91% Catch Fish This Week

Up Close and Personal, One of Four Marlin Josh Burnham released with friend Steve Cappellino aboard Ruthless

May 18th to 24th, 2013

Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 91%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 74%, Dorado 21% Small Game 43%

BILLFISH: Marlin fishing was good this week even though we had a big moon generally thought to adversely affect the bite, this was not the case and some of our best catches were when the moon was biggest. Two boats tied for most marlin in a day Pisces Tracy Ann, for releasing seven on May 24th for Keith Milam and Agens Benedietto from Fort Worth Texas and Pisces Ruthless who also caught seven marlin for Frank and Emily Volpe from Half Moon Bay, California.  Both boats were at the 11.50 spot and used live caballito, also known as green jack for bait. Ruthless did well a couple of days before this too with four marlin released, this time on a combination of ballyhoo and caballito for Steve Cappellino and Josh Burnham from Mission Viejo and San San Francisco respectively. Pisces Rebecca had a quadruple marlin day for Karen Rodman and Leonel Gonzalez from Miami using the same method, again at the 11.50 spot. The great thing about Cabo fishing right now is that there is lots of inshore action for good size fish as well as offshore for marlin. Weather conditions have been a factor as some days seas have had a lot of whitecaps then were smooth the next day – the fish don’t seem to mind though. Ninety one percent of our boats caught fish this week, which is great, unless you were in the nine percent that didn’t, but that’s fishing and it happens. Seventy four percent of our charters caught between one and seven marlin per day this week with catches of two or three fish not uncommon. Our total catch was of 79 striped marlin; all but two released.

OTHER SPECIES: There were times this week when the area off of the Old Lighthouse when boats were stacked up, we saw up to 50 boats in a square mile fishing for jack crevalle, yellowtail, roosterfish, skipjacks and sierra and why not, the fishing was productive for all of these species. Pisces Ruthless opting for inshore one day released thirteen roosterfish between 15 and 30 lbs as well as a jack crevalle and 8 skipjacks. Pangas did very well too, one that we sent, released two striped marlin, three dorado, two roosters and two skipjacks – now that is outstanding. Another panga that we sent caught 49 sierra, 1 jack crevalle and 2 skipjacks, nearly everything was released. Whilst boats are fishing closer in they are hooking up some small mako sharks. PLEASE TAKE NOTE – there is a ban on fishing all sharks in Mexico right now, both commercially and recreationally. If you hook up a shark you need to release it, do not bring it on board, even if it dies. The ban is in place until August so that the juveniles that have never had a chance to breed are not killed. We did not have any tuna this week but twenty one percent of boats did catch dorado, though rarely more than one around the 15 to 20 lb weight. One exception was a 45 lb’er caught aboard Pisces Andrea by Mike Soucy from Santa Clarita, Louisiana.

SURF FISHING: Wesley has a total of 4 trips this week resulting in 19 roosterfish, 35 jack crevalle and 3 sierra  - now is the time to try this!

LOCATION: 11.50 spot and Old Lighthouse
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Sunny, fog on the Pacific early morning,  seas choppy on some days, cool evenings on the Pacific.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 67-73 F (Pacific/Cortez)
BEST LURES: Live caballito, assorted lures for smaller game.

Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg