October 7, 2012
Anglers –

The Southern Baja weather this past week is consistent with normal early fall patterns. We have seen cooler early morning temperatures, scattered tropical clouds with strong sunshine, warm and humid through the afternoon. Trade winds are blowing offshore in the morning, then switch out of the north midday and then from the south late, just enough breeze to help keep conditions comfortable. No new storms seen to the south at this time, still a chance at late season systems developing, as ocean water temperatures are averaging 85 degrees of more through most of the region.

Swells were light this week, gave a chance for the inshore clarity to start clearing after all of the recent rain runoff. Much larger crowds of anglers are now arriving, as the coming weeks is always one of the busiest times of year in the Los Cabos area. Advance charter reservations are definitely recommended this time of year. Commercial pangeros are working hard to find sufficient supplies of live bait, particularly sardinas, which are the preferred all around baitfish. Inshore off of Palmilla and to the north of Punta Gorda they are finding scattered schools of these baitfish, though it was not easy to keep up with the supply and demand. There are caballito in the marina and on the fishing grounds there are bolito, skipjack, chihuil and cocinero, more skipjack than anything else.

The cow bells are ringing on the Gordo Banks.There were more larger yellowfin tuna caught this week, the Gordo Banks produced quite a few yellowfin tuna over 100 pounds and maybe ten tuna over 200 pounds were landed by the combined Puerto Los Cabos fleet of pangas and larger sportfishers, largest we actually weighed in was 245 lb. Most of these tuna were found around the Inner Gordo Bank, they hit on whole baits, as well as chunk bait. A handful of fish were hooked throughout the morning hours and then local private charters were having a bit more success dung the afternoon sessions. On Tuesday evening there was a black marlin brought in by a trio of local La Playita anglers that was weighed in at 640 lb., largest black we have heard about so far this season. Last week there was a blue marlin landed out of Cabo San Lucas that went 720 pounds.

The Iman Bank was holding schooling yellowfin tuna, though there was no consistent bite for these fish, some days they would come up and feed on sardinas late morning, other days just did not come up at all. Lots of skipjack competing for the same food source, tuna do not like feeding at the same time as the skippies. These tuna in this area were in the 12 to 20 pound class, with a few up to 40 pounds, on the good days charters were accounting for a handful of tuna, as well as dorado in their mix.

Dorado are being found spread out, there were greater numbers congregated around floating debris. Most of the dorado were under 20 pounds, though we did see a few trophy sized bulls up to 45 pounds. No run on wahoo yet, with all of the bait ball activity we expect to see more of these wahoo in the counts soon. A few wahoo to 40 pounds were landed north of Punta Gorda, striking on Rapala and bait, with many boats now trolling larger baits on the offshore grounds, this is good way to tell if the wahoo actually are around, because they really like to clip off these same baits, more often than not they do so without notice or even becoming hooked.

The bottom action consisted of miscellaneous pargo/snapper, cabrilla, amberjack, dogtooth, grouper and even roosterfish. As we have been seeing now for several fall seasons, out of their normal inshore habitat, the roosterfish at this time of year will hang around the offshore structure of Iman, La Fortuna and San Luis and all of these roosterfish have been larger fish, 30 to 60 pounds. Anglers told many stories of drift fishing while using live skipjack off the bottom, taking freight train strikes, resulting in cut off lines. Not many amberjack recently, but that could change at any time, though the fall season is the time when the majority of anglers would prefer to target the pelagic surface species.

We have not heard many reports on billfish, except the 640 pound black marlin out of La Playita on Tuesday afternoon. Just a few sailfish and smaller size striped marlin found while trolling the blue water, we expect to hear more reports of big marlin hook ups in the coming days, as this is the time the tournament teams really start to scout fish for the upcoming events.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 110 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:
1 black marlin, 7 striped marlin, 9 sailfish, 8 wahoo, 11 amberjack, 5 dogtooth snapper, 18 cabrilla, 194 dorado, 83 yellowfin tuna, 22 various pargo species and 5 roosterfish.
Good Fishing, Eric

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GORDO BANKS PANGAS

Eric Brictson / Operator

619 488-1859

Los Cabos (624) 142-1147

e-mail:gordobanks@yahoo.com

WWW.GORDOBANKS.COM

July 29, 2012
Anglers –

This week we saw varying summer weather patterns, started with calm days, warm and humid days, highs of 95 degrees, clear blue ocean water was found close to shore, then later in the week, gusty afternoon breezes from the south attributed to churning seas, pushing in greenish water and now we wait for conditions to return to how they had been, and at this time of year this can happen within a day. Presently the ocean temperatures are ranging from 80 degrees near Cabo San Lucas, up to 86 degrees towards Los Frailes. To the south, there is no Tropical Cyclone activity at this time, sunny skies with some intermittent scattered clouds and at times there was a cooling afternoon breeze from the Pacific that helped give welcome relief to the sticky weather.

This week officially marks beginning of the summer/fall Southern Baja Tournament Season, as the Bisbee’s East Cape event is being held, with some sixty teams participating for a share of the prize money. Should be a fun time for everyone involved, this tournament is a warm up event, preparing for the even larger stake tournaments coming in the Fall.

Sportfishing fleets were covering a wide area in search of the best opportunities, from the Pacific, where there were reports of tuna, dorado and billfish, much of this was close to 20 miles from shore, in the vicinity of Jaime Bank, but the majority of charters were heading in the direction of the fishing grounds such as the 950 & 1150 spots, to the Gordo Banks, San Luis and Desteladera. San Luis Bank was holding more schools of bolito baitfish, which were being caught and used for slow trolling on the surface for a variety of gamefish. Although at this time there were not large numbers of any particular species being found, there was definitely a variety of quality fish being encountered. Everyday this week we have been hearing reports of large yellowfin tuna being hooked into, in the 150 to 200 plus pound class, these fish were striking on live bolito in and around the Iman to San Luis Bank, so for a handful of these fish have been landed, specimens of 150 and 213 lb. in the past few days, but many other stories were told of massive missed strikes or big fish being lost for various reasons after long battles. There was a grand slam mix of sailfish, striped marlin, blue and black marlin on these same grounds, all hitting on the same baits. Several marlin in the 300 pound class were caught and released from charters based out of Puerto Los Cabos Marina.

Live caballito and mullet were available from the marina area, but these baits were not what the offshore species preferred at this time, anglers reported much more success using the freshly caught lively bolito. This is now the style of fishing where you need patience while trolling around waiting for strikes, most boats were averaging several chances on big fish each day. There was no particular spot where a lot of numbers of smaller sized fish were found, so it is basically the same chance at hooking into a larger of smaller fish. Though if specifically targeting larger fish, you do need to be using gear that is capable of having the chance at actually landing the fish. Dorado are very spread out, bulls up to 40 pounds were accounted for, though no numbers and the majority of the do-do s found were medium sized. Trolling with bolito is a very good method for finding big bull dorado.

Early in the week there were schools of smaller sized yellowfin found on San Luis Bank, they hit on hoochies, as well as other small lures and for the few charters that were able to purchase live sardinas from commercial pangeros that had come from the north near Los Frailes, they really did well on these yellowfin. Then this action faded and larger tuna all of sudden made a presence, apparently attracted to the large concentrations of food, particularly their favored bolito.

Bottom action was not consistent, though there continued to be an productive early morning bite happening for huachinango, the true Pacific red snapper, this action was found at first light on the San Luis Bank and these fish were only striking on yo-yo style jigs, weighing up to 12 pounds, and excellent eating. There was only an odd amberjack or grouper being found, more triggerfish that any other species now being found off of the shallow rock piles. This is the time when larger grouper move onto the shallow water structure to feed on the abundant food available and anglers use larger whole baits for drift fishing over these rocky areas, hoping to hook into a monster that will truly test their skill in trying to win the battle of not being broke off in the rocks.

Roosterfish are still patrolling the shoreline, but not as numerous as they had been off of San Jose del Cabo and to the north, there were reports of wide open roosterfish action found out of the East Cape, though most charters from this area are having to traveling further south than Los Frailes in order to find any offshore action.

The combined panga fleet out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 48 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
8 striped marlin, 6 sailfish, 1 black marlin, 1 blue marlin, 38 dorado, 26 yellowfin, 12 amberjack, 9 grouper, 14 cabrilla, 16 roosterfish, 44 huachinango (red snapper) and 24 triggerfish.