VERY GOOD STRIPED MARLIN FISHING ON THE PACIFIC SIDE
FOR CHARTER BOAT FALCON

Jan. 13, 2007, Mike Connolly, charter boat Falcon, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

There is terrific striped marlin fishing at the Golden Gate Bank.

Drifting with mackerel baits is working well for Cabo San Lucas fishing boats, just as is has been for over a month.

Virtually every Cabo boat fishing at the Golden Gate is catching and releasing 2 to 4 marlin per day.

On the Falcon, we fished the Gate most of the week. With the moon nearly gone, the sonar is back in play both for spotting bait formations and seeing marlin.

On our best fishing day along this part of the Mexican coast we hooked 12 marlin and a sailfish, and leadered 9 fish, not counting the one on the Lucky Joe bait rig. It seems to me like a good time to stick with the marlin fishing now while they are easy to find, but I know there are those anglers out there more interested in dorado or tuna or something to eat.

Keeping in mind that you may not be able to locate tuna, dorado or wahoo on any given day, a visit to the Gate will probably get you a billfish or two and then you will have plenty of time to search for other things, increasing the odds somewhat.

There are no guarantees however. There have been some nice scores on dorado with some Cabo San Lucas fishing boats running into large schools that just showed up after a jig strike.

The best example I know of is the boat Mouse Trap, catching and releasing 24 dorado and hanging 5 marlin on jigs at the 95 spot and 4 miles outside of it.

There are a few wahoo around for the chosen in the fishing waters at the tip of Mexico's Baja peninsula.

On the Falcon, we found tuna at 20 to 25 miles 160 degrees, catching a few from 30 to 50 pounds, with the largest taking a cast Ranger surface skipper. And, we had a double on marlin on the way out landing one. That was the only day we did not fish the Gate.

By far the best fish story belonged to the boat Patriot. Terry and Jake took their guys to Magdalena Bay for a week and thumped the marlin on bait. I forget the final total, way over a hundred, but they released 49 stripers on their best day at Magdalena Bay. Surrounded by hungry marlin they barely needed to move the boat all day. There were just a few dorado and zero wahoo for them; it was just all marlin all day. In the Cabo San Lucas marina, the Patriot is with the blue mothership C-Condo at L dock. They can and do fish all over the world and they are here in Cabo.

Baja local weather was very nice this week, with lots of fish. It's a good time to visit the Cape.