Latest Fishing Update

These January mornings have been beautiful. This is the mouth of the marina, with bait boats waiting to sell their catch from the night before.

January 14th to 27th, 2012

Overall Catch Success Rate for All Species Combined 85%

BILLFISH: Fishing in Cabo for marlin has improved a lot but still has a long way to go; nevertheless we had some encouraging daily fish reports this period. Blue marlin season is from July to mid November, nevertheless pretty much without exception a blue marlin, usually very large is caught in January. Well this year was no exception though the fish was small, right around the 200 lb mark, caught aboard “Adriana” on January 18th after it took a purple lure 18 miles out from the Old Lighthouse by Jeff Bliss from Lapeer, Mi, the blue was released before Jeff went on to catch six yellow-fin tuna. Our other 28 ft boat “Andrea”, also did very well, fishing on the other side of our fishing spectrum at Destiladeras on the Cortez, where they released three striped marlin and caught three skipjacks for Glen Burmeister and John Nelson from Colorado. Richard Patrick from Lowestoft, England had a good day releasing a striped marlin and catching four dorado and three skipjacks on January 26th. This same day “Rebecca” produced the goods for Kyle Hammling and Alan Klein from Manda, North Dakota; releasing two striped marlin on live caballito, two dorados and six skipjacks. The day before this “Tracy Ann” was the top boat with three striped marlin caught and released between Punta Gorda and Destiladeres on the Cortez, one dorado and three skipjacks for Karry Allison from Davenport, Florida. “Rebecca” rounded out the week with a double marlin day at Cerro Colorado fro Jeff Kernochan from Los Angeles. We are starting to see some big stripers, “Ruthless” reported a 170 lb’er released at Destiladeres for Stuart Drummond from Vancouver. Looking over our numbers for this period we see that the majority of marlin were in the Sea of Cortez, quite unusual for this time of year, whilst tuna and other game fish tended to be on the Pacific. Pisces anglers thirty two percent of charters caught marlin this report, resulting in 16 marlin released.

Crew of Tracy Ann, Julio and Martin took out La Brisa and got fifteen tuna for Edwin Holman & Co. from Atlanta, Georgia.

OTHER SPECIES: We are known for picking up on unusual fish stories, they somehow find their way to us. This period we were advised of a strange fish found, by the boat Viviana, they brought the fish to us to examine and to keep for scientists; this is now the third of this species that we have seen over the last few years. The odd looking creature is a chimera or ratfish and judging by what we’ve seen before this one is a female, as it lacks the clasper on the forehead sported by males. These are deep water fish, never seen here before until three years ago. They are usually found on the surface where they are dying and just scooped up and taken aboard. As of now we don’t have all the details but will follow up with them as soon as we locate the fishermen on board and will post the pictures at that time. In regular fishing news dorado fishing was actually quite good with half of the boats catching from one to eleven up to 25 lbs; they took live bait and green lures, with most found on the Cortez side. Our total dorado tally was 75 fish. Yellow fin tuna catches were fair with twenty eight percent of our boats catching from one to seventeen up to 25 lbs. “La Brisa” caught fifteen but had to travel thirty three miles off of the lighthouse to find them- cedar plugs were the most effective method of hooking up. Lots of skipjacks around but the black type not considered good eating. Some roosterfish and sierra.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Clear sunny skies, seas calm on Cortez, some choppy days on the Pacific.

LOCATION: Golden Gate, 20-30 miles off of Lighthouse, San Jaime, Destiladeres.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 68-70 F

BEST LURES: Live caballito, jurelito, green, petrolero, huchis, cedar plugs.

Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg