CABO FISHING BOATS FINDING DECENT
ACTION FOR VARIOUS GAME FISH

Jan. 28-Feb. 2, 2005, Tracy Ehrenberg, Pisces Fleet, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

Fishing at Cabo San Lucas was not what I'd call fantastic this week, but it was fairly decent, resulting in an overall catch success rate for all fishing species combined of 85 percent.

The week started out a bit slow for striped marlin, with several sportfishing boats getting skunked at the start of this report. We then began catching a few dorado and tuna. Then as the week progressed we saw quite a turnaround on the marlin fishing. By the close of this report, charter fishing boats were catching one to three marlin apiece, giving us a marlin catch success rate of 69 percent. The stripers have been of a good size too, with 150 pounds being the average.

Jay Bonds fishing aboard "Kathy Too" ran into a tough fish. They hooked this striped marlin just five minutes after settling down to troll, four miles out from Land's End. The fish came out of nowhere and snatched a red and yellow lure, and took off. After 40 minutes of pumping they finally got him up the swim step, but the fish was so feisty it was dangerous, not being able to get near the lure to release it, the fish took off again, battling for another hour, before they were finally able to get him close again. When they did they saw that this was a big striped marlin, 200 pounds. This time Captain Jose had a chance to quickly free the lure before the fish released itself. Jay's wife commented that her husband and the fish were much alike, tough...it took nine years of dating before she could get him to marry her.

First American Title, on their "Mid Winter Thaw," fishing trip to Cabo, headed up by Joe Drum, had great fishing aboard "Valerie" with four striped marlin released and 15 tunas, as well as other catches on various boats. Anglers that did well were Bob Pratte, Steve Mase and Craig Beroy.

The King Harbor Marlin Club, held its annual Cabo San Lucas shoot out, last weekend and "Capn Hook" ended up in first place with three releases, for Mark Morache and Ken Carey. On February 1st, Ed Barringer fishing with Joe Rossi released three striped marlin and five giant squid aboard "Andrea". Next day out Victor Gonzalez and Mark Mullohand form Santa Rosa, released another three this time aboard "Ruthless". Pisces anglers caught a total of 92 striped marlin at Cabo San Lucas, of which 90 were released.

After marlin, dorado were the next most frequently caught species, with a little over half the fishing boats catching fish in the 15 to 30 pound class, we well as the odd 50 pounder too. The normal catch was just a single fish, and more rarely three. Found over a widespread area, they took mostly lures.

Yellowfin tuna catches, were great for a couple of days when boats found schools close to a dead whale. Those that did well had up to a dozen in the 20 to 30 pound size, however only about 20 percent of Cabo boats caught this species. The giant squid that appeared for a couple of days were fun, as they attacked the lures just like a marlin. They weighed 20 to 30 pound, some were brought in and others were released. Just a couple of wahoo this week, one was pretty nice at 65 pound, caught by Dave Burger from Walnut Creek, Ca.

In inshore fishing, there were a few skipjacks and roosterfish caught.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Partly cloudy, calm seas.

LOCATION: Golden Gate, Old Lighthouse, Cerro Blanco, Chileno.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 71 F.

BEST LURES: Live bait, red/yellow, green/yellow.