95 spot, 11.50 spot, Los Arcos, Pozo de Cota, the Old Lighthouse at the close of the week

September 3rd to 7th, 2006

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Hot, humid, sporadic rain, seas calm

AVERAGE WATER TEMP:

BEST LURES: Live bait, feathers, small assorted marlin lures

BILLFISH
We have a much shorter report this week due to the port being closed last Friday and Saturday and very few boats fishing throughout the week. This was due to hurricane John and the projections for it to make a direct hit on Cabo. Anglers cancelled their trips en masse and hotels redirected them to other resorts. Airlines did not fly in or out of Cabo for two days either. However, thankfully we only got winds to 35 mph early on Saturday plus rain, in fact we had rain nearly every day this week, turning Cabo into a Hawaii look-alike. After the stormy weather boats were on an exploratory mission to see where the fish would be. It was almost a given that dorado would appear due to debris in the water but billfish are a bit more tricky. First day we fished was the 3rd and the only boat to get a marlin to stick was “Ni Modo” with a striped released at the 95 spot as well as a dorado boated. Other boats saw quite a few marlin and sailfish but couldn’t get any serious hook ups. On September 5th both Adriana and Andrea released a blue marlin each, both at the 95 spot too, both fish were around 200 lbs. The following few days there were striped marlin caught for every third or fourth boat, right now there are more dorado and tuna than billfish. Our overall catch success rate this week for all species combined was ninety percent, with twenty three percent of charters catching billfish. Pisces anglers caught a total of eleven striped marlin, two blue marlin and one sailfish, all but two marlin were released.

OTHER SPECIES:
Dorado is king in Cabo right now with fifty seven percent of charters catching between one and fifteen fish between 12 and 35 lbs. There were found pretty close to Cabo at the end of the week at Los Arcos and also two to three miles off of the Old Lighthouse earlier in the week they were found at the 95 and 11.50 spot, preferring live bait at this time. Thirty four percent of charters caught yellowfin tuna, with catches of between one and eight fish – weights were from 15 to 100 lbs. Mike and Beth Fraser from Louisiana landed four fish from 40 to 100 lbs aboard “Valerie” on September 5th at the 95 spot. This day out the majority of our boats fished this area and all caught tuna as well as the odd blue or striped marlin. We had just a couple of wahoo again this week, small at 30 to 40 lbs.