Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined: 96.6%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 13%, Dorado 85%, Tuna 8%, Other 35%
BILLFISH: The billfish have
been relatively slow for this time of the year. We’ve been scratching
our heads a little bit about this, so we took a look back to compare to
the last few years fishing through this season. We’ve found some
interesting factors that may be affecting our marlin catches. These are
of course, that the water is still pretty warm for this time of year,
reaching temperatures as high as 78 F in some areas. It also seems that
there is not as much mackerel and ballyhoo in our waters as other
years, and we’ve found this to be the bait of choice throughout this
season for marlin. There are big schools of bait that we’ve come across
and have seen marlin, but many times they are just not hungry enough.
But, how about those two BIG blues caught
just a week ago weighing around 700 lbs each? We must say, the marlin
have a mind of their own, and are obviously around just a little bit
harder to find, for now. Instances like these really show how little we
know about the species and why research and conservation are
increasingly important.
With all that said, we did manage to catch a few
striped marlin this week. Twenty-five foot panga Diablo Loco showed us
that size doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to fishing. David
and Pamela from Colorado had a spectacular day, catching one striped
marlin, two dorados, one redsnapper, one grouper and one bonita all on
caballito bait between Solmar and Pedregal.
Bill Collector
had an even more spectacular day, if that’s possible, with anglers
Kelly and Jeff from Minnesota catching and releasing one decently sized
180 lb. striped marlin on live caballito out of Las Margaritas. They
also caught six dorados, ten sierras and one wahoo on green and
blue/white lures.
OTHER SPECIES: What haven’t
been hard to find this week have been dorado. In comparison with the
last three years, we’ve seen an increase of up to 45% in catches for
dorado during this same season. On the other hand, as with the marlin,
the tuna catches have been lower, where in 2014 we had a 40% catch
success rate for this same week in January, and a 79% catch success rate
in 2013, this week we only saw 8% of boats catch tuna. The lower tuna
catches may also be due to the fact that there is so much dorado and
wahoo that anglers are going out looking for them, since they are
relatively close to shore, where as the tuna are usually found far out.
Unless of course you get lucky and find a pod of dolphins hanging out
with them, as was the case for the thirty-five foot Valerie and anglers
from Florida, who caught ten yellowfin tuna ranging from 10-20 lbs out
of the Pozo Cota. They also caught one dorado around 10 lbs in the same
area.
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| Anglers Harrel Hooker, Jeffrey, Neal & Robert Cranek, with their tuna catch aboard the Valerie. |
In the case of the Andrea,
they went out looking for tuna and found it 13 miles out of Gaspareno,
catching twelve total on hoochis. They also caught six dorados on
caballito bait.
The Tracy Ann
had a dorado-filled day on Friday, catching 25 dorados between 15 and
25 lbs on both bait and lures (blue/white and black/red) out of
Cerritos. Catch limits were respected with ten successfully released.
The Rebecca
also landed quite a few dorados, twenty total, on caballito bait and
blue/white and green lures out of Golden Gate. They also caught a nice
wahoo, weighing 22 lbs.
Dorados galore!
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| Anglers Bob Stanley, Ronnie Heller, Caylee Heller and Kelly Massey from California, showing off their dorado catch on the Rebecca. |
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| Anglers Michael and David Lorick from South Carolina and Steve Hansel from New Jersey with their catch of the day on the Tiburon. |
The pangas proved
themselves once again in catching the smaller game fish, with twenty-two
foot panga Gloria catching fifteen sierras, one redsnapper, one
pompano, and one mojarra.
LOCATION: Golden Gate, Cerritos, Gaspareño, Migrino
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Mostly clear, with a few cloudy days with moderate seas
WATER TEMP: 74-78 F
BEST LURES: Caballito, red/black, blue/white, green
Based on the catches of Pisces Sportfishing by Rebecca Ehrenberg.
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