Anglers - March 14, 2004 The light crowds of tourists visiting Los Cabos were greeted with picture perfect weather conditions, low temperature near 60 degrees and highs reaching close to 80 degrees. There was no shortage of sunshine, very few clouds in the sky. Early in the week there were occasional gusty winds from the north and by the weekend winds switched from out of the south, unpredictable from day to day, but overall anglers found the late winter ocean conditions to be very pleasant. One drawback for anglers was that water temperatures dipped to an average of 65 to 68 degrees and blue water was not easy to locate even for larger cruisers going as far as 30 miles offshore, they reported cool and off colored water. There were a great variety of species caught this past week, very few boats were skunked, though the action was not consistent from one day to the next. The combined fleet landed swordfish, striped marlin, yellowfin tuna, dorado, wahoo, yellowtail, amberjack, grouper, pargo, sierra, roosterfish, jack crevalle and skipjack The week started off with fair catches of yellowfin tuna, schools of fish were found offshore traveling with porpoise, sizes ranging from 15 to 80 pounds. The action was found 10 to 25 miles shore, and with the combination of swells and wind this was for the cruisers only. This bite was over just like that, as green cool water swept through the area. A couple of swordfish were reportedly landed, one of them on a 30 ft. cruiser out of Palmilla. Besides these billfish the striped marlin bite was way down and only a scattering of dorado were found. As the days continue to warm we do expect the water temperature to climb and this should attract additional surface gamefish. In the mean time panga fleets found consistent fishing located closer to shore and off the bottom. Sardinas, mackerel and caballito were all available for bait. Anglers used a combination of live bait and lures to have success on the various fish, many quality bottomfish were accounted for on iron yo-yo style jigs. The highlight of the week was the bite on yellowtail, fish in the 5 to 15 pound range provided anglers with some incredible fun and on Thursday and Friday, charter boats were averaging from 10 to 25 fish each. The firecracker-sized yellows were migrating through the region, the area from Chileno to Palmilla is where the fleet found these fish and by the weekend the schools had migrated further to the north. Techniques included live sardinas with light or no sinkers and a wide assortment of cast and retrieve jigs, yellowtails are powerful fish and great sport on light tackle. Mixed in with the yellows were a few amberjack, which were larger, up to 25 pounds. Also off the bottom anglers found cabrilla and grouper to 20 pounds, as well as pargo to 10 pounds. Along the shorelines the action for sierra tapered off and there were now more jack crevalle than any other fish, the majority weighing 10 to 18 pounds, very few roosterfish and the few landed weighed less than 10 pounds. The sierra that were found hit on rapalas, hoochies, casting jigs and sardinas, weights averaged 2 to 4 pounds. Good Fishing, Eric