BILLFISH: An excellent week for fishing here in Cabo, with a
variety of fish, not usually expected at this time of year. Water
temperatures are beginning to rise and the fishing thermometer is
climbing too. We were fortunate to have fair numbers of striped
marlin this week, with a catch success rate of fifty one percent for
billfish, however anglers were kept busy even when they weren’t
catching marlin, by huge schools of tuna. Catches got better towards
the end of this period and catch of the week had to go to Herb
Skinner from Savannah, Georgia, who fished aboard “Fearless” with
Captain Benito Agundez on April 24th. Herb released an approximate
100 lb swordfish, as well as a striped marlin and caught 15
yellowfin tuna, all at the Punta Gorda area. On April 28th Kipp and
Hallie Howard from Kansas City, were fishing with Justin and Tara
Andrews from Minneapolis, aboard “Ruthless” and were very fortunate
to release six striped marlin at Destiladeras, on the Cortez side. A
couple of days later the Hamm family from Vancouver, Canada, also
released six marlin aboard “Bill Collector”, all on live bait at
Punta Gorda. This same day “ Cabolero” released five in the same
area for a group from Texas. Todd Williams from Tulsa, Oklahoma,
caught a large striped marlin, which weighed 200 lbs aboard
“Falcon”, just five miles off of Land’s End on April 22nd; he also
caught nine tuna. Pisces anglers caught a total of 73 striped marlin
of which all but one were released.
OTHER SPECIES: Tuna, tuna, tuna right off of Cabo, as close
as three miles…..sounds great, but this event brought the big guns
of commercial fishing right on our doorstep. For five days, large
super seiners preyed on our own backyard, scooping up thousands of
football size tuna. Just so you get a clear picture on one day we
counted NINETEEN super seiners, boats over 100 feet, dropping their
nets and working with a team of spotter helicopters. As you can
imagine locals were outraged. However the law does not consider tuna
a sport fish, but a commercial fish and tuna boats can fish anywhere
except within a conservation zone. We have a conservation zone that
runs from Land’s End to Cabo Pulmo and is about three miles wide.
But these tuna guys were professionals coming within 1 degree of the
conservation zone. At our request the Navy and Fish and Game went
out to inspect the boats and checked that they were using the gear
they were authorized and that their permit were in order. The report
was that yes, all was in order, but nevertheless it got local
people’s blood boiling. We did have good tuna catches despite the
seiners presence, but catches did drop off considerably after they
were in the area. Pisces anglers caught a total of 573 yellowfin
tuna in the 15 to 30 lb class. With some boats catching as many as
38 in a day (mostly released). Sixty five percent of charters caught
tuna. Dorado catches were pretty decent too, with thirty nine
percent of charters catching from one to three fish and more rarely
up to six. A lot of the dorado were found close in at two to five
miles. We had just one 45 lb wahoo this week and a quick spike on
the large squid, up to 25 lbs which soon dropped off again. Inshore
boats caught bonita, a few jack crevalle, roosters and sierra and
red snapper in lesser numbers.
LOCATION: Destiladeras, Punta Gorda, Cerro Colorado, 3-10
miles off of Land’s End.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Clear, sunny skies, seas calm on the
Cortez side, quite a bit of chop on the Pacific, foggy on the
Pacific early morning and evening.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 74 F
BEST LURES: Live bait for marlin, cedar plugs for lures,
assorted lures dorado.
