So What Do They Do With All That Fish?

Last weekend we reported a 722 lb blue marlin, that was caught aboard Pisces Attitude Adjustment. As our post read, the fish died after a two hour battle as the angler brought it to the boat for the umpteenth time. So what do you do with 722 lb's of fish? Well first of all by the time the fish is skinned, filleted, head and tail removed, the weight of the fish is reduced considerably. The anglers told us that they wanted none to go to waste, they took some fillets over to Captain Tony's to get them cooked and left the crew to distribute the rest. Now, crews and anglers cannot sell fish, caught on a sportfishing license, as the name implies it is not for commercial exploitation. Most of the fisherman here are related or are friends, so the crews were thrilled to receive pounds of fish and it was split up among many families. With the summer being on the slow side and not that many trips for a sizeable part of the Cabo fleet, this fish was received thankfully, packed carefully and frozen for a lot of families to enjoy for weeks to come. So just how far did that fish go? Well one of the sizeable fillets - see below- should feed 12 people, figure 8 fillets per side of the fish, 16 total, so 192 people and depending on the size of the portions perhaps a lot more.

Big Fish Continue 722 lb Blue Marlin Caught Today

 

 

These guys look happy and why not, they never expected to catch a 722 lb blue marlin. In fact the last time angler Dave Smith, from Atlanta caught anything close was a 55l lb'er twenty five years ago at Walkers Cay, Bahamas.

 



The fish was caught aboard the 46 ft Bertram Attitude Adjustment three miles from the Herradura which is about eleven miles straight out from Land's End. The fish took a 3.5 Zuker that was green and yellow. This area proved productive for Captain Edgar Renteria,  has been a part of Pisces for over 18 years, started out by hooking up two sailfish, one released, one broke off, followed by a 35 lb dorado. Twelve minutes after putting the lures back in the water, BAM, they got hit out of nowhere by this huge fish that almost spooled them. Fifty-eight year old Dave Smith spoke to us from the boat not long after the fish was on board he was awed by the whole event but thrilled " This fish came out of nowwhere, it almost spooled us but we recovered line; it was a brute - every time we would get it as close as twenty feet, it would take off at full speed and rip off line". Dave is a project supervisor for an industrial flooring company and was here with Tom Montour also from Atlanta and colleagues Jack Bown and Clint Dean from Chattanooga. They do a yearly guys trip to fish and have been to such locations as Costa Rica and the Bahamas but as Dave said "there is nothing like Cabo, its the best, we will definitely be back. I have the utmost respect for the professionalism of the crew". When asked if they had killed the fish or if it had died he replied "It took almost two hours to bring to the boat and the last time, it was very tired, it was done, it floated sideways. I think it's heart exploded". The guys did not have to kill the fish, it was already gone, now the question was how to get it into the boat? Mother nature helped - they opened the transom door and the swells pushed it right in the back of the boat, aided by the flying gaffs they used to secure the fish. Attitude Adjustment forms part of Pisces Fleet.
This is not the only large fish; we got a report of a 600 lb blue marlin taken on a commercial panga at Punta Lobos yesterday.
This bodes well for the upcoming billfish tournaments - but it would be really nice if somehow a release format could be implemented.

Panga Rescued

We are pleased to report that the panga that was almost totally sunk yesterday is well on the way to recovery, shown here a few minutes ago is the rescue operation. Several guys were pulling it on ropes, watched by a group of onlookers.

 

 

The Sun is Out, but Port is Closed!

This is a quick snapshot of the marina taken at 11.00 am, as you can see day is beautiful seas are flat, but the Port Captain closed the port again today. To be honest it did look gray this morning and there was more surge than normal, but right now things are beautiful - we are ready for tomorrow.
Let's go fishing!

What The Rain Did

Today we had intermittent heavy rain and with the ground still humid from the previous rain, we saw a fair bit of damage to dirt roads and flooding on side streets, nevertheless you could still get around without too much of a problem.
Below is a photo of the the entrance to the swanky Puerto Paraiso Mall, situated at the end of Leona Vicario Street, which acts like a direct funnel for the rain straight into its main doors, however, they got wise and erected this barrier, causing the runoff to detour a short way to the boat ramp and the marina.

 

 

This next photo was snapped right in front of our office on the marina and shows what can happen in a heavy rain if you are not checking your panga....



More Giant Fish In Cabo!

Mario, our dockmaster got a call this morning from an excited panga captain, who asked him to come down and take a photo of a large rooster fish a client had caught with him. Happy to oblige Mario went down and came back with this:

Captain Ivan hoists the roosterfish which is almost his size aloft - it weighed 75 lbs.

Captain Ivan got an early start, despite the rain aboard his 22 ft panga "Gloria" with angler John Sato from Palm Springs, Ca. aboard and hooked up this beauty just fifteen feet from shore, on a live caballito at Cerros de Arena. John took 40 minutes to subdue this huge rooster on a Shimano TLD 15 spooled withe 30 lb test line. The fish weighed 75 lbs.

 

 

Shown in this photo John Sato middle, Captain Ivan right and an unidentified friend left



 



 





PORT OPEN!

Boats were able to go out fishing yesterday and did well on dorado more than any other species. Weights were seldom over 25 lbs and the top catch was aboard "Valerie" with seven total. Tuna catches were not bad either with catches ranging from two, to a ten catch day aboard "Ruthless", with weights up to 35 lbs. The only billfish was aboard "Rebecca"; they released a sailfish and caught four dorado for Rhonda Jones and friends from Windsor, Colorado.  Today we saw some rain showers between 4.30 and 7.30 am but boats went out, right now skies are cloudy but no rain, we will have an update on what was caught when the boats return after 3.00 pm

Port Closed

Sad to report that the port was closed today for absolutely no reason....we had anglers chomping at the bit, our whole team was up early and ready to go, lunches ordered, beers and ice stocked, when the Port Captain declared the port closed to navegation! The reason given was Hurriane Miriam located hundreds of miles from us and not likely to come anywhere close. There are no waves, the water is dead calm, no wind and no rain. REALLY, they should go out and take a look not sit and look at a computer screen. They wouldn't even allow the cruise ship passengers to get off, so the ship high-tailed it out of Cabo, adding to the loss of thousands of dollars in much needed revenue for local business. As you can tell we are pretty ticked off.

THIS WEEKS FISH REPORT

Sept 15^th to 21^st, 2012

Amy from Texas released a sailfish and a striped marlin, plus caught a 43 lb wahoo and seven dorado along with her husband, aboard La Brisa.

 

Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 94%

BILLFISH: The big story in Cabo this week was not for marlin, but for yellow fin tuna, with the possible new all tackle world record being caught as per our mid-week report, however, we did see an increase on billfish catches with a few more marlin appearing, whereas in previous weeks sailfish have dominated. We even caught a couple of blue marlin, smallish in size, but at least it’s a good sign that more are on the way albeit late. The blue marlin were caught aboard “Tracy Ann” and “Rebecca”. Wayne Francis from Kansas got the first of the week aboard Rebecca on a lemon green lure, fishing off of Punta Ballena and boated a dorado too. The second one was slightly larger aboard “Tracy Ann”, estimated at 200 lbs, released outside of San Jaime, by Jeff Sweeney from Winter Park, Florida after it took a live caballito. These same two boats had some of the best catches of the week; “Tracy Ann” had Brian Holland, Steve Carlson & Steve Kinderman from Florida aboard on September 17^th when they released two striped marlin and a sailfish, before boating a dorado at Pozo de Cota. “Rebecca”  had back to back double marlin days on the 16^th and 17^th; first day for Amy & Chris Renegar from Belton, Texas and the second day for Sarah Crowe & Kala Buser from Perth, Australia. Amy & Chris also did exceptionally well on “La Brisa” off of Elias Calles catching and releasing a striped marlin & a sailfish and caught a wahoo and six dorado also.  September 21^st, saw “Great Escape Jr.” on a roll as they caught and released two striped marlin and reeled in fourteen dorado for Kelly Johns and party from Rockwall, Texas. Overall fifty four percent of Pisces boats caught billfish consisting of 17 striped marlin, 9 sailfish & 2 blue marlin, all but one fish released.

OTHER SPECIES: The big story was the huge yellow fin tuna caught; weight has now been officially confirmed at 427 lbs on a certified scale. The giant fish was caught by Guy Yocom from Dana Point, Ca, aboard his 61 ft Viking, “El Suertudo”, which just happens to mean “the lucky one”, 180 miles off of Cabo on a chunk bait and took just fifty five minutes to tame and have in the boat, perhaps due to the fish being tail wrapped. If the lengthy approval process goes smoothly and we shouldn’t see why it should not, this will the largest ever yellow fin tuna caught on rod and reel. Other tuna catches closer to home dropped substantially this week with just seventeen percent of boats catching from one two nineteen fish - our highest count, by Art Hevener from, Pennsylavania- with weights from 15 to 30 lbs. Our total tuna count this week 34 fish. Dorado catches jumped to an eighty percent catch rate this week, giving us a total fish count for this species of 145 fish. Pozo Cota and Gaspareno proved to be the most productive area for dorado with bait and green colored lures working well. We had a few wahoo this week but none more than 40 lbs, nevertheless a nice catch as one of the best eating fish. Andrea released a 40 lb  hammerheard shark.  We had one angler that missed out on one of his scheduled trips due to the port being closed, so he only got one day out aboard “Tracy Ann”, he was unable to get a billfish, though did manage a dorado, nevertheless, Captain Julio, always wanting to give good service, hooked him up with a beautiful 40 lb roosterfish right from the dock, when they arrived after fishing.

LOCATION: Pozo Cota to Golden Gate on Pacific, some boats went to the Cortez off of Punta Ballena and Cerro Colorado.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Hot and sunny, seas mostly calm, one day with whitecaps on the Pacific.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 85-88 F

BEST LURES: Ballyhoo, Caballito, green colors, flying fish, orange.

Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg

OFFICAL WEIGHT ON THE HUGE YELLOW FIN TUNA HAS BEEN CONFIRMED AS 427 LBS.

We spoke with Captain Greg DiStefano this morning, " I was really stressed, because our own scale had been dropped and was not working right, so it was weighed on Minerva's scale but it had to be verified that it was accurate"
"More than anything, I did not want to be claiming something that was not true, so we were on pins and needles until we got the call Friday afternoon confirming the actual weight of 427 lbs".
All we can say is congratulations guys.

Read the story here http://piscesfleet.blogspot.mx/2012/09/new-all-tackle-world-record-tuna-caught.html