Anglers - February 16, 2003 This past week February lived up to its reputation as being a crazy and unpredictable month. After ocean conditions had been so calm at the start of the month, the winds decided to play havoc once again, blowing predominately out of the north, but at times swirling and coming from other directions. There was a cloud front that moved in from the southwest and this was accompanied by some early morning rainsqualls on Thursday and Friday, by the weekend the sun was back out. The cooler weather attributed to water temperatures dipping down to the 70-72 degree range and combined with the choppy offshore conditions this contributed to the overall fish counts to be less than the previous week. Despite the weather not being perfect there still were some outstanding catches reported and everyday sportfishing charters were combining to account for striped marlin, dorado, yellowfin tuna, skipjack, pargo, grouper, sierra, as well as other species. Bait supplies remained abundant, sardinas out of San Jose del Cabo and mackerel the main bait available out of the Cabo marina. The red-hot bite for striped marlin did level off as the full moon approached, this was expected, but some cruisers were still accounting for multiple marlin days. Stripers were found off of Cabo, out front of the old lighthouse, to Jaime Banks, as well as on the Sea of Cortez side, off of Chileno and the 95 spot. Casting live bait to tailing stripers and soaking bait down deep near the schools of mackerel were the most popular techniques. Dorado became more scattered with the cooler water temperatures, but still were providing the most consistent catch for panga anglers out of San Jose, with the majority of the boats landing two or three per day, a few lucky people had has many as eight in one morning. Sizes were impressive for wintertime, average fish weighed 15 to 25 pound. Live bait was most affective, sardinas and mackerel, spotting circling and diving frigates birds was also a key to success. The yellowfin tuna bite was not consistent, though some days they did provide action, smaller schooling football-sized fish were found further offshore mixed with porpoise and larger yellowfin tuna to 100 pounds are still holding on the Gordo Banks. This past week the tuna on the banks became shy and actually only bit well on a couple of days, with Thursday and Friday being the best, with over a dozen solid hook ups reported each day by the combined panga fleet. The majority of them were hooked on chunk bait, and the average yellowfin weighed 70 to100 pounds, and even larger ones were reportedly seen feeding in the chum lines. Skipjack had been so plentiful on the same banks, but this was not the case recently, as they proved to be very hard to come by, and they were the necessary fish to be used for the tuna chum and chunk method. Anglers using fluorocarbon leaders of 90 pound or less had a higher percentage of strikes, though many larger fish were broken off on leader of 60 pound or lighter. These tuna were definitely line and boat shy and it was a toss up as to how light of leader to use, it is no fun to hook big fish and have them wear through the leader after an extended battle, but on the other hand at least they are hooking the fish. Either way anglers were lucky to land one or two of these quality tuna, everyone was mentioning on how powerful these particular fish seem to be. Other panga catches included pargo, cabrilla, grouper, sierra and bonito. Most of the bottomfish were striking on whole or cut bait, still not much with the yo-yo jigs. Off the beach anglers found fast action for sierra at first light in the morning off the beaches near Costa Azul, off of La Playita there was a run of small halibut, along with pompano and croakers, sardinas were the best bait. Good Fishing, Eric