CABO SAN LUCAS HOSTING THE ANNUAL
LOS CABOS BILLFISH TOURNAMENT THIS WEEK

Oct. 7-13, 2005, Tracy Ehrenberg, Pisces Fleet, Cabo San Lucas fishing, Baja Sur, Mexico:

The Los Cabos Billfish Tournament is into their third and final fishing day at Cabo San Lucas, with the awards to be announced on Saturday night. The tournament had a total of 60 entries and so far four qualifying fish have been weighed in as follows:

Cazador with a 465 pound blue marlin, Phoenix with a 406 pound blue, Eagle with a 368 pound blue, and No Problem with a 304 pound blue.

The top release boat so far for fish less than 300 pounds is Light Speed with five fish released.

The leading two yellowfin tuna are aboard Tournament Hunter with two fish at 277 and 166 pounds respectively.

The biggest wahoo so far was taken aboard Karma, 43.7 pounds and the biggest dorado is 43.7 pounds aboard Fish Cabo.

However, Cabo San Lucas fishing area water looks really good today so we will probably see more fish being weighed in which could change the standings. So far they have 62 legitimate releases which have been photographed for the tournament overall.

In regular Cabo San Lucas sportfishing news, we had a respectable overall catch success rate for all species combined of 83 percent, with 47 percent of charters catching billfish.

Yellowfin tuna catches at Cabo San Lucas were not as high, with just 16 percent of charters locating this species. However there were some really big fish caught at Cabo San Lucas, such as those mentioned above, as well as two very large fish caught by Scott Bricker from Malibu, California. Scott fished on the 7th and 9th of October, aboard his favorite panga, skippered by Nino Rochin, out of Palmilla. Scott has fished with Nino for over 15 years and it has obviously paid off.

On the 7th, they were fishing at the outer Gordo using live bonitas, when they hooked up to a large fish in very rough seas. Two hours and 40 minutes later, they were able to boat the monster, whilst narrowly avoided sinking the boat, having taken on about a foot of water; back on shore the fish taped out to 270 pounds.

A glutton for punishment, Scott went back to the same spot on the 10th and had a repeat performance, though thankfully in calmer seas, this time it only took him 1 hour and 20 minutes to land his second tuna, which turned out to be even larger at 300 pounds.

This bodes well for the upcoming Western Outdoor News tuna tournament on November 2-5, 2005. Other yellowfin tuna catches were not quite as spectacular and were from four to twelve fish weighing from 25 to 80 pounds in diverse locations, but more were on the Cortez side.

During the first few days of this fishing report, we experienced windy weather and rough seas, causing many anglers to turn around. Those that stuck it out generally did well though.

Mike Miller, from California was aboard "Ensueno" on September 9th and was thrilled to release a 400 pound black marlin at the 95 spot.

This same day Thomas Mincher form Greensboro, N.C. did well to release both a blue and a striped marlin aboard "La Brisa", a little further away at the 11.50 spot.

The next fishing day it was the "Rebecca's" turn with three striped marlin and a sailfish released for Norm and Mary Johnson from Portland, Oregon.

On October 11th, Stan Jensen, Keith Bouma and Dave Vanderhock, all from Washington State, were our top anglers, aboard "Karina" for three striped marlin released and five dorado from 20 to 40 pounds boated.

This same day "Yahoo" did well to release two striped marlin and a sailfish for a group we had from New Zealand and Australia: Nick Hulme, Jamie Hodglasen and J. Shetz.

Overall we had a good fishing week at Cabo San Lucas, with the exception of rough weather on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Pisces anglers caught a total of 66 billfish this week consisting of 44 striped marlin, 8 blues, 1 black and 12 sails, all but four fish were released.

After marlin, dorado were the most widely caught sport fish, with 38 percent of boats landing between one and twelve fish. Weights were from 20 to 50 pounds. Dorado were found both on the Pacific and Cortez sides and took both bait and lures.

Inshore, Cabo San Lucas is starting to see quite a few roosters in the 25 to 30 pound class and pangas are even catching a few stray striped marlin. Skipjacks also being found inshore. A 60 pounds bull shark was also released.

Cabo San Lucas fishing area seas were rough with lots of wind at the start of this report period, but now are breathtakingly beautiful, with clear sunny skies, seas calm and perfect temperatures.

Lots of boats are fishing live bait, either cast to stripers or slow trolled to try and attract really big fish, plastics, petrolero, guacamaya and green-white. The average Cabo San Lucas fishing area water temperature was 82 degrees.