Anglers - February 25, 2001 It seemed more like the month of November this past week as crowds of anglers had local panga fleets operating at near full capacity level. Typically February can be one of the slower times for charter businesses, but not this year, apparently the cold spell up north is convincing people to head south for some warmth. Many apparently unfamiliar tourists have assumed that this is one of the peak times to go sportfishing, when in actuality it is the complete opposite, we are in the midst of perhaps the toughest fishing season, primarily due to the cool water temperatures and persistent winds. This year it has been a bit different, the fishing has been above average and the although there has been significant wind from the north anglers have still been able to find consistent action in the protected areas. Supplies of live sardinas continued to be abundant for the fleets out of San Jose Del Cabo and it has been the bait of choice for all of the medium sized gamefish that are available. Daily catches have included yellowfin tuna, dorado, skipjack, pargo, sierra and roosterfish. There was one out of season wahoo of 35 pounds reported and a couple of grouper taken on iron yo-yo jigs that topped 50 pounds. The week started off with respectable numbers of tuna in the 15 to 20 pound class being caught by anglers in the areas between Gordo Banks and San Luis, where boats had anywhere from 5 to 12 tuna each day. By the weekend the water turned greenish and had dropped to about 68 degrees, which in turn slowed the tuna action down to almost a standstill. On Saturday strong north winds made it almost impossible to fish the offshore banks and there were also the red crabs that had moved in on the Gordo Banks, turning the surface red and bringing the pargo up but filling the stomachs of the tuna and making them turn their noses at the sardinas. Pangeros were netting the red crabs and catching some nice pargo using them as bait, but that can be tricky and is not the normal method that the charter boats use. The best action in recent days was along the shoreline from La Playita to Punta Gorda, where schools of roosterfish and sierra kept anglers busy. Though most of these fish were under 10 pounds, they provided excellent light tackle sport. Trolling live bait was the best bet, but other anglers did well on Rapalas, especially for sierra. It was common to have over 10 roosterfish and 10 sierra per boat, with the majority of the roosterfish being released. Though there were a couple shameful cases of greedy pangeros killing over a dozen small roosterfish in one day, while they should be the ones promoting the catch and release, but apparently they do just not care or are unaware of the damage they are causing to the future of the sport. It must be up to anglers to insist that these fish are released unharmed and if your skipper does not do as you wish definitely refrain from tipping them. Dorado were very scarce but were being taken in limited numbers each day, some angerls were lucky and found as many as three of them in one morning, with sizes up to 18 pounds, but this was definitely the exception because for the most part you were lucky if you ended up with one of them. The majority of the dorado hooked were while fishing close to shore with live bait. With the rougher offshore conditions it was not a good week for billfish but as the weather settles down this situation should improve. Good Fishing, Eric