COOL WATER AND SLOW CONDITIONS AROUND TIP OF BAJA

March 18, 2005, Paul Roos, San Jose del Cabo, Baja sport fishing, Mexico:

Yesterday, March 17, I wanted to run south from San Jose del Cabo (Los Cabos), as the fishing water north of Playita was cold with just a few sierra, plus a south wind had come up for 3 days in a row and I thought it a pretty good chance for a 4th. I had also heard of warmer fishing water and some tuna way off of Cabeza Ballena, the first point north of San Lucas.

We got some humongous sardinas and anchovetas and pointed the bow of our new Lupe Diaz-built 23-foot super panga, now part of the San Jose del Cabo, Tomas Cantor-brokered Mijares Fleet at Playita and captained by Miguel Banaga, out and south. About 45 minutes later, we started to see some Cabo San Lucas fishing boats coming out and our way. The fishing water temperature got up to 68 degrees finally, and a better color, though not clear blue, about 16 miles out, and fishing boats were fast and slow trolling all around with some porpoise in the water, black ones. Nobody was getting stopped. After burning gas for half an hour, I said, "Let's just drift with weight on," as maybe there were fish down a ways though we didn't meter anything.

After ten minutes, both Rick and I had our baits taken down, but got nothing when we hit back. When I brought my bait-remains slowly up, I saw big shadows following. By their motion, they weren't fish and I grabbed a squid jig and had Capt. Miguel put it on an extra rod. Right away, he is taken down. I put big Scampis and iron on my partner, Rick Bennett's rod, as well as on his Quebec-dwelling, French-speaking, brother-in-law, Daniel's stick. The fun began!

These were big, really big, squirters. Giant Humboldt Squid, around 30 pounds average. Some were bigger, some were as small as 20 pounds. We could have caught 100 of them but quit keeping them after 5 in the box as they took up so much room in the fish box. A hundred of them would have weighed around 3000 pounds and we would have become a submarine!

After the squid-jinks, we trolled around some more in beautiful light south wind weather with no results so headed for the San Jose del Cabo fishing reefs off the Westin and Palmilla to try for sierra, nothing, and rocky types, half-dozen Cabrilla and small Pargo, and back to the barn.

Warm water is still about 25 miles offshore at San Lucas and up to Los Frailes. Some San Jose del Cabo sportfishing boats that ran out that far caught a few tuna, not many. Water near the coast is cold and green, but starting to warm as the offshore water pushes closer. Any day now.

(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.