SOME BOATS GETTING SKUNKED AS
WINTER FISHING SEASON DEEPENS

Feb. 25-March 3, 2005, Tracy Ehrenberg, Pisces Fleet, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

At Cabo San Lucas everybody was excited after last week's outstanding fishing, but as I thought it was unusual to be so good as March was about to start. March is traditionally one of the slower months for marlin fishing at Cabo San Lucas, due to falling water temperatures and colder weather, and also they seem to be uninterested in food. Maybe it's their mating season?

As predicted, Cabo San Lucas fishing did see a drop in marlin catches, but we were still able to produce an overall catch success rate, for all species combined of 74 percent, with 56 percent catching marlin, down from 82 percent last week, quite a sharp drop.

Still, some Cabo San Lucas charter fishing boats had outstanding days, whilst others got "skunked." It usually wasn't a case of not finding fish, but of finding the ones that were hungry. Pisces anglers caught a total of 92 striped marlin in Cabo San Lucas fishing this week, of which 88 were released, along with two sailfish...not too shabby.

On February 26th, "Ni Modo" scored big with six marlin released for Glenn Moss from Riverside, Ca.

This same day "Valerie" had three Cabo San Lucas stripers, plus one sailfish released for James Kauffman from Ann Arbor MI, fishing with friends from California, Freddie Randall, Rich Murray and Francesca de Fusco.

Next day out "Rebecca" scored big with six striped marlin and one sailfish for Bryce Coleman from Roanoke Tx, fishing with Eric Kugle, Craig Reid and Mike Koelzer - all from Texas. This boat headed up the coast beyond San Jose to Destiladeres, which is about the farthest day charter boats go.

"Valerie" again did well this same day releasing four in the same area for Tom Fox and buddies from Grand Ledge, Mi.

There is not a lot going on in fishing for other species. The most exciting thing was when "Ruthless" returned with 14 yellowfin tuna between 15 and 30 lbs, that they caught ten miles off of Pozo de Cota on February 28th. Otherwise, fishing was just for the odd, small tuna caught here and there. However, as we close this report, Cabo San Lucas sportfishing boats are finding tuna on the Pacific from the Old Lighthouse to Golden Gate in the 10 to 30 lb class, with catches of up to 11 fish. We know this could move on any day.

Cabo San Lucas dorado fishing was very slow with just five fish for us, all picked up whilst trolling for marlin.

"La Brisa' did have a nice 50 lb wahoo, the only one of the week. Inshore fishing produced lots of small roosterfish, plenty of red snapper and sierra.

Cabo San Lucas weather conditions were partly cloudy, with seas calm to moderate, and the best fishing locations were Destiladeres, Los Frailes, Palmilla, and Golden Gate. The best lures were live bait, purple/black, and brown/cream.