JULY 31st to AUGUST 6TH, 2008
Overall Catch Success Rate 70%
BILLFISH: Fishing in Cabo can only be described as inconsistent. Although we are having some great catches, it seems to be one day on one day off. Water temperatures have climbed as high as 88 F in some locations and boats are fishing a whole gamut of locations from Golden Gate to Destiladeras. We have now been able to confirm and verify the catch of the huge blue marlin we reported a few weeks ago. The fish was caught on July 3rd and weighted 898 lbs 25 miles off of the East Cape. Angler was Jim Schubert from Clovis, California. Believe it or not this fish was caught from a PANGA…..the tackle was 60 lb test spooled on a Senator 112H and the monster fish took a Zuker blood orange lure with some brown. The fight lasted three and half hours, during which Jim had to contend with a couple of monsoon type downpours and 25 foot swells, though he told me the rain sure felt good to cool him off. Captain Chuy did a good job whilst motoring the "Rude Baby" and called his brother on a larger boat once the fish was gaffed to try and help them get the fish to shore, however the task proved impossible and they ended up tying the huge fish to the side of the panga and motoring in slowly, taking over three hours to get back. This is the largest marlin caught in Baja to our knowledge for at least fifteen years. Well done Jim, you are some angler! In other news smaller blue marlin were being caught closer to Cabo; "El Gallo" had a small blue, around 200 lbs, caught on a petrolero lure 9 miles off of Pedregal for Bruce Hursh from Carrolton, Texas on August 5th. "Ruthless" also had an estimated 300 lb blue marlin and a couple of dorado at Destiladeras on August 3rd, for Brian & Daniel Allen, from Morgan Hill, California. This same day "Tracy Ann" fishing the other end of the spectrum at Golden Gate, caught and released two sailfish and one striped marlin for the Pardon family from Minot, North Dakota. "Bill Collector" also had a couple of good days; July 31st, one blue marlin estimated at 350 lbs, plus seven yellowfin tuna, seven miles off of the Old Lighthouse for Brad and Jan Johnson from Albany, Oregon , fishing with Bridget and Ash Boodel from Las Vegas. On August 2nd, aboard this same vessel, David Gay from San Diego, released two sailfish and boated two dorado in the 30-40 lb class off of the Old Lighthouse. It was interesting to note that we had more sailfish than any other type of billfish, probably due to the higher water temperature. Pisces anglers caught a total of 25 billfish this week consisting of 13 sailfish, 9 striped marlin and 3 blue marlin.
OTHER SPEICES: Not a whole lot going on with smaller game, unless you went out on a panga from San Jose. Offshore twenty eight percent of boats caught dorado and sixteen percent caught yellowfin tuna. The dorado were found both on the Cortez and Pacific and averaged 20 to 45 lbs with catches seldom more than one or two fish a boat. The tuna catches were usually of football size fish, though Joe Colosimo de Hermosa Beach, Ca. did have a decent 70 lb fish 11 miles off of Cerro Blanco on August 6th. Inshore pangas caught jack crevalle, skipjacks, bonitas and a couple of small hammerhead sharks.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: We had a local storm on August 2nd, which caused heavy rains for a few hours and produced whitecaps on the Cortez the following day, otherwise, partly cloudy skies, seas calm day time temps in the high 90's.
LOCATION: Destiladeras, Golden Gate, San Jaime, Cerro Blanco, 95 spot, Old Lighthouse, San Jose, Punta Gorda, Chileno.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 85 F
BEST LURES: Live caballito, green/orange, tiger, blue/pink, cedar plugs.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg
