Cabo san lucas
December 10th to December 17th, 2004

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Skies mostly clear, turning overcast at the end of the week, seas calm. Weather is a lot warmer than usual for this time of year.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 75 F
BEST LURES: Live bait.

BILLFISH
Another excellent week in Cabo for striped marlin…….eighty five percent of charters were able to hook into stripers in the 90 to 160 lb class. Top angler again this week was Teddy Baer from the Florida Keys for releasing six fish at the Jamie Bank on December 11th aboard “Valerie”. He wasn’t the only lucky one, Hap Burnett from Lake Havasu, Az, released five striped marlin and also boated an 80 lb wahoo and a couple of dorados aboard “Ni Modo” on the 16th. We had several anglers that had quadruple days, especially on the 14th aboard “La Brisa” , “Ruthless”, “Rebecca” & “Valerie” – all of these boats fished off of the Old Lighthouse from two to fifteen miles offshore. Ronald Smothers from Los Angeles was very pleased to release five stripers aboard “Adriana” on the 13th. The marlin took live bait almost exclusively. Pisces anglers caught a total of one hundred and three striped marlin this week, of which ninety nine were released…..great by anyone’s standards. Our overall catch success rate for all species combined was a healthy ninety one percent.

OTHER SPECIES:
Not a great deal on smaller game, unless you like sierra a lot; inshore pangas had fun on light tackle and could catch and release up to 35 in a morning as well as the odd roosterfish here and there. It was nice to see some big wahoo this week, there weren’t many but those that were caught were large. There were a couple of fish that made the 100 lb mark, both caught the same day. First up was landed by Scott Trevey from Arizona aboard “Libre” the other was taken by Clint Small from Texas on “Tracy Ann”. Dorado catches slowed considerably ; with just twelve percent of charters catching fish around the 20 lb mark. Catches were no more than one or two fish when found. Yellowfin tuna was even slower, with just five percent of outings finding them – catches were usually one to four fish and one boat did manage to boat twelve. Weights are average at 15 to 25 lbs.