Cabo san lucas
December 3rd to December 9th, 2004

WEATHER CONDITIONS: We had some pretty cold weather, for Cabo, with nighttime temps down to 68 F and daytime temps around 82 F, skies were partly cloudy throughout the week, but weather is now clear and beautiful. Seas are calm.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 78 F
BEST LURES: Live bait.

BILLFISH
As predicted fishing for striped marlin really took off this week, producing some superb catches. Teddy Baer a charter captain from the Florida Keys, always spends the first week of December fishing Cabo, as he knows how hot the bite can be. His tally so far this week, is eighteen striped marlin and he still has another two days to go. Teddy fishes “Valerie” with captain Benito Agundez, exclusively. Top day for this team was December 8th, when they released eight striped marlin, along with two mako sharks, one around 100 lbs the other 40 lbs, as well as a dorado. Other anglers did very well too; this same day Daniel Ryan fished with buddies Jim Smyth-Hewitt and Matt & Jim Skelly aboard “Tracy Ann” and were fortunate to release five stripers. Earlier in the week, Robert and Brian Locke from Visalia LA and Tulare, CA were thrilled to release seven striped marlin aboard “Kathy Too” five miles off of the Lighthouse. “Felina” fished this same area two days later and also scored seven stripers. There were numerous boats that had three and four fish days too, but not everybody was luckY. It was frustrating for those anglers that saw fish, threw bait at them, enticed them with lures, but still couldn’t get a hook up. Fishing started off close to Cabo around the old lighthouse, when on any given day you could see upwards of fifty boats bunched up in small area; but as the week progressed fishing spread out more and ended up at the Golden Gate area. Our overall catch success rate this week for all species combined was eighty-nine percent (sorry for the other eleven percent that drew a blank, but that’s the way it goes sometimes). Seventy-nine percent of charters fought striped marlin. Pisces anglers caught a total of 142 striped marlin, of which all but four were released.

OTHER SPECIES:
Not a great deal going on with smaller game, but that’s to be expected at this time of year. Nevertheless twenty-seven percent of charters did catch dorado, usually whilst trolling for marlin. The average catch was one or two fish and occasionally up to five; “Andrea” did have one outstanding day on this species, with a total of eleven between 15 and 25 lbs on the outer edge of Golden Gate. Yellow fin tuna catches were very slow with just a couple of boats finding them. Keith and Barb Mehlenbacher from Fir Crest, WA , were the tuna champs this week, fishing aboard “Karina” they had fun catching sixteen in the 12 to 20 lb class, as well as a dorado, again on the outer limit of the Golden Gate. We did hear of long range boats doing well at the Hurricane Bank, with many fish over 200 lbs. Just a few wahoo around the 40 lb mark. As mentioned above, Mako sharks were found at Golden Gate but were not numerous – they were caught on bait that was weighted, intended for marlin, on the bottom. Inshore pangas caught a few roosters, skipjacks and the odd dorado and sierra.