BIG BLUE MARLIN CAUGHT FIRST DAY OF TOURNAMENT

 

 

Big Fish Caught First Day of Tournament: The Los Cabos Billfish kicked off with the day one of three of fishing. Forty teams signed up and despite cooler weather, a BIG BLUE was brought in today by Team Extraction - THE 625 LB FISH - was la...nded by Tom Lansing from Phoenix, Arizona aboard his 53 ft vessel. Skipper Hiram Montana is an excellent fisherman and no stranger to success; he has led Tom Lansing to many prize winning fish, including a win of Bisbee East Cape in 2010 with a 510 lb black marlin, plus a 4th & 2nd place in 2009 & 2010 in the Black Blue where this team have won almost a $1,000,000. Will this fish be the winner of this tournament? Hard to say, but that's going to be a tough fish to beat. Of course when we spoke to Captain Hiram, he wasn't giving anything away, but did tell us he caught it on bait on the Cortez side. The fish took two hours to bring to the boat.

Weekly Fishing News

October 5th to 11th, 2013
Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 96%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 62%, Dorado 85%, Tuna 15%, Wahoo 10%

BILLFISH: This week we had plenty of activity on the fishing front, but perhaps not as many billfish as we had hoped for. The marlin & sailfish rates went down slightly, but one of the biggest factors was that of anglers wanting to catch eating fish, such as dorado and tuna and perhaps to save the big ones for the upcoming fishing tournaments. This weekend the La Paz Gold Cup took place and though final results were not in when we visiting the weigh in yesterday, we did see that 56 boats had entered and at the time of our visit the largest fish brought in was a 287 lb. blue aboard Tenacious – it should be noted that the minimum weight in this tournament is 200 lbs., whereas in Cabo tournaments it is 300 lbs. Bigger fish may have come in later yesterday but so far we have not been able to obtain final results. In Cabo we had some blue marlin this week, the largest being 300 lbs. aboard C Rod, caught at the Golden Gate by Joe Deigel from Old Forge, New York, who went on assisted by Annette Owens to land ten tuna up to 100 lbs. & a dorado  off of Pozo de Cota – without doubt our angler of the week. This same day Bill Collector had a great day too, releasing a 230 lb. blue marlin & two striped marlin as well as catching two tuna and a dorado for Todd Weible & Barry Greim from Downingtown, Pa outside San Jaime. Jon Svendson from Scottsdale, Arizona had a fabulous time aboard Rebecca on October 10th, releasing a 200 lb. blue marlin, which took a blue & white lure, a striped marlin that took a live caballito & nineteen dorado on a combination of green colored lures & bait. Halcon was the top striped marlin boat, releasing five for Chien Kuowang from Taiwan off of Gaspareno. Tracy Ann did pretty well too, releasing three stripes & catching twelve dorado, for Patrick & Jean Neville from Bradenton, Florida – not as lucky as in previous years, as a couple of years back they caught an enormous blue marlin, over 700 lbs., on this same boat the day before the Bisbee. John Ostenberg from Boulder, Colorado had three nice striped marlin released in the opposite direction, at Destiladeras aboard Valerie. La Brisa & Rebecca both had nice mixed days, with two striped marlin, a wahoo & nine dorado and a sailfish, two striped marlin & four dorado, respectively. We did have a few boats “skunked” this with, but without exception they were anglers who had requested specifics, such as only blue marlin, or only large yellow fin tuna. Sixty two percent of our boats caught billfish, breaking down into 74 striped marlin, 10 sailfish & 3 blue marlin.

OTHER SPECIES: Dorado dominated the fishing scene again this week, but dropped slightly in numbers. Eighty five percent of our boats caught dorado, with catches ranging from one to twenty fish from 15 to 30 lb. The majority were caught on the Pacific and took live bait and green colored lures. Yellow fin tuna catches were not abundant, nevertheless fifteen percent of our boats caught up to ten fish, the majority football size, with the exception being C Rod with a couple of bigger ones at 70 & 100 lbs. Wahoo catches increased slightly this week with the majority of fish around the 35 lb. mark. Adriana did best with two the same day that weighed 45 & 50 lbs. caught by Jonathan Comune from Phoenix, Arizona, who also released a striped marlin and landed six dorado. Closer to shore we had a few skipjacks and shore fishing with Wesley produced jack crevalle & the odd rooster.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Mostly clear skies, but as we close this report a tropical storm Octave is below us & has already produced some intermittent heavy rain. This is not expected to develop into a hurricane and is predicted to weaken as it approaches Baja. Seas a little choppy at the close of this report.
LOCATION: Pacific, Lighthouse to Golden Gate.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F
BEST LURES: live caballito, ballyhoo, green colors, blue & white, orang/black.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg

So How Big is this Fish?

To put this into perspective you need to know that Wesley, the guy holding the fish is 6 ft 11inches tall!

What Do You Do in Cabo with College Age Daughters?

Hello Marco, My family and I met you briefly in the Pisces sportfishing office last Friday evening, before we went out on the Adriana Saturday morning. We caught and released 8 Striped Marlin and 1 Dorado (which we traded for a tuna at the fillet station). As recommended, we returned to Captain Tony's later that evening to eat our tuna, which was prepared as sashimi and sushi, and also cooked three different ways.   My college aged daughter (Rebecca, San Diego State) loved the entire boat and fishing experience, as did I. Unfortunately, my youngest daughter was a bit queasy on the boat. Even though we are on a budget, the expense was very well worth one of the most memorable days and experiences we have ever had as a family. Thank you for your time last Friday and for the great service provided by your entire staff. We will always fondly remember our first trip to Cabo and hope to return one day to fish again with Pisces. I also intend to post a very nice review on TripAdvisor while also telling my Cabo bound friends about your great company. Sincerely, Scott, Despina, Rebecca, and Stephanie Danville, Ca.

Marlin, Dorado & a Big Tuna

September 28th to October 4th, 2013
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 86%, Dorado 83%, Tuna 14%
Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 97%

BILLFISH: Another stunning week of fishing in Cabo which gave us a near perfect record of every boat catching fish – however, we had a few anglers that wanted to fish exclusively for large yellow fin tuna (probably remembering that the all tackle world record for this species was caught this time last year) but unfortunately drew a blank. On the other hand though we saw a very high hook up rate for marlin and sailfish leading to a catch rate of eighty six percent.  Funny thing was when multiple billfish days were had it tended to be sailfish, rather than the stacks of striped marlin we are accustomed too. That said, striped marlin was still the most widely caught fish, with catches the week being of one or two fish plus a whole slew of dorado. One of the most outstanding catches this week was that of Pisces La Brisa on September 28th, when they caught and released a 350 lb. black marlin, a sailfish and boated a 60 lb. wahoo –the marlin took a black and silver lure.  The lucky anglers were Thomas Gillis from Boston, who was fishing with Richard Cantares, Edward Coniff & Ron Ledoux. Of equal importance if not a tad more, was the catch of Pisces Bill Collector this same day who released a 300 lb. blue marlin, four sailfish & four dorado for Sherif Ammar, Hadi Hasson & Burak Ozgur from Irvine, California. The location for these catches was between the 95 & 11.50 spot on the Cortez side. As mentioned above, we are having a bumper sailfish year, with multiple catches in a days’ fishing. Top boat was Pisces Yahoo with five released on live bait outside the 95 spot for Keith & Rhonda Philpott from Kentucky fishing with Brad & Patricia Brock from Whitney, Texas. There is barely a week that goes by when Tracy Ann does not get a mention and this week she make the report again for releasing a blue marlin around the 250 lb. mark for G.W Taylor from Lindale, Texas, who with his group, went on to catch twenty one dorado & a tuna. There were only two boats that had quadruple marlin days, Pisces 28 ft. Adriana who had the four billfish plus seven dorado for John David & Mark Mikulka at the Lobera. The other was C Rod with four marlin, six dorado and a wahoo for Mark Olsen & John Mardesich from St. George, Utah. Just beating these two for most striped marlin was Halcon who released five at Golden Gate for Kingle Wang from New Jersey. Live bait was the ticket for striped marlin & sailfish, whilst the bigger fish, the blues & the black took lures. Pisces anglers caught a total of 130 billfish this week, breaking down into 80 striped marlin, 47 sailfish, 2 blues & 1 black.

OTHER SPECIES:  Dorado were out in full force this week giving anglers plenty of chances to load up on one of the top eating fish. Catches ranged from one to twenty six fish, resulting in a catch rate of eighty three percent, so chances were slightly less of finding dorado than a billfish, but boy when found, double digit numbers were common giving us a total of 689 a big number, but a good portion were released to comply with catch limits. Dorado were found throughout our whole fishing area but catches were better on the Pacific between the Old Lighthouse & Golden Gate, with the Margaritas area one of the hot spots. The dorado are taking live bait and lures, not picky about the colors but it is common knowledge that they like green colors, perhaps because they are known to be cannibalistic. Size on the dorado was between 10 and 30 lbs. Tuna catches were on the slow side with just fourteen percent of bots catching between one and ten fish, usually small school fish around 15 to 20 lbs., however Halcon, the boat that caught the 266 lb. last week, caught a very nice 150 lb'er in front of La Bomba for Cristian Alcala from Pico Rivera, Ca.  – This fish took a green lure. Just a few wahoo this week, with 35 lbs. the average weight, the only larger one was 60 lbs. aboard La Brisa. Inshore just a few skipjacks and beach fishing with Wesley produced roosterfish and jack crevalle.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Mostly good, weather had cooled off at night; seas mostly calm some whitecaps on both sides in the afternoon.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 83 F
BEST LURES: Live caballito, ballyhoo, black/silver, orange/yellow, green.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg

BIG WAHOO

Nice to finally see some big wahoo - this one taken aboard Pisces Adriana by Rocky & Annette Warren from Golden, Colorado - 64 LBS, that's a lot of delicious fillets.

FISHING UPDATE

September 21st to 27th, 2013
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 67%, Dorado 86%, Tuna 29%, Other 20%
Overall Catch Success Rate 100%

BIG BLUE MARLIN BEING RELEASED ABOARD PISCES FEARLESS

BILLFISH: Fishing in Cabo remains unabated with anglers being kept busy in waters teeming with fish, well perhaps more dorado than marlin but nevertheless great catches. Thankfully this week the port was open every day and even with a big moon we still had some nice hookups. “Fearless” had the largest fish of the week for Glen Sheridan from East Windsor, New Jersey on September 21st. The fish took a green & black lure at Punta Gorda and was estimated at almost 400 lbs. before being released. This was not the only blue for Fearless as on September 25th they released a smaller, 250 lb’er, along with three sailfish, one striped marlin & two tuna – now that’s fishing!  Fearless was definitely on a roll and released another blue marlin for Glen Sheridan as well as a striper & eight dorado – three blue marlin in a week, great job Captain Benito. Pisces Tracy Ann also had a blue marlin a few days later, around the same size & had a busy day going on to release three sailfish, one striped marlin & two tuna for Lee & Loel Wilson from Missouri fishing with Dave and Brett smith from Dallas.  The 72 ft. Elliott Alure, had a fantastic day at the end of the week, fishing on the Pacific they released a 225 lb. blue marlin & two striped marlin, plus a 40 lb. wahoo and twenty dorado. Halcon was the top sailfish boat; releasing five in one day as well as a striped marlin at the 11.50 spot for Kevin Delahousey from Nicholasville, Kentucky. The catches of striped marlin were generally of a single fish plus some dorado, though a few boats got two or even three. Top striper boat though was Yahoo, with four released up to 160 lbs. plus eight dorado for Scott & Valerie Canfield from Bakersfield, California. Every boat we sent out this week caught fish of some type, with sixty seven percent of charters catching billfish, giving us a total of 63 consisting of 39 striped marlin, 20 sailfish & 4 blue marlin.

NICE WAHOO ABOARD LA BRISA

OTHERS SPECIES: Dorado were everywhere in Cabo this week & catches of 20 plus fish per boat were common. Many of the smaller fish are being released, but anglers are going home with ice chests full of this tasty sportsfish. Dorado were the top catch this period with sixty seven percent of charters catching between one and twenty four with the average around twelve fish in a day. They were found over a widespread area and were ravenous, taking bait & lures. Our total dorado count, including fish released was 681 fish.  Yellow fin tuna catches were a little better this week, with twenty nine percent of boats catching between one and twenty fish, though sizes were nothing special at 15 to 20 lbs. It was nice to see some big wahoo come in, as in recent years it is rare we see anything over 50 lbs.; this week we had one that weighed 75 lbs. and took 45 minutes to land aboard La Brisa, after it took a guacamaya lure by angler Michael Hanson from San Francisco, Ca. The other large wahoo was caught aboard Adriana and took a purple rapala by angler Rocky Warren from Golden, Colorado and weighed 64 lbs.  Jean Paul Grenier from British Columbia released a 60 lb. mako shark at the 11.50 spot aboard Speedwell – he also released a sailfish & caught six dorado along with Kate McLean. The only other catches for us were a few skipjack.
WEATHER: Seems to have cooled off a little, seas are calm in the morning but have had some whitecaps late in the afternoon on the Pacific. Skies partly cloudy.
LOCATION: Pozo Cota, Golden Gate, Margaritas, 11.50, 95 spot, Cabrillo, Migrino, Herradura, Destiladeras – basically everywhere.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F
BEST LURES: ballyhoo, guacamaya, green, caballito, orange black.

A Perk of Being a Cabo Captain

One of the perks of being a yacht captain in Cabo is getting up close to wildlife. Captain Adam Cargill of the Its All Good, was out snorkeling by Land's End when he came across this whale shark, several boats converged and the shy creature dropped down to deeper water. Adam went with her though and they connected, he rubbed her belly and she let him ride on her back. They made eye contact and Adam felt a tremendous connection, like she trusted him.

TOP BILLFISH CATCH SO FAR THIS WEEK

TOP BILLFISH CATCH - SO FAR THIS WEEK: Pisces Tracy Ann, for Loel & Lee Wilson from Missouri, fishing with Dave & Brett Smith from Dallas - listen to his for a catch....one BLUE marlin - approx. 260 lbs, THREE sailfish, ONE striped marlin TWO yellow fin tuna, all released except for the tuna - caught at the 95 spot - WAY TO GO JULIO!

Huge Tuna Caught This Week in Cabo

September 14^th to 20^th, 2013

Numbers at a glance: Billfish 72%, Dorado 85%, Tuna 18%

Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 99%

BILLFISH: Cabo was again plagued by tropical weather this week, causing the port to be closed partly on the 17^th and fully on the 18^th & 19^th, frustrating for anglers and crews alike, but we are thankful that no major damage was sustained.  Just before the rains and wind we had some pretty spectacular fishing days. Pisces Valerie out on September 14^th with Bryan Koehn, Julie Garchynski & Ron Hasber from San Antonio, Texas on board, had an amazing day with a grand slam consisting of a 312 lb. blue marlin which took a purple lure, two striped marlin a sailfish & three dorado, fishing at the 95 spot and Herradura. This same day proved to be the best of the period – for instance Pisces La Brisa had five striped marlin up to 130 lbs., a sailfish, a dorado & two tuna for Chris & Amy Renegar. On par this day too was Adriana, with four sailfish, two striped marlin & a dorado for Tim, Larry & Travis Pierce from Seattle, WA. Luis Nunez from Panama had a blast aboard Tracy Ann on September 16^th with two striped marlin, a sailfish & eighteen dorado from 15 to 50 lbs. Other boats had one marlin or sail plus dorado. Action was great if the port had been open, as it is we fished only half the days we normally would which is reflected in the numbers. Nevertheless ninety nine percent of boat caught fish; just one “skunked” which our dock master Abraham swears is because the anglers took bananas on the boat (captains are superstitious about this). Pisces boats caught a total of 44 billfish this week, consisting of 30 striped marlin, 13 sailfish & 1 blue marlin.

OTHER SPECIES: Dorado was king this week as boats loaded up on double digit catches of fish ranging from 15 to 52 lbs. They love to congregate under floating debris making them easy to locate after rainy weather. On September 16^th John Raymond from Cumming, Georgia, along with friends, were kept busy aboard Pisces Andrea with thirty four fish to the boat caught on a combination of lures and bait at Las Margaritas on the Pacific side – half of the fish were released. Next day out this same boat had twenty eight dorado plus a striped marlin for Robert Deal Jr. & Scott Appert. Top dorado anglers of the week though, were Cruz Hernandez & Ron Hasber (yes same guy mentioned in the billfish section) for catching thirty six dorado at Gaspareno. It should be noted that many of these dorado are released as they surpass the limit.  Eighty five percent of our charters caught dorado giving us a total count of 335 fish. Tuna catches were on the slow side with eighteen percent catching a few footballs here and there. There was however, one impressive exception of a 266 LB heavyweight caught at 95 spot by Australian angler Grant Potter, who is from Banbury. The fish took live bait on 60 lb.  test and took one hour and ten minutes to be brought to the boat Halcon on September 20^th.   A couple of small wahoo were caught just shy of 30 lbs.  Inshore just a few skipjacks were caught and those surf fishing with guide Wesley were able to catch jack crevalle.

LOCATION: 95 & Herradura seemed better for marlin, dorado were found in diverse locations but in greater amounts on the Pacific.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Port closed on three days due to tropical storms, seas now returning to normal.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 85 F

BEST LURES: live bait, green/yellow, petrolero, purple.