Mostly Sea of Cortez 95 spot, 11.50 spot, Cerro Colorado, Punta Gorda, Destiladeres
September 9th to September 15th, 2005

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Hot, clear sunny skies, calm seas, with some ground swell at the close of the week.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 86 F.
BEST LURES: Bait was a little scarce towards the end of the week and boats were taking caballito and pompano, sailfish and striped marlin preferred bait, whereas we had more blues on lures, with orange/black and guacamaya working well. Dorado and tuna took a combination of bait and lures.

BILLFISH
This week we again saw some very good billfish catches, with a mixture of striped marlin, sailfish, blue marlin and even a black marlin.

Sixty-six percent of boats out this week caught marlin or sailfish and our overall catch success rate for all species combined was a respectable ninety-one percent. We had numerous catches worthy of mention this week. It was common to have multiple billfish days – the majority of catches weren’t of one marlin, but rather, two or more billfish. On September 9th, Belinda McDonald, Ken Mitzel and Michelle Shultz, from Atlanta, were out on “Rebecca” and managed to release five sailfish, at the 11.50 spot, all on live bait. This same day “Sundancer” fished the Jaime Bank on the Pacific with a group from Las Vegas, they were fortunate to hook a blue marlin that was close to 300 lbs and then go on to fight a black marlin of approximately 500 lbs – both fish were released. A couple of days later “La Brisa” had a grand slam for the Marmortein boys from Los Angeles with a blue marlin, striped marlin and a sailfish caught and released off of Cerro Colorado.

Kevin Stivers from Ellerbe, N.C fished this same area the next day aboard “Tracy Ann” was very fortunate to catch three striped marlin and one sailfish, unfortunately one of the stripers died, the other fish were released successfully. Terry Savage & Jerry Newcombe from Washington state had a different boat over three days, but managed to release three blues and two sails, as well as landing a couple of dorado. Mark Inglese found luck with “La Brisa’ on the 14th, releasing two striped marlin and two sailfish at the 11.50 spot. To close out the week “Tracy Ann” released three striped marlin and two sailfish on the 15th for Chris & Ann Lofton and Jeff & Veronica St John, all from Harlingen, Texas. Pisces anglers caught a total of 85 billfish this week, consisting of 47 striped marlin, 29 sailfish, 8 blue marlin and one black marlin.

OTHER SPECIES:
Not a great deal going on with smaller game, however twenty-three percent of charters did catch yellowfin tuna. Most were of average size at 10 to 30 lbs, with no one set location, but they were more often found on the Cortez side. “Sundance” was the only boat to land a big tuna, which was 150 lbs caught 22 miles off of the Old Lighthouse on the Pacific. Dorado catches have not been what we expected so far this summer, in fact, numbers for this species are way off, nevertheless seventeen percent of our boats did catch dorado, with the average weight between 10 and 20 lbs, from time to time a fish close to 40 lbs was also caught. The average catch was no more than one or two per boat, with live bait working best. Just one 30 lb wahoo for us this week. Inshore just a few skipjacks and occasionally a red snapper.