October 19th to 25th, 2013
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 51%, Dorado 74%, Tuna 30%, Wahoo 10%
Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 94%

BILLFISH: Wow, what a week! As most of you know Bisbee took place this past week and we have written a lot about it already, but not everybody enters the big bucks competition, so how did our regular clients do? In one word, fabulous. We had some of the best catches of the year, starting with Pisces Rebecca with a 566 LB blue marlin the day before the Bisbee Tournament, for angler George Hansen from Idaho Falls. Captain Jose Ramon saw the fish jump a mile away and thought it was a manta ray, as they got closer he realized it was a blue marlin that was feeding and quickly dropped back a tuna they had boated earlier in the day.  George went to work and after about an hour, the crew realized there was something wrong; the fish had died. They pulled in the line by hand to find that the leader had wrapped around the tail, meaning the fish had been pulled backwards and drowned. Next day Giles Patterson from Cincinnati was fishing aboard Pisces La Brisa and was having fun with his group setting out cedar plugs and pulling in school size tuna. As he was reeling in a 15 lb. tuna, a huge marlin emerged from the depths and swallowed his tuna, cedar plug and all. Giles puffed away for over four hours until the fish could not be seen and was not reacting; the marlin had expired and again they guys had to hand line it up. To their surprise it was much bigger than they thought tipping the scales at 591 LBS. Next day out, it was another 31 ft. Bertram this time Pisces Tracy Ann, that had a blue marlin, but they were successful in releasing the approximately 360 LB fish. Attitude Adjustment & La Brisa went on to release blue marlin around the 300 LB mark later in the week and Shambala had three blues a little under 300 LBS which they released. It was nice to see a return of the striped marlin this past week too, the catches being usually a single fish plus numbers of dorado or tuna; some boats had two fish and only Yahoo managed to release three in one day. Our total billfish catch was of 65 fish, consisting of 51 striped marlin, 11 blue marlin & 4 sailfish.

OTHER SPECIES: Great numbers again this week on dorado, making it our number one catch with seventy four percent of boats catching between one and twenty five fish between 15 and 35 LBS; our total dorado catch was 535 fish. Pacific side was were the dorado were concentrated with bait & green colored lures working well. Yellow fin tuna catches took a step up this week, which is great news for the upcoming tuna tournament.   Thirty percent of boats found school size fish and had fun catching up to thirty five in a day. Some fish were large, such as a 125 lb’er caught aboard Pisces Ruthless by Richard Hartley from South Africa – our total tuna count was 298.  Wahoo catches complimented the rest of the catches with ten percent of our boats catching fish up to 40 lbs.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Clear skies, seas mostly calm, with some chop in the afternoons.
LOCATION: Pacific, lighthouse to San Jaime.
BEST LURES: Petrolero, green, live bait, cedar plugs.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 83 F

The Story Behind the 774 LB Winning Fish

Captain Kevin "Cubby" Pahl on right, First Lady Angler to win Bisbee Linda Williams & John Williams right, proud of his wife  - he almost had a
"heart attack" when he heard they had won.

Joy was evident in the voice of Captain Kevin “Cubby” Pahl captain of the 60 ft. Hatteras II Success, when we reached him by phone the day after his team had landed the winning 774 LB fish, in the Bisbee Black & Blue Tournament – the second largest qualifier in the competition’s 33 year history.

As tends to happen in the world’s richest billfish tournament, everybody was kept guessing right up until the end, especially as Martha McNab, a well know local woman angler looked set to be a shoo in to be the first ever female to win the Super Bowl of fishing, with her 525 LB blue marlin caught on day two of the three day event. That milestone was to be reached, but surprisingly not by Martha, but by Linda Williams from Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Captain Cubby told us that he had fished the Pacific the two previous days as everybody knew that several big blues from the charter fleet had  been caught there as well as the fish landed by Martha aboard Retriever; he fished all the well- known spots and came up blank. On the last day of the tournament he thought “the clock is ticking and at least a hundred boats are turning right to the Pacific, I am going to go the other way, up to Destiladeras, the water looks good and there is no traffic”. Team Success worked the area trolling their lures without action so Cubby systematically worked his way to the outer Gordo as the clock ticked on and with only thirty five minutes left to go in the tournament, the water behind the boat exploded as a massive marlin charged the Petrolero lure with its mouth wide open. “Everybody saw it bite” said Cubby, “my team were all in their positions and we were all watching the lures; I drive the boat standing backwards so I can see them. We could see that the fish was over 500 lbs. and it jumped at least six times, which is a lot for a fish of that size. We had the fish to the wire in an hour, but it was still strong and headed away from us, so we decided to let it go more time. After about another hour we had it in the corner and threw all the metal (gaffs) we had into it; we didn’t want to take any chances. The team did their job perfectly and the hardest thing was getting it into the boat, no easy feat with an almost 800 LB fish”.

 

Cubby praised his crew consisting of his Mexican deckhand Antonio “Pelon” Zuniga, his brother Craig Pahl who was aboard as an angler along with Dave Reid, who is a captain on another boat,  Jan Howard and of course owner of II Success, Linda Williams. Cubby stated “Linda loves to fish and this could not have happened to a nicer or more generous person. The guys on the dock respect Linda for her fishing skills. This is a dream come true for her, she was thrilled just to participate, definitely something on her bucket list.” Linda’s husband John, who owns a house framing company, had urged her to fly down to fish the tournament, which she did bringing along friend Jan Howard. He was totally shocked to get a phone call to say they had won and flew into Cabo Saturday to be present for the awards ceremony.

 

Captain Kevin “Cubby” Pahl is well known and liked around Cabo; the 51 year old is originally from Carlsbad, California and grew up fishing out of Oceanside. He has been a professional skipper in Cabo for the past 29 years and this win is the highlight of his fishing career and his largest fish to date. This day almost didn’t happen though, as last year he underwent his second hip replacement surgery, during which he contracted a severe infection, followed by an adverse reaction to the drugs given him, which put him in the critical care unit for six days. There was a moment when he thought it was a possibility that he would never fish again, making this victory even sweeter.



Payout At Bisbee Black & Blue

 

TEAM II SUCCESS CELBRATES THEIR FIRST PLACE VICTORY.
 

 

Biggest check at Bisbee tonight was $1,185,862.00 - here are the results.
1st Place II Success 774 lb blue marlin $368,675.00
2nd Place Retriever 525 lb blue marlin $1,185,862.00

DESPITE BEING NUDGED OUT OF FIRST PLACE, TEAM RETRIEVER STILL HAD THE BIGGEST PAYDAY

 3rd Place Marlin Queen 343 lb black marlin $34,762.00
 

4th Place Go Deep 323 lb blue marlin $9,270.00
5th Place Sea Angel 313 lb blue marlin $966,689.00 (no that is not a typo)

TEAM SEA ANGEL HAD ONE OF THE LARGEST PAYOUTS EVER FOR 5TH PLACE

 1st Place release 3 blues the sailboat Titan $63,575.00
2nd Place release 3 blues Shambala $21,993.00
3rd Place release 3 blues Reel Pain II $12,218.00
Release is decided on who caught first when places are tied like this.

Massive 774 LB Blue Marlin Gives Female Angler Surprise Victory in Bisbee Black & Blue

PHOTO BY GARY GRAHAM

Massive 774 LBS blue marlin gives surprise late hour victory for lady angler Linda Williams aboard Success in Bisbee Black & Blue. This will take 1st place but won't necessarily pay most money because of the optional categories they were or were not entered in. Stay tuned for tournament payout results.

525 LB FISH NETS LOCAL WOMAN 1.2 MILLION DOLLARS

Why does this woman look so happy? Perhaps because she just caught a fish worth 1.2 Million Dollars...Martha McNabb was thrilled last night after landing the biggest fish so far in the 2013 Bisbee Black & Blue; even though she  is not entered across the board, it appears that her fish caught yesterday, weighing 525 LBS will net her a big pay day. Who knows, if no larger fish are caught today, the last day of the competition,  the fish will be worth even more. Martha is a die hard fisherwoman and should she win will be the first female ever to win the Bisbee. Martha is no stranger to success though, this five foot two powerhouse landed a 635 lb blue marlin several years ago in the Bisbee, but was bumped to second place by a boat that caught two fish in the 300 -350 lb plus range, that when added together beat the weight of her fish. Martha loves fishing in Cabo aboard her 61 ft Viking "Retriever" with her crew of local Mexican guys. GIRL POWER, in what is mostly a macho world.

525 LB BLUE MARLIN FRONT RUNNER IN BISBEES ON DAY TWO

This is the frontrunner in the Bisbee 525 LBS blue marlin, which held throughout day two. Angler is Martha McNabb who paid us a huge compliment by saying "we knew where to go because we have been following your reports". Martha's fish was caught on a lure and took her an hour to boat aboard her privately owned vessel, a 61 ft Viking called "Retreiver". Martha's crew are all local Mexican guys from Cabo and the East Cape.
Pisces 31 ft Bertram Tracy Ann on regular charter released a 360 lb blue marlin yesterday and our Attitude Adjustment released a 300 lb fish too....hmmm three days, three Bertrams, three qualifiers if they had been in the tournament - I guess that's fishing.

2.4 Million Dollar Fish First Day of Bisbee - but it's not in the tournament

591  LB BLUE MARLIN CAUGHT ABOARD LA BRISA

La Brisa catches a 2.4 million fish first day of the Bisbee Black & Blue ...but is not in the tournament. No qualifying fish were weighed  in on day one of the richest billfish tournament in the world. Our regular Pisces charters went about their business as usual. La Brisa had anglers from Cincinnati, Ohio on board and 37 year old Giles Patterson, a homebuilder by trade was hooked up to a 15 lb tuna that had bitten a cedar plug, when a blue marlin exploded from the depths and engulfed it. Giles muscled away for four and a half hours, bringing the fish to the boat nine times, before the fish dove and did not surface again. The crew realized that the fish had died and spent some time hand-lining it up.

CROWS MOBBED THE ANGLER TODAY

Back at the scale the fish was bigger than expected, as crowds mobbed the stunned angler who said " that was the most unbelievable fight of my life" as the scale registered 591 LBS. Pretty amazing seeing as none of the 109 boats entered in the tournament caught a qualifying fish today and we had a really nice fish yesterday too at 566 lbs - two fish, two days, both on Pisces 31 ft Bertrams possibly the finest sportfisher ever built.

LOOK AT THE WIDTH OF THAT TAIL

Huge Marlin Caught on Eve of Bisbee Black & Blue

Huge fish caught on the eve of the 33rd edition of the Bisbee Black & Blue.  We were down at the dock this afternoon when we heard that Pisces 31 ft Bertram, Rebecca was approaching the dock with big fish. Just a couple of minutes later in motored Rebecca with a huge fish laying across the cockpit, it was so large that it's head had to be angled up to fit - basically the length of the fish was more than the width of the boat. Captain Jose Ramon told us he had been fishing about 21 miles out from Cabo with the same anglers that had been with him on the previous two days, when he saw something about a mile away, jump out of the water. At first he thought it was a manta ray, but they picked up lines and sped over to investigate.  The fish first hit a green & lime lure, then Jose Ramon, quickly rigged one of the tuna they had caught earlier in the day and dropped it back to the large fish, who inhaled it, giving them a solid hook up.  Thirty six year old George Hanson from Idaho Falls, was given the rod and he steadfastly fought the big fish on  80 lb test for an hour before the crew realized the fish had died - they then brought it up by hand lining it between them. At the surface they realized that the fish was tail wrapped and had drowned.  They put a tail rope around it and hoisted it into the boat and headed back to shore. Other anglers on board were Gary Barnes, Dave Rankin & Eugene Hanson.  George who works with his dad Eugene in their recycling business, had set the trip up for his dad & his friends and they were not disappointed -
with 35 tuna, 9 dorado, 1 striped marlin and of course the 566 lb blue marlin caught by George, during their three days charter with Pisces who added "this was a trip of a lifetime"

Bisbee Offshore Won by a Tuna & 33 LB Dorado?

Bisbee Offshore - won by a tuna? Incredible but true....ninety nine boats competed over Saturday & Sunday in the tournament known as the "little Bisbee", what is attractive about this two day event is you can get in it for as little as $1,500 and across the board is only $10,500 - not small, but a fraction of what it costs in the Black & Blue ($71,000). Many of the captains put up the money themselves to be able to fish this and get valuable pre-fish knowledge. This year however, there were no big blue marlin in sight. Four underweight fish were brought to the scale, but not one of them could reach the 300 lb minimum weight limit. The rules state that if no eligible billfish are caught the monies roll over to the gamefish categories. So it ended up that a 201 lb tuna and a 33 lb dorado won $110,000.00 each - maybe the biggest payday every for a small dorado. We spoke with the team that caught the large tuna, Donald Whitter, owner of Wahoo Loco and the boat Estrella del Norte, which is not your typical Cabo sportfisher. Donald built the boat himself, a 32 ft Carolina design using a cold mold made out of wood, then wrapping it with fiberglass. The boat has two 300 Yamaha outboards & can reach a speed of 40 knots. The tuna was caught by team member Gonzalo Castillo, a local guy out of La Playita. Donald and Estrella del Norte are no strangers to success, they took first place last year in the WON Tuna Tournament with a massive 372 lb fish. Asked about his strategy Donald said "Our intention was never to catch a marlin, we were going strictly for tuna, that is what we are good at. We figured that most of the boats would enter the gamefish category so there would be a big pay out. We fished five days (three in the Los Cabos Billfish before this event) to catch a fish of that size. We caught it at the inner Gordo on live bait, we had it to the boat, stuck the gaff in it, but it broke it & straightened the hook , then dove down about 100 feet we went to work again". After an hour and fifteen minutes they had it at the boat again, this time they used a flying gaff as well as a second gaff. Good thinking and good work, that secured them a $110,000.00 pay day. Bisbee Black & Blue starts tomorrow and the absence of the big fish is a little worrying, however, with a massive storm down below us, it may push fish this way.

Estrella del Norte is not your typical Cabo sportfisher.

Pancho The Sea Lion Nabs Prize Winning Tuna

Don't be fooled by the sweet face, Pancho is a professional fish snatcher.

 



 

 

Pancho has been a naughty boy! Don't let that sweet face fool you....Pancho snatched a tuna that was about to be weighed in as a prize winning fish during the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament. Team Ole Ole backed into the dock with a qualifyin...g tuna of around 35 lbs, they handed it to the dock worker, who grabbed it by the tail and swung around to put it in his fish cart. In one smooth movement, Pancho who had been stalking the boat, erupted from the water like a speeding bullet, snatched the tuna and disappeared. Definitely making team Ole Ole candidates for the hard luck award - we figured the tuna was worth close to $7,000.00 if it had made it to the scale.

This is not when he stole the tuna, this was another day, but gives an idea of the real size of  Pancho and other sea lions in the area.

 

PRIZE GIVING LOS CABOS BILLFISH TOURNAMENT

 

 

Prize monies for the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament
1st Extraction 625 lb blue marlin $295,425.00
2nd Expedition 516 lb blue marlin $27,000.00
1st in release Chupacabra $39,150.00
2nd in release Galati $5,400.00
3rd in release Cisco$3,600....00
Daily release Reel Quest $6,075.00
Tuna Day 1 & 2 39 lb & 65 lbs Reel Gold $20,081.00
Day 1 Wahoo Miss Behavin 26.5 lbs $6,693.00
Day 2 Wahoo El Suertudo 32.8 lbs $6,693.00
Day 3 Wahoo Minerva II 34.5 lbs $6,693.00



Oct 12th to 18th, 2013
Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 95%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 10%, Dorado 92% Tuna 2%, Wahoo 9%

 

 

BILLFISH: We had low numbers of billfish this week, which is unusual, but we are pretty certain this was caused by a late season tropical storm.  Just before the storm though we had some nice catches such as those aboard Pisces Fearless on October 12th, when the group from Intrepid Investment released three striped marlin & caught a wahoo & seven dorado. This same day Phil Musial from Houston released two striped marlin and caught three dorado aboard Pisces Adriana & Patrick and Jean Neville from Bradenton, Florida, also had a nice day aboard Pisces Tracy Ann with a striped marlin released and thirteen dorado to the boat. The port was closed on October 14th but we experienced pretty heavy rains the day before too, which messed the water up and cooled it down. So our great striped marlin and sailfish bite turned off, as the fish looked for cleaner water and we had to wait for the beautiful blue water they like, to return. This started to happen towards the end of this report, but otherwise we might as well call this the dorado report. That said this week saw the first of the big fishing tournaments the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament. The tournament started on Oct 16th and forty boats participated – again due to the weather in previous days only two qualifying fish were weighed in, both on day one of the event. Team Extraction pulled in with a sizeable blue marlin that tipped the scale at 625 lbs. putting them in first place which held true throughout the competition. Angler Tom Lansing from Phoenix was thrilled as was his captain Hiram Montano. Neither Tom nor Hiram are new to fishing success having a string of places in recent years in all the tournaments. Hiram’s brother, Bruce was a crewmember aboard Expedition who touched the dock an hour after the big fish was weighed. Angler Glenn Richardson from Abbeville Louisiana had fought his large blue for three hours and would end up taking second place overall with his 516 lb. fish. Chupacabra took the top release honors and there were also categories for wahoo, dorado and tuna. All places are not official until tonight when the awards banquet takes place. As we write this the second tournament of the fall season is underway, the Bisbee Offshore where around 90 boats are competing in this two day event, before the main event set to start on October 23rd. The tournament taking place right now used to be called the “little Bisbee”; we hardly think it warrants this name anymore. Going back to regular fishing, as mentioned above the striped marlin began to show up as the weather got back to normal. Only ten percent of charters caught marlin this week and we had a single sailfish aboard Yahoo. Total marlin count was sixteen stripers. Our overall catch success rate for all species was ninety five percent, the only boats that did not catch anything, were those specifically targeting big blue marlin.

OTHER SPECIES: The dorado fishing was in complete contrast to that of marlin, but then again, they like the debris that washes into the sea during and after storms and have a penchant for hanging out under stuff floating making them easy pickings for pretty much every boat. The weights on this species were usually in the 12 to 30 lb. class with the standard catch around nine fish per day, though some caught as many as twenty one. The Pacific was the top spot to find dorado with a combination of lures and bait working.  Ninety two percent of our boats caught dorado, with many of the smaller fish released. Our total dorado count was 694 fish. Tuna catches were slow this week with just a couple of boats finding a few smaller fish, as usual C Rod was the top tuna boat with twelve caught in one day. Wahoo catches were better than those of tuna with nine percent of boats catching fish in the 30 to 50 lb. class. Wesley had some nice surf fishing trips where he was successful in catching roosterfish, needlefish & jack crevalle.
LOCATION: Pacific – lighthouse to Golden Gate.
WEATHER: Rain for two days, seas bumpy for a couple of days afterwards, right now so gorgeous it takes your breath away. Blue, calm seas, clear skies.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 83 F
BEST LURES: green, live caballito, white/blue, petrolero, ballyhoo

A NEW BEAUTY IS IN TOWN

Everybody wants to know who our new neighbor is....this beauty just pulled into the marina - 237 FT Alston Marine "Kogo" is named after the wife of the French/Saudi businessman Mansour Ojjeh, who purchased the steel hulled vessel in 2006. ...Mansour is one of the founders of the McLaren Formula 1 racing team. Tabloids have recently linked his daughter romantically with British driver Lewis Hamilton - we have a birds eye view from our office window so will let you know if we see any celebs sneaking about - but then again most people will be over at the scales waiting for big fish to come in.

 

 

LCBT No Billfish Day Two, but they are out there

Seeing as no billfish were weighed in on day two of the LCBF tournament we thought we would remind the anglers of what they are supposed to be catching - this great shot of an approx. 400 lb blue marlin was sent in by Captain Brent Rose of a fish released on Sunday by angler Matt Besley aboard Jeta.

Nice Fish in Tournament

We were holding our breath, waiting for what we knew was going to be a nice fish, to come to the scale late yesterday afternoon - it looked really big and perhaps a prize winner for Abbeville, Louisiana, angler Glenn Richardson. Once hoisted up the electronic scale told it's own story and registered it at 516 lbs - not big enough to bump Extraction's 625 lb'er from it's first place spot, but may hang in there to put them in the prize money. One more day of fishing left in this event and who knows what will show up later today - stay tuned.

BIG BLUE MARLIN CAUGHT FIRST DAY OF TOURNAMENT

 

 

Big Fish Caught First Day of Tournament: The Los Cabos Billfish kicked off with the day one of three of fishing. Forty teams signed up and despite cooler weather, a BIG BLUE was brought in today by Team Extraction - THE 625 LB FISH - was la...nded by Tom Lansing from Phoenix, Arizona aboard his 53 ft vessel. Skipper Hiram Montana is an excellent fisherman and no stranger to success; he has led Tom Lansing to many prize winning fish, including a win of Bisbee East Cape in 2010 with a 510 lb black marlin, plus a 4th & 2nd place in 2009 & 2010 in the Black Blue where this team have won almost a $1,000,000. Will this fish be the winner of this tournament? Hard to say, but that's going to be a tough fish to beat. Of course when we spoke to Captain Hiram, he wasn't giving anything away, but did tell us he caught it on bait on the Cortez side. The fish took two hours to bring to the boat.

Weekly Fishing News

October 5th to 11th, 2013
Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 96%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 62%, Dorado 85%, Tuna 15%, Wahoo 10%

BILLFISH: This week we had plenty of activity on the fishing front, but perhaps not as many billfish as we had hoped for. The marlin & sailfish rates went down slightly, but one of the biggest factors was that of anglers wanting to catch eating fish, such as dorado and tuna and perhaps to save the big ones for the upcoming fishing tournaments. This weekend the La Paz Gold Cup took place and though final results were not in when we visiting the weigh in yesterday, we did see that 56 boats had entered and at the time of our visit the largest fish brought in was a 287 lb. blue aboard Tenacious – it should be noted that the minimum weight in this tournament is 200 lbs., whereas in Cabo tournaments it is 300 lbs. Bigger fish may have come in later yesterday but so far we have not been able to obtain final results. In Cabo we had some blue marlin this week, the largest being 300 lbs. aboard C Rod, caught at the Golden Gate by Joe Deigel from Old Forge, New York, who went on assisted by Annette Owens to land ten tuna up to 100 lbs. & a dorado  off of Pozo de Cota – without doubt our angler of the week. This same day Bill Collector had a great day too, releasing a 230 lb. blue marlin & two striped marlin as well as catching two tuna and a dorado for Todd Weible & Barry Greim from Downingtown, Pa outside San Jaime. Jon Svendson from Scottsdale, Arizona had a fabulous time aboard Rebecca on October 10th, releasing a 200 lb. blue marlin, which took a blue & white lure, a striped marlin that took a live caballito & nineteen dorado on a combination of green colored lures & bait. Halcon was the top striped marlin boat, releasing five for Chien Kuowang from Taiwan off of Gaspareno. Tracy Ann did pretty well too, releasing three stripes & catching twelve dorado, for Patrick & Jean Neville from Bradenton, Florida – not as lucky as in previous years, as a couple of years back they caught an enormous blue marlin, over 700 lbs., on this same boat the day before the Bisbee. John Ostenberg from Boulder, Colorado had three nice striped marlin released in the opposite direction, at Destiladeras aboard Valerie. La Brisa & Rebecca both had nice mixed days, with two striped marlin, a wahoo & nine dorado and a sailfish, two striped marlin & four dorado, respectively. We did have a few boats “skunked” this with, but without exception they were anglers who had requested specifics, such as only blue marlin, or only large yellow fin tuna. Sixty two percent of our boats caught billfish, breaking down into 74 striped marlin, 10 sailfish & 3 blue marlin.

OTHER SPECIES: Dorado dominated the fishing scene again this week, but dropped slightly in numbers. Eighty five percent of our boats caught dorado, with catches ranging from one to twenty fish from 15 to 30 lb. The majority were caught on the Pacific and took live bait and green colored lures. Yellow fin tuna catches were not abundant, nevertheless fifteen percent of our boats caught up to ten fish, the majority football size, with the exception being C Rod with a couple of bigger ones at 70 & 100 lbs. Wahoo catches increased slightly this week with the majority of fish around the 35 lb. mark. Adriana did best with two the same day that weighed 45 & 50 lbs. caught by Jonathan Comune from Phoenix, Arizona, who also released a striped marlin and landed six dorado. Closer to shore we had a few skipjacks and shore fishing with Wesley produced jack crevalle & the odd rooster.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Mostly clear skies, but as we close this report a tropical storm Octave is below us & has already produced some intermittent heavy rain. This is not expected to develop into a hurricane and is predicted to weaken as it approaches Baja. Seas a little choppy at the close of this report.
LOCATION: Pacific, Lighthouse to Golden Gate.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F
BEST LURES: live caballito, ballyhoo, green colors, blue & white, orang/black.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg

So How Big is this Fish?

To put this into perspective you need to know that Wesley, the guy holding the fish is 6 ft 11inches tall!

What Do You Do in Cabo with College Age Daughters?

Hello Marco, My family and I met you briefly in the Pisces sportfishing office last Friday evening, before we went out on the Adriana Saturday morning. We caught and released 8 Striped Marlin and 1 Dorado (which we traded for a tuna at the fillet station). As recommended, we returned to Captain Tony's later that evening to eat our tuna, which was prepared as sashimi and sushi, and also cooked three different ways.   My college aged daughter (Rebecca, San Diego State) loved the entire boat and fishing experience, as did I. Unfortunately, my youngest daughter was a bit queasy on the boat. Even though we are on a budget, the expense was very well worth one of the most memorable days and experiences we have ever had as a family. Thank you for your time last Friday and for the great service provided by your entire staff. We will always fondly remember our first trip to Cabo and hope to return one day to fish again with Pisces. I also intend to post a very nice review on TripAdvisor while also telling my Cabo bound friends about your great company. Sincerely, Scott, Despina, Rebecca, and Stephanie Danville, Ca.

Marlin, Dorado & a Big Tuna

September 28th to October 4th, 2013
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 86%, Dorado 83%, Tuna 14%
Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 97%

BILLFISH: Another stunning week of fishing in Cabo which gave us a near perfect record of every boat catching fish – however, we had a few anglers that wanted to fish exclusively for large yellow fin tuna (probably remembering that the all tackle world record for this species was caught this time last year) but unfortunately drew a blank. On the other hand though we saw a very high hook up rate for marlin and sailfish leading to a catch rate of eighty six percent.  Funny thing was when multiple billfish days were had it tended to be sailfish, rather than the stacks of striped marlin we are accustomed too. That said, striped marlin was still the most widely caught fish, with catches the week being of one or two fish plus a whole slew of dorado. One of the most outstanding catches this week was that of Pisces La Brisa on September 28th, when they caught and released a 350 lb. black marlin, a sailfish and boated a 60 lb. wahoo –the marlin took a black and silver lure.  The lucky anglers were Thomas Gillis from Boston, who was fishing with Richard Cantares, Edward Coniff & Ron Ledoux. Of equal importance if not a tad more, was the catch of Pisces Bill Collector this same day who released a 300 lb. blue marlin, four sailfish & four dorado for Sherif Ammar, Hadi Hasson & Burak Ozgur from Irvine, California. The location for these catches was between the 95 & 11.50 spot on the Cortez side. As mentioned above, we are having a bumper sailfish year, with multiple catches in a days’ fishing. Top boat was Pisces Yahoo with five released on live bait outside the 95 spot for Keith & Rhonda Philpott from Kentucky fishing with Brad & Patricia Brock from Whitney, Texas. There is barely a week that goes by when Tracy Ann does not get a mention and this week she make the report again for releasing a blue marlin around the 250 lb. mark for G.W Taylor from Lindale, Texas, who with his group, went on to catch twenty one dorado & a tuna. There were only two boats that had quadruple marlin days, Pisces 28 ft. Adriana who had the four billfish plus seven dorado for John David & Mark Mikulka at the Lobera. The other was C Rod with four marlin, six dorado and a wahoo for Mark Olsen & John Mardesich from St. George, Utah. Just beating these two for most striped marlin was Halcon who released five at Golden Gate for Kingle Wang from New Jersey. Live bait was the ticket for striped marlin & sailfish, whilst the bigger fish, the blues & the black took lures. Pisces anglers caught a total of 130 billfish this week, breaking down into 80 striped marlin, 47 sailfish, 2 blues & 1 black.

OTHER SPECIES:  Dorado were out in full force this week giving anglers plenty of chances to load up on one of the top eating fish. Catches ranged from one to twenty six fish, resulting in a catch rate of eighty three percent, so chances were slightly less of finding dorado than a billfish, but boy when found, double digit numbers were common giving us a total of 689 a big number, but a good portion were released to comply with catch limits. Dorado were found throughout our whole fishing area but catches were better on the Pacific between the Old Lighthouse & Golden Gate, with the Margaritas area one of the hot spots. The dorado are taking live bait and lures, not picky about the colors but it is common knowledge that they like green colors, perhaps because they are known to be cannibalistic. Size on the dorado was between 10 and 30 lbs. Tuna catches were on the slow side with just fourteen percent of bots catching between one and ten fish, usually small school fish around 15 to 20 lbs., however Halcon, the boat that caught the 266 lb. last week, caught a very nice 150 lb'er in front of La Bomba for Cristian Alcala from Pico Rivera, Ca.  – This fish took a green lure. Just a few wahoo this week, with 35 lbs. the average weight, the only larger one was 60 lbs. aboard La Brisa. Inshore just a few skipjacks and beach fishing with Wesley produced roosterfish and jack crevalle.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Mostly good, weather had cooled off at night; seas mostly calm some whitecaps on both sides in the afternoon.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 83 F
BEST LURES: Live caballito, ballyhoo, black/silver, orange/yellow, green.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg