VARIABLE WINTER WINDS HAMPER OFFSHORE FISHING IN THE CABO AREA

March 21-27, 2005, George Landrum, Fly Hooker Sportfishing, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur fishing, Mexico:

One day the wind blows, the next day there is no wind. This is typical weather for the Cabo San Lucas vacation area at this time of year but it can make for interesting fishing, for sure! Thankfully most of the week the wind was tolerable. Cabo San Lucas day time highs were around the low 80s with the nighttime lows around the low to mid 60s.

Every day that the wind blew sportfishing conditions on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas began to erode. If the wind blew for two days, the second day became "Victory at Sea" kind of fishing conditions. With the cold water being pushed into our Cabo San Lucas fishing area by the currents from the north, most of the fish were looking for warmer water anyway so most charter fishing boats ended up fishing to the east or north on the Sea of Cortez. In those areas the surface conditions were much better and the water was warmer.

On the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, the cold 67 degree fishing water extended from the shore and out past the San Jaime and Golden Gate Banks. Along with being cold, the water was green. On the Cortez side of Cabo San Lucas the fishing water close to shore was warmer, mostly in the 70-72 degree range and blue.

This was a hard week for getting bait at Cabo San Lucas. Some of the bait Pangas limited their customers to 5 baits per day in an attempt to keep everyone happy. What was available was brought in from San Jose and was available at $2 per bait, mostly Mackerel.

The Striped Marlin are still shy, but I had a customer this week that fished for 12 hours for two days and managed to release two Striped Marlin and one Blue Marlin, along with having shots at a few more fish. All of his action, along with all the Marlin action that I heard of came while fishing the Cortez side of the Cabo San Lucas and happened close to shore, actually within 5 miles for the Striped, and 30 miles out for the Blue.

What a lot of Cabo San Lucas fishing boats have been looking for this past week were Swordfish. With the water cool and green to the Pacific side and the south, there have been quite a few of them sighted and a few hooked up. Never here in any large numbers, this is the time of year we start seeing them.

Look for the Porpoise and if you get lucky there will be Tuna mixed in. Many of the Porpoise pods found did not have any Tuna with them, so you often had to try and find as many pods as possible. Those fish that were caught were mostly in the 10-15 pound range with a few to 40 pounds. Cedar plugs and feathers worked and boats that were able to get a good bite going found themselves able to catch a limit. Other boats, not so lucky, ended up a trip with just one Tuna in the box.

Again the floating Kelp was the key to good Dorado fishing at Cabo San Lucas, but the currents were not taking much of it to the warmer Cortez side. We found a lot of small paddies in the current lines at the San Jaime Banks, but with the water cold and green there were no fish associated with them. Dorado that were found were on the Cortez side and most of them ranged from 6-20 pounds.

Wahoo fishing in Cabo San Lucas vacation area waters improved a bit this last week, but there were still not a lot of them caught. The full moon on the 25th may have had something to do with the improved bite; it seems to happen that way. Most of the fish were 25-35 pounds but a few were reported at 80-90 pounds. Dark colored lures run very long, I mean back on the 12th wake, did very well on Wahoo, as did Marauders run close to the boat.

In Cabo San Lucas inshore fishing action, the Sierra continued to move around. Most of the fish have been 4-8 pounds and now have been found on the Cortez side of Cabo San Lucas, the green water on the Pacific pushed them around. Along with Sierra there has been a good bite on Skipjack to 10 pounds along with some small Dorado. For Cabo San Lucas anglers working the bottom or mid depths there have been a few nice Pargo and Amberjack mixed in and only a few Grouper and Yellowtail. Next to the beach a few small Roosterfish have been found as well with sizes mostly around 5-8 pounds

I have not seen any Gray Whales this week and have seen only a few Humpbacks.