Land’s end to Golden Gate, Finger Banks
December 2nd to December 8th, 2005

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Clear, sunny skies, seas calm

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 74 F.

BEST LURES: Live bait.

BILLFISH
Another excellent week for striped marlin here in Cabo, though catch rates may seem a little lower, this is due to less anglers being in town. Although some boats still went to the Finger Banks, there were plenty of marlin close to Cabo, at Golden Gate and at the close of the week fish were being caught as close as two miles off of the Old Lighthouse. Once again this week live mackerel was the most effective bait for marlin and boats fished exclusively on the Pacific. Our anglers of the week were Kathy & Keith Nicholson from Cape Coral, Florida; this was not something they had done before, but by the end of the day the crew of “Valerie” had turned them into pro’s catching and releasing sixteen striped marlin. Another group that did very well was the Gonzalez family from Mexico City who totaled ten striped marlin and two dorado aboard “Happy Boy”. Congratulations are in order for Matt Franceschi from California for releasing his first marlin aboard “Karina” as well as a dorado; unfortunately the photos got erased from the camera, but they should believe you now. The odd boat here and there did get “skunked”, but even then, they did as least see marlin and throw bait. Our overall catch success rate for all species combined was ninety-three percent. Seventy-eight percent of anglers caught striped marlin. We caught a total of 117 striped marlin of which 113 were released.

OTHER SPECIES:
It was nice to see a surge in yellowfin tuna catches this week, with twenty-seven percent of charters catching between one and twenty-five fish in the 20 to 80 lb class. The tuna were found between 20 and 30 miles offshore between the 180 spot and the Old Lighthouse. R.J Marak has successfully fished Cabo for the past ten years – this week he was here with Christ Uvick and they did extremely well to catch 23 tuna and a striped marlin, aboard “La Brisa” -both anglers are from Houston, Texas.

Dorado catches dropped off this week with eighteen percent of boats landing dorado in the 20 to 50 lb class; catches were seldom more than one fish.

Inshore there were a few roosters and sierras, we also released a small Mako shark.