Amazing Marlin Bite in Cabo

April 20th to 26th, 2013

Overall Catch Success Rate 91%
Numbers at a glance: Marlin 76%, Dorado 18%, Tuna 3.5%, Small Game 11%

According to Bob Sallis the "best marlin day ever"

BILLFISH: All we can say is “wow”, what a turnaround, this past week we had a growing moon, with full moon on Thursday the 25th, which is when we had the best catches of the week. It just goes to show that there are no set rules when it comes to fishing.  It is generally thought, big moon at night, fish feed at night, less hungry during the day. Try telling that to Captain Abel of the Pisces “C Rod” – he had a group of Canadians on board from Queen Charlotte, who must have thought they were dreaming as they hooked marlin after marlin, outside of Punta Gorda until they had reeled in fifteen fish in the 100 to 150 lb. class. One of the anglers got so excited, that he stripped off his shirt and dove into the water to hug his marlin before safely releasing it. Pisces Rebecca had an outstanding day too, releasing nine marlin at Destiladeras for Dave Burton and friends from Mount Vernon, Washington. The Tracy Ann always seems to do well and as is his custom, Julio worked hard to catch and release six striped marlin for Emilio Lopez and the Barrios brothers from Miami, Florida.  Other boats this day released between two and five marlin.  The following day, boats headed in the same direction on the Cortez side up to Destiladeras where they again encountered great fishing; top boat this day was Pisces La Brisa with seven marlin released for Steve & Cheryl Mazzuca fishing with Jamie & Carrie Jose, all from Washington State. The boat that had alerted the fleet to the bumper marlin catches though was Pisces Yahoo, who found them at Destiladeras on April 22nd and managed to release seven for Marshall Tate and friends from Salt Lake City. Of course we did have a couple of boats that got “skunked” which is horrible if you happen to be one of the few boats that did not catch, but even these crews did see fish and cast bait to them but were just unable to get any takers. Overall though the marlin bite was very good with seventy six percent of our charters catching and releasing marlin. If the weather stays good, we believe we will see even better numbers of marlin as we get into May. Remember there was a reason that the IGFA World Offshore Championship, picked May as a prime month in Cabo. In other words buy your plane tickets and give us a call. Pisces anglers caught a total of 90 striped marlin this week with all but one released.

60 lb wahoo on the Ruthless

OTHER SPECIES: Pretty much all the boats that we sent this week concentrated on marlin and there was not a great deal of smaller offshore fish to be had anyway. Two very nice fish though were a couple of wahoo, at 60 and 65 lbs., the first was aboard Pisces Ruthless who seems to have a knack for this species and the second was aboard Pisces C Rod. Dorado catches were on the slow side with eighteen percent catching the odd fish here and there whilst trolling for marlin. One exception was Pisces Tracy Ann, who caught four up to 20 lbs. at Destiladeras as well as releasing five striped marlin for Dave Burton and friends - what an ideal day. Tuna catches were very slow with just a few 10’lb’ers picked up. Inshore pangas could catch up to fifteen skipjack in a day and the odd yellow tail. Surf Fishing: Wesley had a total of four trips this week which led to a total of 11 sierras, 13 jack crevalle and 1 red snapper – resulting in happy anglers. With the wind dying down the casts have been easier to make and the hook up ratio much higher.

Wesley shows off a nice size jack crevalle, known locally as a "Toro".

WEATHER: Clear skies, still a couple of chilly mornings, whitecaps on Pacific earlier in the week now calm. Cortez side we did have some big swells, now calmer.
LOCATION: Destiladeras, Punta Gorda, 11.50 spot, 22- 25 miles out, Herradura.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: The satellite imagery makes it pretty clear why they are catching fish on the Cortez side at that particular point. The Pacific shows 67-68 F and the Cortez Destiladeras areas shows 73 F.
BEST LURES: Live caballito or frozen ballyhoo.

Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg