustaceans are what the red snapper are being caught on, pretty much exclusively since this is what these true red snapper now have a taste for.
Striped marlin activity has been scattered, though anglers wishing to target these billfish have had an average of a couple opportunities per day on stripers ranging up to 120 pounds, much of this action was found 8 to 15 miles off of the Palmilla to Chileno region. Strikes came on trolled lures, rigged ballyhoo and dropped back baits. We expect as water temperatures raise some and attract more offshore bait species, such as mackerel, sardinetas and flying fish, we will see improved action offshore.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 44 charters for the past week, with anglers reported a fish count of: 4 striped marlin, 22 bonito, 15 amberjack, 22 cabrilla, 183 yellowtail, 114 huachinago (red snapper), 46 sierra, 32 roosterfish,14 dorado, 44 yellowfin tuna, 26 triggerfish, 3 mako shark, 1 wahoo and 45 black skipjack.
Good fishing, Eric
GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Eric Brictson
Owner/Operator
800 4081199
Los Cabos 1421147
ericgordobanks@yahoo.com
www.gordobanks.com
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