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
