STRIPED MARLIN ARE THICK OFF BAJA'S LOS CABOS COAST

Feb. 18-24, 2005, Tracy Ehrenberg, Pisces Fleet, Cabo San Lucas marlin fishing, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

What an incredible striped marlin fishing week at Cabo San Lucas! I don't know if it's because there are more boats fishing than before, but this past week at Cabo, was one of the best in years, if not the best ever; giving us a total of 187 striped marlin, and that's with a full moon.

Stripers were thick off of the coast of the Los Cabos fishing area, thrilling anglers with their strength and tenacity. Fish were estimated from 110 to 180 pounds and took a combination of lures and live bait. What's surprising is that we are on the doorstep of March, which is traditionally one of the slower marlin months.

On February 23rd, we had two charter fishing boats that had 10 marlin each, all caught and released off of La Laguna just past San Jose. The first boat was "Ni Modo" with anglers David Monzo, Mario Ferrioni and Robert Kappe, all from Gradyville, PA. The other 10-fish boat was "Sr Moment" this time with husband and wife John & Kim Cottrell from Annandale, Virginia. John released eight marlin and Kim two.

Frank Kelly from Holland Pa, got a taste of what a Cabo San Lucas striped marlin bite is like, fishing aboard "Valerie" Frank scored seven releases, aided by Edward Mussbrook, on the 24th off of Punta Gorda.

There were several five fish days too, like Tom and Dianne Burns from Swainton N.J, aboard "Valerie" on the 20th; "Rebecca" had five fish this day too for Chris Galipeau from New York and friends. "Ni Modo" also had two five fish days on the 21st and 22nd.

We have to mention a client who had the funniest name we've heard in quite a while, (this is true) Ben Dover from Butts County, Georgia, fishing with brother Auze, caught and released three striped marlin on February 21st.

Our overall catch success rate for all species combined was 92 percent, with 82 percent of charters catching marlin. As mentioned above we totaled one 187 fish of which all but ten were released. We also released one sailfish.

Of course because Cabo San Lucas marlin fishing was so great, we had a constant stream of people in the office wanting to catch tuna, which was very slow. We had just four Cabo San Lucas sportfishing boats that found yellowfin this week and then again nothing exciting. "Libre" did catch ten tuna on the 20th, ten miles off of the Old Lighthouse on the Pacific, for Francis O'Neil, but the fish were small at 10 to 15 lbs. The other fishing boats that caught tuna, picked them up whilst trolling for marlin.

There were a few more dorado (mahi-mahi) than tuna caught, but just about ten percent of our Cabo San Lucas fishing charters caught these, some of the fish were of a fair size at 30 lbs plus. Inshore pangas did well on sierra and red snapper. One 80 lb thresher shark was also released.

We started fishing at Cerro Colorado, then up to San Jose and Punta Gorda, some boats then switched to fishing on the Pacific, to the Old Lighthouse and San Jaime; it's interesting to note that both fishing locations at Cabo San Lucas, Pacific and Cortez, produced marlin the same day.

Cabo San Lucas weather was partly cloudy, seas calm to moderate, one day was blustery with whitecaps. The average sea surface water temperature in our Cabo San Lucas fishing area was 70 degrees.