Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 98%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 93%, Dorado 36%, Tuna 26%, Wahoo 8%
BILLFISH: Another fantastic week in Cabo; surely we have the best sports fishery in the world. We had a landmark day July 18th, when two of our boats showed up at the dock with swordfish, as well as releasing a striped marlin each. First up was a nice 215 lb. fish, taken aboard Great Escape Jr. by Harrison Stern from Laguna Hills Ca. followed by a 94 lb. for a young lady angler, Krista Bava from Hughson, Ca. – both fish took live bait in the San Jaime area, both were caught on 40 lb. test, taking a little over an hour to land. It was a bit strange this week that the fishing switched abruptly from Punta Gorda to San Jaime on the Pacific for a couple of days, before settling in between the two points at the 95 and11.50 spots. Marlin fishing continues to be outstanding with not as many double digit, per boat days, but plenty of two to five fish days for a good number of boats. Pisces Tracy Ann was our top marlin boat with six, eight and nine marlin on three consecutive days – the nine marlin day had 12 year old Kyle Sofhauser from Philipsburg, New Jersey thrilled as they also caught a 55 lb. roosterfish and 30 lb. snapper – what a day! Patrick Neville from Bradenton Florida along with wife Jean, released eight striped marlin aboard Tracy Ann, a fabulous day, but then Patrick once caught practically the combined weight of these eight fish in one day, back in 2011, when on this same boat, he caught a 746 lb. blue marlin, one day before the Bisbee Black & Blue. Not only were there striped marlin, we are beginning to see more sailfish between 50 and 80 lbs.; Great Escape Jr released two for Jon McNulty and caught 8 tuna and 1 dorado at the 95 spot. Ninety three percent of our anglers caught billfish this week, breaking down into 146 striped marlin, 6 sailfish and 2 swordfish. The swordfish were boated as well as two marlin, the rest were released.
OTHER SPECIES: The yellow fin tuna, so abundant last week began to move further out so we did not have the record catches of school size fish this week but boats could land two to nine in day as they found smaller outer schools, when looking for marlin – the exception was Pisces Rebecca who caught 23 ranging from 20 to 40 lbs. for Andrew Enos and Andrew Allen from Santa Fe Springs, Ca. on July 14th, who also released a striped marlin and boated a dorado. Twenty six percent of our charters found tuna giving us a total catch of 103 fish. Dorado catches were a bit higher at thirty six percent, with catches of one and two fish when found. A couple of boats such as Pisces Valerie, caught four up to 40 lbs. for Mark & Garrett Benson with friends from Grapevine, Texas – they also released four marlin, so a great day for this group. It was nice to see more wahoo this week, in fact eight percent of boats caught fish up to 45 lbs.; the meat of this fish is so delicious that it rivals swordfish. A great mixed day was had Sandy & Scott Logan from Springfield, VA, when they released three striped marlin and a 60 lb. mako shark, before boating 2 dorado up to 40 lbs. and a 40 lb. wahoo. Roosterfish were taken further offshore than normal and we had several in the 40 to 50 lb. class.
WEATHER: Looking at the news and the scorching temperatures around the world, we have enviable weather right now. Sunny though not overly hot, especially on the Pacific, air temperatures were mostly in the 80’s seas was moderate to calm.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 80 F
BEST LURES: Live bait, ballyhoo, blue/white, orange/yellow, guacamaya
