Los Cabos Fishing Report – November 1, 2015

November 1, 2015 125_Mahoney

It seems that our fall weather patterns have finally stabilized, no new late season tropical storms have developed since last week’s incredibly power Hurricane Patricia, which made land fall near Puerto Vallarta, surprisingly the damage was not too extensive. Ocean water temperatures have dropped a couple of degrees in recent days, now into the 84/85 degree range, this cooling trend should continue as days are becoming progressively shorter. Swells have been moderate, tides fairly extreme with passing of the full moon, winds increased from the south and north winds are starting to play havoc for the East Cape region. Daytime highs were still into the low 90s, but now it appears we will have more comfortable conditions in the mid 80s, with low of 65 degrees, time for long sleeve t-shirts, sweatshirts and wind breakers.

Sportfishing fleets continue to be busy, with the Bisbee Tournament now past, everyone is gearing up for the WON Tuna Jackpot scheduled for next week. In recent weeks all of the larger yellowfin tuna encountered were coming from the Pacific Banks, San Jaime or Golden Gate, just in recent days with the change in currents, there have been tuna to over 200 pounds found on the grounds off of San Jose del Cabo and to the north of the Gordo Banks. These larger grade of tuna were traveling with fast moving porpoise and were striking on strips of squid. Still no big numbers, but definitely a chance at hooking into a tournament winner, one panga charter lost an estimated 250 lb. tuna after a long battle, right as they were trying to gaff the fish, talk about a heartbreak.

The action close to shore off of Punta Gorda that has been going on for the past few weeks, continues, this is where tuna up to 40 lb. were sporadically biting, best action usually early, then becoming spottier throughout the day. Triggerfish, pompano and various pargo species rounded out that action off the point, overall this bite is starting to fade out and charters are now scouting out new grounds. Iman Bank is showing more activity for wahoo, as well as chances at tuna or dorado, again no big numbers, but with changing conditions, anything could happen on any given day. Wahoo were ranging from 15 lb. to over 50 lb., striking on Rapalas, skirted lead heads, as well as on chihuil or other rigged baits, including flying fish, if you were able to obtain them, as some skippers were able to a couple of weeks back when they ran into schools of these flyers in a spawning mode and were able to scoop them up with their bait nets by the dozens, of course this was a one day event.

Billfish has been mainly a mix of sailfish or striped marlin for San Jose fleets, with higher chances for blue marlin off of the Cabo San Lucas and Pacific grounds. Sailfish were found close to shore where the tuna action was. With ocean temperatures still warm, there could be blue or black marlin hooked late into the year, even early 2016.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 148 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 21 sailfish, 370 yellowfin tuna, 12 rainbow runners, 2 amberjack, 18 dorado, 49 wahoo, 18 pompano, 16 yellow snapper, 145 triggerfish, 6 sierra, 19 barred pargo, 70 black skipjack, 14 surgeonfish, 16 roosterfish and 12 bonito.

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

Los Cabos Fishing Report – October 18, 2015

October 18, 2015 127_ChristineGilmore

Fall Season seemed to arrive overnight, we are in the midst of the traditional busiest angling season. Tournaments are now underway and the largest event of all, the Bisbee’s Black and Blue is slated for next week, this is the event where teams compete for possible multimillion dollar payouts. Weather conditions have been stable since past weekend, still quite tropical for this late in the season, mornings are refreshing, though mid-day the heat index is high. Remember to bring your sunscreen, hats and sunglasses. Ocean water temperature is ranging from 85 to 88 degrees, swells have been moderate, winds very light and all around conditions very favorable, with clean water found within a mile or two or shore.

Despite such great conditions, the fishing action was more sporadic, not as consistent as we would expect for this time of year, this powerful el Nino current has all normal patterns mixed up. Bait has been scattered as well, no significant resource for sardinas now, limited supplies, caballito and slabs of giant squid have been most common options.

For much of the past week local fleets found the best action to be within one mile of shore off of Punta Gorda. This area was attracting both panga and cruiser fleets, this is where everyone congregated. Main species being encountered was yellowfin tuna, most of these tuna were in the 15 to 35 lb. class. Striking on striped squid or sardinas, when available. The yellowfin would come up to feed in flurries, often early in the morning, then slowing down, maybe with a couple of other feeding frenzies later in the morning. The key was to be at the right place when they did go on the bite. Average catch ranged from one tuna, to four or five. Not everybody was catching the tuna every day, even top skippers had tough days. Though these were decent quality of yellowfin, considering they were found so close to shore. Heavy pressure, limited bait, etc..made this bite become tougher latter in the week and now boats were again searching out more distance grounds.

Very few dorado being found, to see a half dozen for the fleet for one day was average. No particular area to find these dorado now, best chance seemed to be on the same grounds as where the tuna action was. Only an occasional wahoo being landed, other lost strikes, but these fish have not been very active at all, most likely when we see water temperatures eventually drop closer to 80 degrees, these fish will wake up.

Bottom action consisted mainly for monster sized triggerfish and some rare pompano, these fish were striking just as were the tuna, while drift fishing close to shore off of Punta Gorda. We had not seen any of these African pompano recently, they used to bite more often in late spring, very scrappy fighters and excellent eaters. A handful of barred pargo, yellow snapper and cabrilla rounded out the structure action.

We heard of more billfish action on the Pacific, though no confirmed reports of wide open action. On local grounds off of San Jose del Cabo, there were sailfish and some striped marlin, a couple smaller sized blue marlin. No inshore action to speak of now, though a local shore fishermen landed a world class 44 lb. snook off of the La Playita, el Faro stretch.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 175 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 7 striped marlin, 3 blue marlin, 16 sailfish, 345 yellowfin tuna, 29 dorado, 5 wahoo, 23 white skipjack, 18 bonito, 2 dogtooth snapper, 26 yellow snapper, 220 triggerfish, 18 African pompano, 10 cabrilla and 24 barred pargo.

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

Los Cabos Fishing Report – October 11, 2015

October 11, 2015 128_ChaoCatch

With crowds of anglers now arriving for the most popular Fall Season sportfishing fleets are now very busy. At this time we have no new tropical storms threatening from the south, only one low pressure area that is already located far off to the west, half way to Hawaii. Local weather conditions remain warm and humid, there has been quite a lot of cloud cover, threatening rain at times, last weekend we did receive significant rainfall, but we did not have any rain through the week, until this next weekend. Presently we are having wider spread thundershowers throughout the whole area, accompanied by lightning and thunder, mostly lighter rainfall, though in Cabo San Lucas they reported heavier rain than in San Jose del Cabo.  Sportfishing fleets continued to operate with caution. Tropical weather patterns are persisting late into the season. So we are hoping that the weather settles, days are now starting to cool down, as we get further into October we regularly enjoy ideal weather. With ocean water temperatures still ranging in the mid to upper 80’s, all around conditions can be that much more unpredictable.

Since the passing of stormy squalls last weekend we have seen very pleasant conditions throughout this week, moderate ocean swells, no strong winds, all around good environment for ocean fishing. Action was more spread out in recent days, obtaining sardinas became harder, no guarantee, anglers using squid strip were not doing as well as previous weeks. Hard to say what the reason is for a slower week, yellowfin tuna were being seen surfacing at times in sizable schools, but were finicky, one of the main reasons being that there were no quantities of sardinas to freely chum with. The majority of the yellowfin now being found on local grounds were ranging in the 5 to 25 lb. class or in the range of 50 to 60 lb., we did hear of unconfirmed reports of a larger grade of yellowfin hanging around the Pacific San Jaime or Golden Gate Banks.

The later part of this past week did show improvement for the yellowfin tuna action, later morning bite off of Punta Gorda, sardinas were the best, fish were also hooked on strips of squid, These tuna were in the 10 to 25 lb. class, boats were accounting for anywhere from a couple of fish, to as many as ten. With more sardinas this would be a hot bite. We hope that more sardinas move into our range.

A group of local commercial pangeros were finding the 50 to 60 lb. tuna biting on strips of squid underneath moving porpoise pods on the grounds near La Laguna to Cardon, though this has been a late afternoon bite, during normal morning, mid-day hours there has not been this porpoise activity. Only sporadic catches, some charters finding three, four, five fish and others not being able to find any at all. Most consistent grounds were from the Iman to Vinorama Banks.

The action off of the Santa Maria area slowed way down, better chances were not north of Punta Gorda, still no guarantees though. Only a few scattered dorado being found and most all of these have been under 15 pounds. Wahoo were even scarcer, though they are in the area and we expect any slight cooling trend in water temperature could trigger them into being more aggressive. Other action was for miscellaneous structure species, most common being triggerfish or snapper, an occasional dogtooth or amberjack, even one yellowtail.

Crazy year, with all of the dorado and wahoo, as well as striped marlin being in the direction of Southern California. Eventually these gamefish will migrate back in our direction.  Local conditions are great though and anything could happen on any given day. We do hope that we find a better source of sardinas, recently these schooling baitfish have moved into the protected zone of Cabo Pulmo National Park and bait netters were allowed to target them from these waters

Main action locally for billfish was for sailfish, no huge numbers, but most days these fish were being hooked into on the same inshore tuna grounds. We did see a private boat land a 300 lb. class blue marlin. Other anglers trolled large baits on the Gordo Banks and reported not finding any action for the larger marlin or cow sized yellowfin tuna, lots of natural bait in this area, so you never know, but there are likely be some large predators nearby on these same grounds.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 128 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 13 sailfish, 2 blue marlin, 260 yellowfin tuna, 28 dorado, 7 wahoo, 1 yellowtail, 44 white skipjack, 24 bonito, 7 dogtooth snapper, 22 yellow snapper, 7 amberjack, 75 triggerfish, 16 cabrilla and 19 barred pargo.

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

Los Cabos Hurricane Watch – Simon Says More Rain

Here we go again…. Simon2

Hurricane Odile is now Cat 4 with winds 135 – 160 MPH

This large hurricane is coming on a very similar path to Norbert hitting the tip of Baja @ Los Cabos and tracking up the Pacific Coast of the Peninsula. It is now moving 14 MPH NNW.

Odile Cat4ep201415_5day