San Jose del Cabo Fish Report Nov. 27 - Dec. 3

[Gordo Banks]

December 3, 2006
Anglers –

Typically the week after Thanksgiving is a period when there are less people traveling on vacation, as they start preparing for the Christmas Holiday Season, surprisingly at this time there still are good crowds of tourists in the Los Cabos area. The north winds were relentless starting on Wednesday night, blowing through the weekend, at times gusting up to 25 miles per hour. Generally the days were cooler, highs of about 75 degrees, water temperatures are still warm, averaging from 79 to 81 degrees, but we expect that this cooler weather will now put the water on cooling trend. The all around fishing action was like the weather, the bite was flat out cold for most of the week. Fish counts dropped off considerably and with the winds fleets were limited where they could concentrate their efforts. Charters were spread out in all directions trying to locate the best possible action and for the most part they found that inshore was the best bet, as more sierra were now moving in along the local beaches.

Live sardinas were now being found along the beaches from Red Hill to Santa Maria, and off of the San Jose del Cabo Estuary, but at times anglers had to wait patiently in order to obtain their daily supplies.

Daily catches included sierra, yellowfin tuna, skipjack and dorado, striped marlin, amberjack, cabrilla, pargo, triggerfish, pompano and rainbow runners. The panga fleets found the most consistent action inshore for sierra of 2 to 5 pounds from Punta Gorda to Red Hill with a combination of live sardinas, rapalas and hoochies.

The action for yellowfin tunahas slowed down to a standstill, with only an odd fish here and there, most them were hooked on sardinas in the areas from La Fortuna to Iman and the average weight of the few tuna that were landed ranged from 15 to 30 pounds, an exception was a 75 pound yellowfin tuna that was caught by Bill Gray of Cottonwood, California on Friday while fishing with skipper Jesus on the super panga “ Katie� from Gordo Banks Pangas.

Dorado action was scattered as well, early in the week there were some respectable catches accounted for, as a few charters ended up with five or six fish for the day, with weights up to 25 pounds, though after the strong northerly winds kicked up this made the water turn off colored and slowed the action considerably.

With the cooler and greener water conditions it was tough to find wahoo, but everyday there was talk of a couple of them being seen or hooked into. We were optimistic that this coming full moon would entice the wahoo into action, but so far that has not been the case.

Cruisers out of Cabo San Lucas reported good action for striped marlin, but the fish were to the north, ten or more miles, striking best on live baits that were being drifted down deep.

The panga fleets from La Playita sent out approximately 116 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 2 wahoo, 65 dorado, 55 yellowfin tuna, 135 skipjack, 16 amberjack, 14 cabrilla, 365 sierra, 42 yellowtail snapper, 38 pompano, 15 rainbow runner and 205 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric