11.50 spot to Destiladeres, with Gordo Banks being a hot area.

May 5th to May 11th, 2006

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Skies partially cloudy, windy, cooler than normal for this time of year. Seas rough around Cabo, better up into the Sea of Cortez

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 72 F.

BEST LURES: Live bait

BILLFISH
Of course the highlight of this past week was the Rolex IGFA World Offshore Championship. This tournament is much anticipated every year, due to it’s fair format. This is an invitational tournament only. To enter your team needs to have won a qualifying event in any of the 40 countries that participate. This year 64 teams from places as far a field as Angola, Papua New Guinea and Croatia along with teams from the U.S and came to Cabo to try and claim the title of world champions. The format of this tournament is strict IGFA rules, which means nobody can touch the anglers tackle whilst fighting a fish, Momoi 30 lb test line is the only line that can be used and circle hooks are stipulated. Anglers do not get to pick which boat they fish on. Local boats are used and the anglers are allocated a different boat each day – the very best thing about this tournament is that it is strictly release on all billfish. Over the four-day event a total of 473 striped marlin were released. For the first time the defending champs again took first place, beating out the competition by releasing ten marlin on their final day and giving them an overall total of 24 marlin released. The winning team represent the Mayor’s Cup from Miami Florida with Ray and Charmain Rosher from Miami, as anglers along with Tom Schramm and Scott Segal from Chicago Second place went to the Bermuda team with 15 marlin and third place to TAA Eastcape for 14 marlin released. In other news in regular fishing our anglers enjoyed an overall catch success rate of eighty three percent with sixty five percent of boats catching striped marlin. Live bait was definitely the ticket in getting them to bite and the area between 11.50 spot and Punta Gorda was most productive. “C Rod” was one of our top boats, releasing seven marlin on the 11th of May during the tournament. “Ni Modo”, “Valerie” and “Tracy Ann” all had five fish days during this week too. Pisces anglers caught a total of 97 striped marlin of which 94 were released. Weights on the fish are from 110 to 160 lbs

OTHER SPECIES:
Not a whole lot going however, twenty one percent of boats did find tuna of school size. There was one large tuna at 117 lbs aboard Fish Cabo. “C Rod” did have ten yellowfins around the 20 lb mark, along with a striped marlin 13 miles in front of San Jose, for Bob Giles from Lafayette, LA. Dorado catches were a bit slower at nineteen percent and all the catches were just an odd fish picked up whilst trolling –weights from 15 to 25 lbs. Very few wahoo between 25 and 45 lbs. Inshore good sierra catches, plus some bonitas and jack crevalle.