Tourists visiting the Los Cabos area are experiencing paradise like weather conditions, clear sunny skies with high temperatures in the upper 80s. Crowds of people traveling to this Southern Baja resort have been lighter than normal for the month of May. For the past month local water temperatures have been fluctuating greatly, this past week the water is on a warming trend, particularly in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, through the region the water temperature is now ranging from the upper 60s on the lower Pacific to around 75 degrees in the vicinity of the Gordo Banks and up to 78 degrees off of the Los Frailes area.

Offshore action continued to be dominated by striped marlin, very few reports of dorado or yellowfin tuna. Mid week anglers encountered excellent action for striped marlin around the Gordo Banks, striped marlin could be seen feeding on the surface on balled up schools of mackerel. They were found in close proximity to shore, from 3 to 8 miles from shore, striking best on live bait, methods included slow trolling on the surface, casting to tailing or feeding fish, drift fishing bait down deep and others were striking on lures, average marlin caught weighed 100 to 150 pounds and many charters targeting billfish accounted for multiple catches per day. By the weekend this action had dispersed, as the baitfish moved and the fleet was once again scattered in search of the best action.

For the panga fleets the most consistent action continued to be in shallow water of 50 feet or less for a mix of snapper (pargo) species, sierra, jack crevalle, cabrilla and others. Most of these fish weighed less than ten pounds, but there were some exceptions, including one dogtooth snapper that weighed 45 pounds and cabrilla up to 15 pounds. This action was exclusively on bait, mainly sardinas, which were plentiful off of the La Playita area, there are now more schools of mullet moving into inshore waters, which have attracted more roosterfish and jack crevalle along the shoreline.

The Puerto Los Cabos marina project is now in the final stages, everyone is anxious to finally have this project finished. This past week the project has been stalled out due to protests by Green Peace, which has been camped out in the midst of the construction zone, blocking access roads for the heavy equipment. Hard to say what this group is trying to accomplish, it appears that it is much to late to try and halt the project, perhaps they are just trying to increase public awareness and gain media exposure.

The La Playita panga fleet sent out approximately 49 charters for the week and anglers produced a fish count of: 13 striped marlin, 5 dorado, 184 sierra, 13 pompano, 7 amberjack, 3 dogtooth snapper, 244 yellow snapper, 22 huachinango, 4 sheephead, 122 triggerfish, 16 cabrilla, 8 roosterfish and 42 surgeon fish.

Good Fishing, Eric