Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined: 96%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 62%, Dorado 85%, Tuna 15%, Wahoo 10%
BILLFISH: This week we had plenty of activity on the fishing front, but perhaps not as many billfish as we had hoped for. The marlin & sailfish rates went down slightly, but one of the biggest factors was that of anglers wanting to catch eating fish, such as dorado and tuna and perhaps to save the big ones for the upcoming fishing tournaments. This weekend the La Paz Gold Cup took place and though final results were not in when we visiting the weigh in yesterday, we did see that 56 boats had entered and at the time of our visit the largest fish brought in was a 287 lb. blue aboard Tenacious – it should be noted that the minimum weight in this tournament is 200 lbs., whereas in Cabo tournaments it is 300 lbs. Bigger fish may have come in later yesterday but so far we have not been able to obtain final results. In Cabo we had some blue marlin this week, the largest being 300 lbs. aboard C Rod, caught at the Golden Gate by Joe Deigel from Old Forge, New York, who went on assisted by Annette Owens to land ten tuna up to 100 lbs. & a dorado off of Pozo de Cota – without doubt our angler of the week. This same day Bill Collector had a great day too, releasing a 230 lb. blue marlin & two striped marlin as well as catching two tuna and a dorado for Todd Weible & Barry Greim from Downingtown, Pa outside San Jaime. Jon Svendson from Scottsdale, Arizona had a fabulous time aboard Rebecca on October 10th, releasing a 200 lb. blue marlin, which took a blue & white lure, a striped marlin that took a live caballito & nineteen dorado on a combination of green colored lures & bait. Halcon was the top striped marlin boat, releasing five for Chien Kuowang from Taiwan off of Gaspareno. Tracy Ann did pretty well too, releasing three stripes & catching twelve dorado, for Patrick & Jean Neville from Bradenton, Florida – not as lucky as in previous years, as a couple of years back they caught an enormous blue marlin, over 700 lbs., on this same boat the day before the Bisbee. John Ostenberg from Boulder, Colorado had three nice striped marlin released in the opposite direction, at Destiladeras aboard Valerie. La Brisa & Rebecca both had nice mixed days, with two striped marlin, a wahoo & nine dorado and a sailfish, two striped marlin & four dorado, respectively. We did have a few boats “skunked” this with, but without exception they were anglers who had requested specifics, such as only blue marlin, or only large yellow fin tuna. Sixty two percent of our boats caught billfish, breaking down into 74 striped marlin, 10 sailfish & 3 blue marlin.
OTHER SPECIES: Dorado dominated the fishing scene again this week, but dropped slightly in numbers. Eighty five percent of our boats caught dorado, with catches ranging from one to twenty fish from 15 to 30 lb. The majority were caught on the Pacific and took live bait and green colored lures. Yellow fin tuna catches were not abundant, nevertheless fifteen percent of our boats caught up to ten fish, the majority football size, with the exception being C Rod with a couple of bigger ones at 70 & 100 lbs. Wahoo catches increased slightly this week with the majority of fish around the 35 lb. mark. Adriana did best with two the same day that weighed 45 & 50 lbs. caught by Jonathan Comune from Phoenix, Arizona, who also released a striped marlin and landed six dorado. Closer to shore we had a few skipjacks and shore fishing with Wesley produced jack crevalle & the odd rooster.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Mostly clear skies, but as we close this report a tropical storm Octave is below us & has already produced some intermittent heavy rain. This is not expected to develop into a hurricane and is predicted to weaken as it approaches Baja. Seas a little choppy at the close of this report.
LOCATION: Pacific, Lighthouse to Golden Gate.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F
BEST LURES: live caballito, ballyhoo, green colors, blue & white, orange/black.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg