BIG BLUE MARLIN HOOKED IN FISHING 12 MILES OUT

Aug. 1, 2005, Robert Dryden, San Carlos, Mexico Fishing Report:

I fished two days out of San Carlos with Allan Smith on Ricochet and Mark Kuhn. The seas were absolutely beautiful and flat this weekend.

We fished Saturday on a heading of 240 degrees out of Marina San Carlos. We fished from 5-20 miles and then trolled north to Isla San Pedro. We did land two small Dorado over the reef and a Skipjack Tuna.

On Sunday, we took a heading of 180 degrees out of Marina San Carlos on a tip from Steve Calvert on Catch-22 that there were a lot of Dorado in the water from 10-25 miles out.

We dropped lines at five miles as we were seeing a lot of sailfish both jumping and finning. We presented to three sailfish on the surface and tagged and released one fish. We then tagged and released a very nice estimated 250 pound Blue Marlin at 12 miles at 180 degrees. We then hooked into the biggest Marlin I, or anyone on the boat, have ever seen in the Sea of Cortez. We had the estimated 500-600 pound blue marlin on for three hours before finally breaking off the 80 pound topshot 40 yards from the fish. All fish were caught on rigged ballyhoo, and blue and yellow were the hot colors for the weekend.

We were dragging Moldcraft Wide Ranges on our flats and rigged ballyhoo behind medium wide ranges and ilanders. The big blue marlin rose on a purple & white Wide Range on the flats, and then fell back to a rigged ilander/hoo combo on the right rigger. What a fish!

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from San Carlos and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for San Carlos may be found at Mexfish.com's main San Carlos page.