Overall Catch Success Rate 100% All Species Combined
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 81%, Dorado 64%, Tuna 41%
BILLFISH: It’s hard to explain but Cabo feels different, the weather & fishing feel like times past, maybe ten to fifteen years ago. Hard to put into words but something you can feel when you have been here a long time. Fishing is off the charts; boats return to port every day with outriggers maxed out with flags and not an inch to spare. Billfish were the number one fish you were most likely to encounter this week with a mix dominated by striped marlin, then blues and sails. Blue marlin are less common and much prized by anglers we often hear from fishermen “I’ve got lots of striped marlin, but never a blue” so it was great to see several anglers achieve this goal. First of the week was Michelle Wood from Houston, Texas who along with friends caught a 190 lb. blue, a striped marlin, eight tuna & a dorado. They fished twelve miles off of Lands End and the blue was hooked on a black & orange lure. Next up was an approximate 200 lb. blue aboard Pisces Ruthless that took a green & yellow lure at the Herradura for Robert & Darla McFall from Cordova, TN who also got three dorados. Pisces Rebecca got a blue marlin slightly larger at 250 lbs., another lure fish, this time a green & white color at the 95 spot for William Harrison & William Smith from Minneapolis, MN who were also fortunate to release two striped marlin & boat a dorado. Great Escape Jr. also had a 200 lb. blue marlin just six miles off of Hotel Finisterra on a black & orange lure, for Thomas Lewis, from Darlington S.C. This same day the largest blue of the week was caught & released aboard Pisces Petrolero by Allen Chan from Norwalk, Connecticut; this was the only blue caught on bait and it was estimated at 320 lbs. Without a doubt Pisces Rebecca was our top marlin boat this week, not only for her blue marlin but for two superb striped marlin days on August 14th, they had Chris & Evelyn Curtis from Beeville, TX who were fishing with the Langbein family, when they caught & released nine striped marlin and landed a nice wahoo for the table. August 16th was a good day for Rebecca too, as they rounded up and fought eleven striped marlin & a couple of dorado for Chad Stachowicz, Paul Grass, Josh Ofatz & Erin Buchanan from San Francisco, Ca. There were many other great catches of four to eight marlin in day, just not enough room to include them all here. Eighty one percent of our boats caught billfish this week resulting in a total catch of 156, breaking down into 147 striped marlin, 6 blue marlin & 3 sailfish.
OTHER SPECIES: Dorado catches were up to sixty four percent this week & should continue to climb over the next couple of weeks. Boats usually caught between one and five; Speedwell was the exception with eight for Cedric Lewis & family from Maryland. Weights on the dorado were 10 to 40 lbs. with assorted lures working over a wide area. Our total dorado count was 77 fish. Yellow fin tuna catches were fantastic when they were found with boats easily loading up on twenty plus football size fish. One exception was Pisces Adriana who had Tye & Camber Bohlen aboard from Afghanistan, when they landed a 141 lb. large tuna as well as twenty other smaller fish, at the 11.50 spot. Most of the tuna this week though was caught in the San Jaime area, with trusty cedar plus the most effective way to get a hook up. Forty one percent of our charters caught tuna giving us a total of 385 fish. We had several wahoo up to 40 lb. caught in diverse areas and the only other fish we caught were skipjacks both black & white closer to shore.
LOCATION: 95 spot on the Cortez to San Jaime.
WEATHER: We had some light rain on Monday morning which was local and not associated with tropical weather, and then skies turned blue with sunny hot weather all week; calm seas.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F
BEST LURES: Live bait, orange & black, green & yellow, cedar plugs
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg