October 2, 2005 Anglers – The summer season has officially ended, but that did not mean that the tropical storm season was over yet and the first week of fall saw Hurricane Otis develop off the Southern Baja Peninsula and pass within one hundred miles of Cabo San Lucas before stalling off the Pacific coast. On Friday the first rainsqualls moved in and throughout the weekend the cloud cover stayed, with isolated areas receiving up to several inches of much needed rainfall. There was only minor flooding reported and the main impact felt from this storm was that it shut down all fishing operations for several days, this during a busy time of year, when crowds of anglers travel to the Los Cabos area with high expectations. At this time sportfishing fleets do expect to have operations up and running the first part of the coming week. The cloud cover and cooler weather was a welcome relief after the September record hot spell with particularly high humidity. The first part of the week anglers did capitalize on calm weather and some excellent fishing action, there was great variety of species to be found. Ocean conditions were favorable, water temperatures were close to 85 degrees and bait supplies of sardinas and caballito were plentiful. Catches included yellowfin tuna, dorado, sailfish, striped and blue marlin, wahoo, amberjack, grouper, dogtooth snapper, bonito, rainbow runner and others. The panga fleets from San Jose del Cabo continued to find the most productive fishing grounds to be around the Iman Bank and many of the East Cape boats were also concentrating their efforts on this spot. Using a mix of live sardinas, jacks and fresh cut squid anglers found excellent action on yellowfin tuna up to 40 pounds, amberjack to over 60 pounds, dogtooth snapper as large as 50 pounds, sailfish up to 90 pounds, dorado to 20 pounds, as well as a mix of other species, including a handful of wahoo. Drift fishing with larger whole baits down deeper near the rocks was the best way to hook into the amberjack, grouper or dogtooth snapper, but heavy line and leader was a necessity in order for anglers to have a chance at keeping these powerful fish from reaching the rock piles and cutting off lines. The best billfish action was found near Cabo San Lucas, with striped marlin being the most common species, also a mix of blue marlin and sailfish. The fish were coming up to strike on lures, but dropped back live baits proved to be even more successful. The combined La Playita panga fleets sent out approximately 34 charters for the storm shortened week and anglers accounted for a fish count of: 6 sailfish, 3 wahoo, 14 amberjack, 10 dogtooth snapper, 18 dorado, 90 yellowfin tuna, 12 grouper, 16 bonito, 22 rainbow runners and 4 hammerhead shark. Good fishing, Eric