Gordo Banks to Golden Gate
October 21st to October 27th, 2005

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Clear, sunny skies, seas mostly calm on the Cortez tending to be choppy on the Pacific.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 81 F.
BEST LURES: Live bait, green/yellow, blue/white, tigrillo.

BILLFISH
This week saw the 25th Bisbee Tournament take place. Pickings were pretty slim for the field of 185 boats, as only nine fish were weighed in over 300 lbs. Results can be seen a the end of this report. In regular fishing news, we saw very decent catches of striped marlin as well as a few late season blues and sailfish. Overall fifty-four percent of our charters caught billfish. The week started out well for Robert Bonvito and Charles Gragg from Pleasanton, Ca, as they released three striped marlin, just two miles off of Pozo de Cota on the Pacific, they also landed a nice dorado,aboard “Adriana”. Just one day before “Blue Thunder”, a beautiful 60 ft Hatteras had an outstanding day releasing a blue marlin, a sailfish and three striped marlin on the Cortez side (they weren’t saying where, just a a few days before the Bisbee). On the 25th, “Happy Boy” had a great pre-fish day for Mike Hall and friends, releasing a blue, a striped and a sail, close to Cabeza de Ballena. To round out the week “Rebecca” released three striped marlin and landed a dorado for Stacey & Steven Roxberg from Mound, Minn. Boats fished both side and used both lures and bait. The stripers tended to prefer live bait, whilst the blues hit on lures. Pisces anglers caught a total of seventy one billfish this week consisting of 67 striped marlin, 2 blues and 2 sails, all but two stripers were releaed. Average weight on the striped marlin was 120 lbs.

OTHER SPECIES:
Dorado was king in Cabo this week with sixty-two percent of charters landing fish in the 15 to 30 lb class, the average catch was two to four fish per boat –found over a widespread area on both the Pacific and Cortez. Tuna catches were not that great, but then again, most captains were concentrating on billfish. We know that there are big tuna out there; a record 303 lb yellowfin was taken during the Bisbee. Wahoo catches were on the slow side with just a few fish between 40 and 60 lbs. Inshore pangas, caught nice roosters, skipjacks and bonita.