November 4, 2018

Very busy times continue and will not tapper off until after Thanksgiving. Weather patterns were now more typical for the fall season, low temperatures about 70 degrees and highs near 85 degrees. North winds have become more prevalent, picking up early in the week, lightening a bit over the weekend. Ocean swells were moderate and water temperatures varied from 79 to 82 degrees. Reports of north winds stirring up currents and pushing in off colored waters.

There were various bait options now available, caballito, slabs of squid, ballyhoo, chihuil, small skipjack and miniature size sardinas being found in limited quantities near Chileno. Very heavy pressure on all bait resources this time of year, always the same situation during this time frame.

Local San Jose del Cabo fleets are fishing mainly in the vicinity of Iman and San Luis Banks.The action for yellowfin tuna was much tougher this week, through much of the week the winds created very fast drifts and made that form of drift and chum fishing that much harder. There were limited yellowfin tuna in the 40 to 90 lb. accounted for, some days they found better number of football sized tuna, white skipjack and bonito, but even the smaller grade of fish became elusive. Most days the best chances for tuna was early in the day, then very sporadic.

We did see an increase of dorado that ranged to over 20 lb. still just one or two here or there, but at least were seeing some decent respectable sized fish. Wahoo were hard to predict, as they normally can be, but these fish are definitely in the area, mainly on the grounds from Punta Gorda to Vinorama. These fish do become increasingly finicky at times of heavy concentrations of boats. Anglers were taking wahoo strikes incidentally while drift fishing for tuna, as well as on various rapalas, skirted jet heads, trap hooked chihuil, caballito and ballyhoo also were working. No wide open action, but charters were accounting for one or two of these fish when targeting these specifically. Sizes ranging from 10 to 40 lb. Local wahoo tournament is next Sunday, so we will see how that turns out, most likely a fish in the 40 to 50 lb. range will have good chance of taking home prize money.

Getting late in the season now, but some sailfish were still being hooked into, as well as some smaller sized striped marlin, heard of a 300 lb. black marlin off of Cabo San Lucas. This is now kind of in between seasons for local billfish action.

Bottom action was limited, though some anglers did catch some quality fish, amberjack, dogtooth snapper, cabrilla were the highlight, early in the day on inshore grounds further north was best chance, going after this directly and not trying to do too much in one morning. Hard to target tuna, wahoo and bottom all in the same trip.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 235 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of:  9 striped marlin, 8 sailfish, 58 dorado, 41 wahoo, 155 yellowfin tuna, 145 bonito, 190 white skipjack, 18 red snapper, 14 amberjack, 13 barred pargo,16 yellow snapper, 12 dogtooth snapper, 18 cabrilla, 12 sierra, 12 roosterfish, 10 jack crevalle, 4 mullet snapper and 180 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

WWW.GORDOBANKS.COM

September 29, 2018

We saw light crowds of anglers arriving this week, though ocean conditions remained decent through the weekend. Active tropical conditions now being closely monitored, with category four Hurricane Rosa spinning over the Pacific several hundred miles off to the west, following a northern track, expected to impact northern areas of Baja before dissipated over Mainland Mexico and into the U.S. There were some isolated showers felt locally, particularly on Thursday night when Cabo San Lucas experienced heavy flooding in the lower lying areas. Swells increased to three meters, but winds were light and anglers were able to reach the normal fishing grounds. Presently we are watching a newly forming tropical system off of Southern Mexico, expected to become Hurricane Sergio, but also is forecast to follow a similar path as Rosa and remain safely away from any impact with Southern Baja, so hopefully these forecasts remain actuate.

There continued to be supplies of sardinas near the PLC marina entrance, this was the main bait now being used. Heavy pressure coming with the fall season, hard to say how the baitfish supply will hold up, there should be some control on how much brined dead bait is allowed during the upcoming high dollar tournaments, this always puts a major hurt on local bait supplies.

With clean blue water now within a mile of shore and ocean temperatures averaging close to 85 degrees, fleets have not had to go far offshore to find fish. Most consistent action recently has been found between the Iman and San Luis Banks. Main species has been the yellowfin tuna, with the full moon passing these fish became a little more finicky than they already had been, but still there were quality yellowfin being landed every day, average size fish were in the 50 to 70 lb. range. Some days they would bite early, other times it was a late bite, hot spots would vary each day, early in the week San Luis was best, then Iman, then to the inside off of La Fortuna. With persistence anglers were able to land one or two, up to four or five of these tuna per day.

Over last weekend the wahoo started to bite, first on the Iman Bank, trolling Rapalas and other lures, not necessarily only early in the day either. For the few boats that got into this action, they reported having multiple strikes and landing as many as four wahoo, weights were to over 40 lb. This action slowed way down on the Iman Bank, but there were new reports from further north off of Vinorama where wahoo action was very good as well, this is longer range, but hopefully these fish will move on to our normal closer fishing grounds.

Not much going on with dorado, just a handful of mostly smaller single fish being encountered. There were opportunities for billfish, this week there were striped marlin, blue marlin, black marlin and sailfish all found, no big numbers, but these fish are in the area and some impressive blues and black to over 400 lb. were reported. Slow trolling larger baitfish like white skipjack or football sized tuna showing the best results on the local high spots for hooking into a big marlin.

Not much bottom action, a few snapper, cabrilla, amberjack, not many people concentrated on this. We did see one dogtooth of close to 60 lb. Also a 50 lb. amberjack, so there are some impressive fish in the area.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 53 charters for the week. Anglers reported a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 2 blue marlin, 2 black marlin, 9 dorado, 17 wahoo, 92 yellowfin tuna, 22 bonito, 12 red snapper, 4 dogtooth snapper, 4 amberjack, 5 barred pargo, 1 sculpin, 2 surgeon fish, 8 cabrilla and 60 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

—

GORDO BANKS PANGAS

Eric Brictson / Operator

619 488-1859

Los Cabos (624) 142-1147

e-mail:gordobanks@yahoo.com

WWW.GORDOBANKS.COM