SEVERAL SNOOK CAUGHT AT SAN JOSE ESTUARY

Aug. 1, 2004, Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas, San Jose del Cabo, Baja, Mexico fishing:

This summer has been very mild up to this point, with no major tropical storms effecting the Baja Peninsula, it still early in the season and the next eight weeks is when the majority of hurricanes have historically developed in the Eastern Pacific, only time will tell what the month of August and September bring.

In the mean time the San Jose del Cabo fishing weather has been ideal for being in the midst of summer. High temperatures in the 90s, very few clouds in the sky, some pleasant afternoon breeze to keep things comfortable and anglers reported very comfortable offshore ocean conditions. San Jose del Cabo water temperatures ranged from 80 to 84 degrees and with the full moon there has been extreme tidal changes and steady 3 to 5 foot swells, a combination that had La Playita pangueros on their toes while launching pangas early in the morning during peak low tide.

Overall San Jose del Cabo fishing was good, one major drawback was the lack of baitfish, after months of abundant supplies of sardinas they are now scattered and the supply is not meeting the demand, so some charters were having to go with no live bait.

The fish were striking well on lures some days, actually out fishing bait, but then there were other days where the fish seemed to only want live bait, hard to figure.

The San Jose del Cabo fishing grounds from Chileno to the Gordo Banks and north to San Luis is where the more consistent action was found.

Most common catches were yellowfin tuna, dorado, wahoo and a few blue marlin.

Tuna numbers were up this past week, while dorado proved to be scarcer. Yellowfin ranged in sizes from 5 to 75 pounds, with larger fish reportedly seen feeding.

On the Inner Gordo Bank off San Jose del Cabo, the yellowfin have been starting to come up to chum and hit on chunk bait. We look for this bite to improve as the moon wanes and schooling bolito and skipjack become easier to catch. The past few days anglers reported that they could catch bait early on hoochies, but once the sun came up they had lock jaw. Though yellowfin out numbered dorado, there were some reports of great dorado catches up to 35 pounds, though it was not consistent, just a matter of being in the right spot.

There was at least one 400 pound class blue marlin caught from a panga based out of La Playita and other big marlin were hooked into, only to be lost. The ticket was to slow troll around the banks with larger live baits, which were not easy to come by, but once trolling began anglers were almost assured of having a marlin come up and at least sniff the bait. If the calm weather holds on for a few more weeks we anticipate that there will be more of this big marlin action to report.

Wahoo were an added bonus at San Jose del Cabo, with areas from the Gordo Banks to San Luis producing jig strikes for anglers, mostly just one or two fish here and there, but a few lucky boats landed three or four, sizes averaged 20 to 30, with the largest weighing up to 50 pounds.

No major catches to report from local surf anglers, though there were at least several medium sized snook accounted for off of the San Jose Estuary area.

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from San Jose del Cabo and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for San Jose del Cabo may be found at Mexfish.com's main San Jose del Cabo page.