STRIPED MARLIN ARE CONCENTRATED TOGETHER
WITH PORPOISE JUST 14 MILES SOUTH OF CABO

Feb. 13, 2005, Capt. George Landrum, Fly Hooker Sportfishing, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

Cabo San Lucas fishing water was beautiful most of the week except for Friday when the wind with the rain gusted in. The fishing water on the Pacific side of Cabo has remained cool. At the end of the week we were seeing sea water temperatures in the 67-70 degree range. A finger of this cooler water wrapped around Cabo San Lucas and extended up the Cortez coast to outside San Jose del Cabo. Farther out on the Cortez side, the sea water temperature was 71-72 degrees. Surface conditions remained excellent except for Friday.

This week's weather was a repeat of last week's with the exception of the day it rained. It started raining at Cabo San Lucas on Friday morning and stopped early Saturday. A little over two inches fell. Our high for the week was 82 degrees while the low was 58 degrees.

At the end of the week the striped marlin fishing was concentrated 14 miles to the south of Cabo San Lucas. Mixed in with some Porpoise these marlin were actively feeding over a very large area. Actively feeding does not mean actively biting though. There was plenty of bait in the area and it took a bit of luck as well as plenty of presentations to get one of these fish to bite. A few of the Marlin were a bit larger than the average with fish pushing 200 pounds in the mix. Slow trolling dead baits, working the general area and live baits thrown to active feeders worked, but you had to be very fast with the live bait as the fish were really moving around.

Yellowfin fishing was off this week for most Cabo San Lucas sportfishing boats though a few were able to find fish on different days. Finding Porpoise was the key, but even then not all the Porpoise marked Tuna. Fish caught were averaging 20 pounds and bit on dark colored feathers and the usual Tuna killer, the cedar plug.

Fishing close in on both sides of Cabo San Lucas produced dorado (mahi-mahi) for charter boats willing to forgo the Marlin craze. The dorado were not large but they were there consistently. Fishing in water from 60-150 feet in depth with small bright lures or slow trolling live Mackerel enabled several boats to score fish counts as high as 8 fish per boat. The Dorado ranged from 6-20 pounds.

A few Wahoo were reported this week by Cabo San Lucas fishing boats, but there were no large amounts of them found, nor any large concentration of fish.

Once again Sierra are the inshore fish of the week. Cabo anglers have been able to catch as many as they want. The Pacific side of the coast has been going off from the lighthouse up to Migrino on fish from three to six pounds. Small green hoochies, live Sardinas, and small Rapalas have all been working well, just don't forget to use wire leader!

The Whales continue to provide entertainment, and it is a good thing as for some boats that was all the excitement to be had this week. The bite was off until the end of the week and even then luck played a big part in getting a good catch.

Mackerel was the bait of the week as is usually the case this time of year at Cabo. They could be obtained at the normal price of $2 per bait.