Here's The Fish Report

BILLFISH: This week we saw a drop on marlin catches down from seventy plus percent last week to forty percent this week, but we are not worried, this is normal for this time of year. In fact we are happy that catches are still as good as they are. As we approach March we expect some wind and water temperatures to drop below 70F which will bring in bountiful catches of smaller game, so for the time being we are enjoying the marlin that we have. Fishing patterns are unpredictable though, so with the water temperature running above average, perhaps the marlin will continue to feed. Top billfish boat this week was Pisces 35 ft. Valerie with a great day at Golden Gate that produced five striped marlin caught on live mackerel, for Scott Buchanan & Bobby West from Texas.  Scott Thompson from Houston, another Texan, released three striped marlin aboard Pisces Shambala as well as a dorado, while fishing with the Slades from Southampton, Bermuda. Another boat that had a fabulous day was Pisces Rebecca on February 15th; they released both a striped marlin and a sailfish, the only one of the week, as well as catching twelve yellow fin tuna and a dorado for Brian Mendez & Kristine Jaques from Escondido, California.  As mentioned above, a little less than half the boats found marlin this week and when found, it was usually a single fish in the 120 to 160 lb. category, though some boats did have double marlin days such as Tracy Ann, with two for David & Chris Olsen from Alberta, Canada.  Pisces anglers caught a total of 31 billfish, with all but one released. In 2012 for this same week we only caught one marlin!  So no complaints here.
 
OTHER SPECIES: Anglers were most likely to encounter dorado more than any other species this week with catches varying from one to eleven fish. They were found in various locations and weighed from 15 to 35 lbs.   Pisces Adriana was the top dorado boat with eleven caught in front of Santa Maria on the Cortez side on a combination of live caballito and blue and white lures by John Pedlow and party from Bellingham, WA. Our total dorado count was fifty fish. Yellow fin tuna catches were steady with forty two percent catching football size fish. As is often the case, when found, they were in schools meaning if the captain was skilled and approached them right you could load up on them. Tracy Ann had 35 for the Olsen’s from Canada, also mentioned above and Bill Collector had a whopping 40 fish for Carlos Assad and friends visiting from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our total tuna catch reflecting these good numbers, giving us a total count of 269 yellow fin for the week. Pisces Ruthless had the largest wahoo we have caught in a while (this boat has a knack for wahoo) at 70 lbs. for George McIntosh from Canada who shared the boat with Claude Wayne.  Inshore we started to see good catches of red snapper, sierra, jack crevalle, sierra and skipjacks. Another member of the Brazilian party, Mattheus Assad went surf fishing with our expert guide Wesley an caught three jack crevalles up to 20 lbs., a roosterfish and sierra all from the beach near the desal plant.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: We had some overcast and slightly colder days, with seas a bit choppy, conditions now are picture perfect.
LOCATION: The Pacific is still the place of choice, with San Jaime and Golden Gate popular, though Santa Maria did produce some good catches, inshore was from the Old Light house to Migrino.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 69 F
BEST LURES: Live bait, cedar plugs, blue/white, feathers, green colors.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg