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Pacific, Old Lighthouse to Finger Bank
November 18th to November 24th, 2005
WEATHER CONDITIONS: We had beautiful conditions,
up to the end of the week, when it got windy on the Pacific
making it a bit bumpy
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 77 F.
BEST LURES: Live bait.
BILLFISH
An absolutely fantastic week for striped marlin
fishing, with perhaps our highest catch rates ever. Pisces
anglers reeled in a whopping 233 stripers of which 229 were
released. Eighty five percent of charters were able to hook
up to marlin in the 115 to 180 lbs range, with pretty much
all the fish taking live bait. Fish were found from the Old
Lighthouse to the finger Banks, with the top two locations
Golden Gate and the Finger Banks. Notable catches were achieved
every day such as 12 marlin released aboard “Libre”
on the 21st, by Eric Korensold\, John Dorsey and Rick Beckley
from Chandler, Az. This same day ”Blue Thunder”
released an amazing 20 stripers for the Fornos family from
San Francisco – this was not the only high marlin day
for this boat, earlier in the week, on the 19th, they released
15 fish for another group. On this same day “Felina”
had an outstanding day at the Finger Bank for Scott Meriman
and friends from Colorado; they released 15 striped marlin,
as well as two mako sharks and boated 14 dorado. “Tracy
Ann” released 11 on November 20th for Bill McCormick
from Pennsylvania and Mike Shillingsford from N.J and also
caught a 250 lb blue marlin fir Mike Gardner from Sugarland,
Tx. “C Rod” had a couple of 8 fish days, and several
other boats had up to a half dozen. Despite these big numbers
there were a few boats here and there that did get skunked,
buy overall it was a hugely successful week. Our overall catch
success rates for all species combined was 91%.
OTHER SPECIES:
After marlin dorado were the most commonly caught
species, with 31% of charters finding fish in the 15 to 40
lb class. Catches were between one and four fish per boat
when found. Yellowfin tuna catches were slow, but then again,
everybody was rushing up the Pacific to take advantage of
the marlin bite. Lavon Colbert has fished Cabo for years and
has more than his fair share of marlin, so he asked the captain
of “Andrea” to try for tuna, they headed out straight
from Land’s End, about 20 miles and found a school that
they were able to load up on, resulting in over 20 fish in
the 15 to 30 lb class. There were a few other tuna catches,
but only 5% of boats found yellowfin. It was nice to see a
few sharks being caught both Makos up to 50 lbs and a hammerhead,
all were released. Any sharks caught should be released, as
they have become very rare in our waters. Inshore pangas caught
roosterfish, skipjacks and the odd stray dorado.
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