PISCES CHARTER BOATS LAND A WHOPPING
539 YELLOWFIN TUNA IN A SLOW MARLIN WEEK

March 11-17, 2005, Tracy Ehrenberg, Pisces Fleet, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico Fishing:

Yellowfin tuna was king of the sport fish this week at Cabo San Lucas. Our anglers caught a whopping 539 fish, ranging from 15 to 35 pounds, with the odd tuna going 80 to 100 pounds. The biggest concentration of tuna was at Jaime Bank and also just before Golden Gate, both on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas. Charter fishing boats caught from 4 to over 20 yellowfin tuna each, with many of the smaller fish released. Eighty-four percent of charters hooked into tuna, which was a relief as the marlin catches were so slow. The yellowfin tuna took marlin lures as well as cedar plugs. Quite often whilst dragging lures, anglers hooked up with huge squid in the 30 to 40 pound class.

This week fishing at Cabo San Lucas was slow for marlin, with just a little over six percent catching striped marlin in the 120 to 160 pound class. In fact we had just six fish caught, with top honors going to the Cabo San Lucas charter fishing boat "Blue Thunder" for catching and releasing two fish on March 13, the only boat to do so this week.

Most Cabo San Lucas sportfishing boats decided to head up the coast for the more sure catch of yellowfin tuna. However as the week drew to a close, the word went out that marlin had been found straight out from Land's End, about 30 miles off Cabo San Lucas. Quite a few Cabo fishing boats headed out that way, but just a few were fortunate to hook up, such as "Karina" and "Andrea."

All marlin took live bait. Very few were sighted and those that were found were not too hungry. Again, this is just what we expect in March fishing at Cabo San Lucas. In fact usually at this time of year Cabo San Lucas fishing boats head way up the coast towards the East Cape, so we were quite surprised to find marlin so close to Cabo. Looking back to last year we see that we had a spell of warm weather where the water temperature reached 72 degrees that gave us better catches than this year.

Our overall fishing success rate for all species combined was a high 97 percent, so though not many boats caught billfish, nearly everybody caught something.

Dorado fishing was on the slow side at Cabo San Lucas with just 15 percent of boats landing fish in the 15 to 20 pound class. Dorado were found over a widespread area and were picked up while trolling for marlin. Inshore fishing boats at Cabo San Lucas had a mixed bag of sea bass, red snapper, yellowtail, sierra and skipjacks.

Cabo San Lucas had a couple of very windy fishing days, but otherwise beautiful, clear sunny skies. Seas were rough on the breezier days but now are dead calm.

The best fishing location started off at Chileno and San Jose, then switched to the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas from the Old Lighthouse to Golden Gate. The average fishing water temperature at Cabo San Lucas was 68 degrees, and the best lures were live bait, and green/yellow and blue/white cedar plugs.