SAILFISH SHOW UP AS CABO MARLIN MOVE INTO SEA OF CORTEZ

Feb. 11, 2007, Pisces Fleet Sportfishing, Tracy Ehrenberg, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

This week of fishing at Cabo San Lucas was a bit tough as the best fishing location changed and charter boats took a couple of days to figure out where to fish.

Although the Golden Gate Banks on the Pacific coast of Baja was still one of the top fishing locations, there were days when that area simply did not produce marlin.

This forced Cabo charter boats to look on the Sea of Cortez side mostly at the 95 spot and the 1150 spot, and with a drop in water temperature also being a factor.

On most days the fishing was good, with the only really poor day being February 6th, when just one striped marlin was caught by the Pisces fleet, although more dorado, tuna and a few sharks were caught this day.

Pisces Fleet's overall fishing success rate for all species combined was a very decent 81 percent, whilst the billfish rate was 71 percent.

Pisces Fleet anglers caught a total of 81 striped marlin and 9 sailfish this week, and all but one striped marlin were released.

The number of sailfish right now is very unusual for this season at Cabo San Lucas. Although these sailfish are not abundant we are seeing more than usual for this time of year.

One of our better fishing days this week was February 7th, when "Tracy Ann" released 6 striped marlin at the 95 spot for Scott Carlson, Jeff Folsita, Steve Madden and Jason Baier, all from Minnesota, plus a dorado.

On the same day, "C Rod" had five releases for a group from Montana and "Falcon" released four for a group from Georgia, all caught in this same fishing area.

The Pisces Fleet charter boat "Valerie" released 2 sailfish plus one striped marlin for Robert Mercier from Punta Gorda, Florida.

"Ni Modo" released 5 marlin for Alan Pasternack from Villanova, Pennsylvania, while fishing with friends Kim Kimmel and Jarrett and Jackie Wells.

Pisces Fleet had several boats with quadruple marlin release days: "Andrea" on the 8th for Corrine Shelton, of Saint Louis, Missouri, and Mark Miller from Reno, Nevada, aboard "Valerie" on the 3rd of February, as well as Chuck Fomasi from Santa Rosa, California, aboard "Ni Modo" also on February 3rd.

Cabo San Lucas yellowfin tuna catches were even slower than dorado, with only three Pisces Fleet boats finding fish between 20 and 60 pounds.

The boat "Falcon" found tuna 28 miles to the south of Cabo and managed to land a half dozen between 20 and 60 pounds for Matt and Julie Prines from California.

The Cabo San Lucas fishing area saw a drop on dorado counts this week, down to a 16 percent catch rate, with just 8 boats catching one fish each. These were not huge fish at 15 to 20 pounds. These dorado were all picked up whilst trolling for marlin.

A few hammerhead and mako shark were released at the Golden Gate Bank on the Pacific side of Baja. None of these sharks were bigger than 60 pounds.

Inshore around Cabo, the sierra have started going off with huge numbers being caught by local pangas. You could easily release 30 plus sierra in a morning.

The Cabo San Lucas vacation area is back to our normal beautiful Mexican weather, with clear sunny skies, a nice breeze and seas mostly calm. The average water temperature is 69 degrees.