May 1st to 15th, 2010
Overall Catch Success Rate 79%
BILLFISH: The biggest news during this time frame was the IGFA World Offshore Championship which took place in Cabo over four days from May 10th to 14th. This is a fantastic tournament with the most level playing field that you can get. We had forty teams representing sixteen different countries from as far afield as Papua New Guinea, Japan, Italy and other European countries as well as the USA and Mexico being represented with several teams. All billfish are released, circle hooks must be used to increase the survival of the fish and certified 30 lb test line must be used. Smaller game fish such as tuna, dorado and wahoo can be boated during the event. Anglers do not get to choose which boat they fish on; a draw is done amongst local charter boats and the anglers rotate to different boats each day. To be invited to enter you have to win a qualifying event anywhere in the world. This year the marlin bite was way down, even though fishing activity was not bad with a hook up ratio for the event of 69.77%. A total of 60 billfish were caught, 36 wahoo and 6 tuna.
1st Place Team, our local boys from Cabo San Lucas, who also won last year, Team Copa Gobernador with 7 marlin released and 2 wahoo boated.
2nd Place Team, Harborside Rotary from the Bahamas with 5 marlin released.
3rd Place Team, El Pescado from Florida, USA with 4 marlin released.
The top wahoo weighed in was caught by Tadayuki Fukuhara from Japan, representing the Hawaiian Billfish Tournament and was 70.21 lbs.
The top tuna weighed in was caught by a team from the USA and weighed 55 lbs.
In regular news Pisces overall catch success rate for all species combined was higher than the tournament’s at 79%. Just 15% of our boats located billfish; “Cabolero” in the tournament did well to located marlin for both the 1st and 2nd place teams, catching and releasing two on May 11th 3 miles out from Cerro Blanco for the Bahamas team and then another two just one and a half miles off of Cabeza de Ballena on the 12th for the Cabo team. On the 13th of May “Rebecca” released a striped marlin and a sailfish from a group from Florida just two miles off of Solmar. Our charters ended up with 17 billfish this week, in diverse locations all on live bait.
OTHER SPECIES: This really should have been called the tuna report, as our boats amassed catches of 547 fish this week ranging in size from 10 to 35 lbs with many smaller fish released. Damon and Debbie Lehr from Clyde, Texas were our champs this week with a total of 28 reeled to the boat, just above Golden Gate, on cedar plugs and petrolero lures, aboard “Andrea”. Other boats caught between one and a dozen. Some boats has nice mixed days, such as “C Rod” with 12 tuna and 1 marlin released, as did “Falcon” with 14 tuna and 1 marlin released for Emma and Neil Pearson from London, U.K. Fifty two percent of charters caught tuna. The same could not be said for dorado where just fourteen percent caught this species with the catch usually one or two fish and less often three. The weights tended to be between 20 and 30 lbs with most caught on the Pacific. Wahoo catches were good with ten caught by our fleet, the largest being a 60 lb’er caught aboard a panga by Cabo regular Gary Hall from Snohomish, Washington. “Tracy Ann” had two wahoo 46 and 50 lbs respectively fro for the Martinez family from Tenerife, Spain. There were plenty of other fish too; a couple of mako sharks up 85 lbs, good numbers of roosterfish, jack crevalle, trigger fish, some sierra, squid, skipjacks, cabrilla and snapper.
WEATHER: First part of this report, partly cloudy and moderate seas, and second part was calm and clear.
LOCATION: Golden Gate to Chileno Bay, one mile to forty miles offshore, the majority of fish with the exception of tuna were in close.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 74 F
BEST LURES: Live bait, caballito, ballyhoo, petroleros, green colors.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg
Photos show, the winners of the IGFA Championship, celebrating at the awards and on board with champagne.
