ONLY A FEW STRIPED MARLIN
HITTING OFF LOS CABOS

March 13, 2005, Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas, La Playita Los Cabos, San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico Report:

The La Playita panga fleets sent out approximately 58 panga charters for the week and anglers accounted for a combined catch of; 520 sierra, 15 roosterfish, 8 yellowfin tuna, 120 African pompano, 115 dorado, 1 striped marlin, 8 yellowtail, 240 pargo and 65 amberjack.

Visitors to San Jose del Cabo and Los Cabos this past week were greeted with ideal early spring like weather, very few clouds in the skies and temperatures were reaching 80 degrees. The winds would blow lightly, but overall anglers enjoyed very pleasant calm ocean conditions. Water clarity fluctuated daily in the San Jose del Cabo fishing area, from cloudy green through much of the region, and then also some clean blue water being reported north towards Los Frailes. San Jose del Cabo fishing area water temperatures have averaged in the 68 to 71 degree range.

Offshore fishing at San Jose del Cabo slowed down, as very few striped marlin were being hooked up, especially compared to how wide open it was in the past couple of weeks, most likely due to dirty and cooler water conditions.

San Jose del Cabo charter fishing boats searched far offshore and did not find much for their efforts, though the few marlin that were found were mostly far from shore. A handful of wahoo were striking trolled lures in the open water and the middle of nowhere, and several of them topped the 60 pound mark.

This is the season that swordfish start to appear in San Jose del Cabo (Los Cabos) fishing waters and there were reports of several being sighted, but none were actually landed that we heard about.

Yellowfin tuna fishing was slow, but the areas of Golden Gate to San Jaime Banks did report an on and off bite for smaller football sized yellowfin.

Dorado fishing was slightly up from last week, most of them found closer to shore where schools of bait fish are attracting them, particularly halfbeaks (ballyhoo). Most pangas fishing out of the San Jose area have ended up with two or three dorado in their overall catch, best areas being from Punta Gorda to San Luis.

The inshore fishing at San Jose del Cabo showed signs of improvement and supplies of sardinas were also more plentiful, now being netted right off the beach of La Playita. The San Jose del Cabo sportfishing fleet found the most consistent bite to be at San Luis, an area locally known as "blue rock". A wide variety of smaller game fish congregate on this spot every year during the months of March and April. At this time African pompano are showing up, ranging in sizes from 5 to 15 pounds, great fighters on light tackle and even better table fare, very firm white fillets.

The fishing action was almost exclusively on live sardinas, either drift fishing with light sinkers or slow trolling. A variety of pargo, cabrilla, triggerfish and sierra were rounding out the catches. Some of the sierra were of impressive size, reaching 5 to 8 pounds. Off the deeper rock piles around San Jose del Cabo, 120 to 180 feet, anglers working yo-yo jigs had some stories to tell about hooking into hard fighting amberjack, yellowtail and grouper. Most numerous were the amberjack, with sizes ranging from 10 to 50 pounds.

San Jose del Cabo did not have much of anything happening in the way of surf fishing action, besides some early morning sierra and smaller croakers and pompano.

(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.