Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Tropical Storm Patricia Update #2

Tuesday, Oct. 13th 2.23 pm
We had quite a bit of rain last night off and on but zero wind. This morning at 6.30 it was totally calm no rain, no wind and you could see the stars. Anglers were chomping at the bit, lunches were all made and ready to go and THEY CLOSED THE PORT! Yes it was raining a bit, but then the sun came out, seas are calm and we couldn't go fishing....honestly it was rougher yesterday. So now we have to scramble to reschedule boats and anglers and take a loss on everything that was prepared for today such as lunches. Right now though we are getting ready for the check-in for the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament, which will be at 4.00 pm today. The captain's meeting will be at 6.00 pm. Numbers of entries are expected to be down somewhat due to the economy. However, Pisces has a great gift for each team, we will giving them a brand new copy of Gene Kira's "The Unforgettable Sea of Cortez", a book that we sponored the publishing of for its second edition. This book is truly a treasure and we couldn't bear to see it disappear. On Amazon we saw copies from between $50.00 all the way up to over $600.00 so this truly is a much, sought after book. It describes and shows in pictures the Baja of yesteryear, even the contruction of now gone icons like the Hotel Cabo San Lucas, with Bud Parr the developer pictured with other Cabo locals when they were much younger. The book is available through Pisces and we encourage you to get a copy.

Fish Report Oct 1-7 2009

Overall Catch Success Rate 99%
BILLFISH: Small game catches again outnumbered those of billfish this week, but we are not complaining, as anglers had plenty to keep them busy…all anglers out caught fish, unless they got seasick and came back early or were fishing a panga close in. Seas were on the rough side this week but fishing was good. “Andrea”, one of our 28 ft standard cruisers caught a 325 lb blue marlin on October 5th six miles out from Golden Gate and boated a couple of dorado too, angler Ed Anglin (apt name) took two and a half hours to bring the fish to the boat on 80 lb test, fishing with Don Posner both from Shreveport, Louisiana. The only other blue marlin for us this week, was a tantalizing 500 lb’er released by “Get over It”, out on a practice, pre-tournament day, so hopefully they can find this same fish again later this week. “Yahoo”, 42 ft Bertram was one of our best boats this week; on October 2nd they caught three striped marlin at Migriño as well as seven dorado for Jeff Thomson & Richard Diaz from Arizona, fishing with Matt Murphy from Tampa, Florida. A few days later this same boat released two striped marlin and boated a 44 lb wahoo and two dorado, close to Golden Gate for Joe Mayer, Tracie & Henry Spradlin from Quincy, Illinois. Another notable catch was on October 6th, aboard “Valerie”, 35 ft Bertram who released a sailfish and a striped marlin as well as boating four dorado. The reason we mention these billfish catches, is that they were better than average, as just twenty nine percent of charters managed to hook up to billfish, the rest loaded up on mostly dorado and some tuna. Again we fished almost exclusively on the Pacific with live bait usually the ticket for marlin and sailfish though they did take lures too; it was just hard to locate the billfish. Pisces anglers caught a total of 21 billfish this week, consisting of 15 striped marlin, all but two released, 5 sailfish and 1 blue marlin.
OTHER SPECIES: Dorado was the number on catch this week with a total caught of 371 for our anglers. Close to ninety percent of charters caught between one and twenty fish, ranging in size from 18 to 50 lbs. Top boat was 31 ft Bertram “La Brisa” with twenty in one day, though it should be noted that many dorado are being released in keeping with Fish and Game quotas (yes we do have these in Mexico and they are checking in Cabo). The dorado are taking both live bait and lures, with the green type lures working well as well as guacamaya colored lures. There were dorado close by near Gaspareño as well as far up as Golden Gate. Wahoo catches were pretty good again this week, with more charters finding wahoo than tuna….thirteen percent of charters caught wahoo up to 44 lbs. The only boat with a doubleheader on this species was “Ruthless” on October 3rd, for Kevin & Gary Lowe from Sacramento, fishing with Dan Lawrence & Ken Walden from California –their wahoo were 30 and 40 lbs and they also got a couple of dorado. Tuna catches were much slower this week with just nine percent of charters catching three or four fish in the 20 to 70 lb class.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Skies partly cloudy, seas slightly rough on the Pacific.
LOCATION: Land’s end to Golden Gate
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F
BEST LURES: Green/yellow, guacamayas, petroleros for wahoo, live bait.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg