Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 97%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 74%, Dorado 58%, Tuna 18%
BILLFISH: We had some pretty spectacular billfish catches this week, as we finally felt the weather turn from summer to autumn/winter. After a couple of sweltering hot days, rain fell on Cabo on November 3rd & the port was closed, but once it was reopened you could tell the weather had changed and the marlin bite was on. Pisces Adriana had a spectacular day on November 7th, releasing SIX striped marlin & SEVEN sailfish, off the lighthouse on a combination of live and dead bait as well as green and yellow lures. We also had many boats with fast & furious striped marlin action such as Pisces Rebecca with Joe Capizio & Sarah Mindick from San Diego aboard, on November 6th, who did very well to release five striped marlin off of Migrino & to boat two dorado. Valerie, was up there too with five marlin released, three tuna & a dorado for Jason Riha, Brandon Brooks & Rafael Guardardo. Bill Collector, Yahoo, C Rod & Fearless also had days this week when they released five marlin each plus a dorado or small yellow fin tuna, all this at a time when the tuna tournament was supposed to be the focus. We had many great catches of one to three fish throughout the week and it was a struggle for boats in the tuna tournament to keep the billfish off of their lines, such as Pisces Andrea, who ended up taking second place in the tournament – they hooked a 400 LB blue marlin on a petrolero lure, which they released, before hooking their large tuna on the same rod & reel. Seventy four percent of our boats caught billfish, consisting of 125 striped marlin, 2 blue marlin & 8 sailfish.
OTHER SPECIES: The main event this week was the WON Tuna Tournament, in which 135 boats participated. Tuna pickings were slim though and we did not see the slew of huge fish as we have in the past couple of years. Some days the schools were not too hard to find, but they were small fish in the 10 to 20 lb. class with only a handful of fish making the 100 LB plus mark this year. Our anglers caught a total of 96 yellowfin tuna which means when they were found they could catch a number of them – up to a couple of dozen, but finding them was the hard part, or better said, getting them to bite. Eighteen percent of our charters hooked tuna. Dorado numbers have started to decline though are still here in good numbers, with fifty eight percent of our charters catching from one to ten fish. All were on the small side thought, a fact proven in the tuna tournament where not one dorado could make the minimum weight of 30 LBS. Our anglers caught a total of ninety nine dorado. Wahoo catches were not bad, but no big ones for us in the tournament, just in the days leading up to it when we had fish from 35 to 50 LBS. Pisces La Brisa released two sharks this week, one a 75 LB pilot shark & the other an 80 LB hammerhead.
LOCATION: Pacific, lighthouse to Golden Gate
WEATHER: Port closed one day, rain on Thursday, and seas on the rough side.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 81 F
BEST LURES: Live caballito, ballyhoo, green colors, petrolero.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg