April 1, 2018
Busy week locally, spring break is now for Mexico, schools are in recess for two weeks, This weekend is the popular 
holiday when people all head to various beaches, wherever they can find room, many of these families go for extended camping excursions. Many local businesses shut down to take time off, hard to find too many people who work this weekend. Also we saw quite a few tourists arriving, many of them tried to book late notice sportfishing charters.
First half of the week was plagued by stiff north winds, though for the weekend conditions calmed down, early mornings once again were down into the low 50s, but as the sun rose into clear skies, temperatures quickly warmed up close to 80 degrees, excellent all around climate now. The main choice for bait now has been sardinas, they are being found schooling near Palmilla, Cabo Real and the north near San Luis, surf was a little higher earlier in the week and this made it harder to get the bait off of the beaches to the north. On some days the pelagic red crabs were found drifting to the surface and these crustaceans were being used for various pargo and snapper species. Though this was a sporadic deal from day to day. Ocean water temperatures ranged from 71 to 74 degrees. Still some whales being sighted each day, likely the final couple week period now for this, as these mammals will be all heading north soon.
The main concentration of sport fishing charters were fishing the La Fortuna, the twenty-five spot, just on the inside of Iman Bank, this is where the yellowfin tuna are now schooling. These fish have been at this spot for several weeks now, seem to become more finicky each week, between the crowds of boats, pesky sea lions and the plentiful natural food source these yellowfin are very leery to strike any batfish with a hook, anglers are using 20 to 30 lb. leaders to enhance their chances, so once a fish is hooked it is a delicate battle to be able to land it. The average sized tuna being landed are in the 20 to 50 lb. range, though even larger sized yellowfin were reportedly seen feeding on the free chummed sardinas. Individual charters were doing well to land one or two tuna during a morning trip, other charters worked hard without ever even having any opportunity.
These same grounds produced a mix of bottom structure species, not many large monsters, mostly fish in the 5 to 15 lb. class, leopard grouper, yellow snapper, bonito, triggerfish, huachinango, amberjack, island jack, barred pargo and others. The best technique proved to be with fresh sardinas, with a few fish also taken on yo-yo jigs.
The striped marlin bite was good now, a bit more scattered this week, as the balls of baitfish that were being found dispersed and the marlin were found more moving onto to different grounds. The striper’s ranged nicer sized, up to150 lb., striking on trolled lures, rigged ballyhoo, bolito, skipjack and chihuil. With most of the billfish action coming within 3 to 8 miles from shore.
Numbers of dorado were down this week, though there still were some of these gamefish hanging around, we saw fish up to 15 lb. accoutered for. Even a chance at wahoo, though not many were landed, more of these fish should start biting when the water temperatures warms up, as it does the later part of April.
Not much talk of inshore action now, a few roosterfish and sierra, but no numbers and actually more anglers are now targeting the more prevalent offshore species.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 84 charters for this week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 3 wahoo, 37 dorado, 42 striped marlin, 36 yellowfin tuna, 38 yellow snapper, 29 cabrilla (leopard grouper), 32 huachinango (red snapper), 35 bonito, 4 amberjack, 6 island jack. 16 barred pargo, 2 dogtooth snapper, 5 roosterfish, 23 sierra and 135 triggerfish.
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
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