Friday, February 19, 2010

LASTEST FISHING NEWS

FEBRUARY 9th to 17th, 2010

Overall Catch Success Rate 84%

BILLFISH: The season is ahead of itself now, with March type fishing already here, all we need are for the red snapper to start biting and it will really be like March. In the meantime billfish catches have been on the slow side with just twenty percent of boats finding and hooking up to them. Our boats caught a total of thirteen striped marlin this week, not that great, unless you were the lucky angler that got to pull one in. "Tracy Ann" was our best marlin boat, releasing two on February 9th plus three dorado for Marrott & Collin Gardner from Alamosa,. They fished quite a way up the Sea of Cortez at Destiladeras, which is a good run and not something you can do on a half day. Both marlin took live mackerel as did the dorado a little before they reached the marlin location. A few day later, "Tracy Ann" scored again with two marlin on February 13th for Brian Dunn from Palm Beach, Florida and Billy Mayne from Milton, Florida, they also got a dorado; both marlin took live bait at the same location mentioned and the dorado took a petrolero lure. Although Tracy Ann did well at this location other marlin catches were in different locations, such as the 11.50 spot and, 30 miles south of Cabo and 15 miles out from Todos Santos and five miles out from Cabo Bello. "C-Rod" got our only sailfish of the week, also at Destiladeras were they managed to boat a dorado and six skipjacks also for Tim Maciejak from New Albany, Indiana. All billfish were released this week.

OTHER SPECIES: The number one catch in Cabo this week was sierra, with our boats loading up on a total of 300 fish up to 12 lbs. When the marlin fishing could not be guaranteed, many anglers opted for fun and a more sure catch with this Spanish mackerel like fish. On light tackle they are a good fight and are absolutely delicious to eat. Many were thrown back as some catches were ridiculous like 45 aboard "Tracy Ann", for the Hillberg's and Knights from Puyallup, Washington; they also caught eight roosterfish and two dorado at the outer part of Golden Gate on the Pacific. "Rebecca" had 35 sierras at the same spot for David Pedrsen from Palmdale, California. "Bandito" caught a fair size mako shark that was estimated at 80 lbs on February 12th close to Golden Gate for Josh Stokley from Birmingham, Alabama. We had a couple of other mako's released, but this was the largest. Two wahoo were caught, both on the small side at 19 and 22 lbs respectively. Roosterfish catches were the best we have seen in a long time with catches of up to eight fish in the 10 to 30 lb class. The odd cabrilla, yellowtail and fair catches of skipjack were also had. The yellow fin tuna have moved on and we had just one this week.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Skies party cloudy, no clear, rain one day, seas calm.

LOCATION: No one set place, Sea of Cortez, Pacific, Destiladeras, Golden Gate, Elias Calles, from Cabeza de Ballena to the Old Lighthouse three to four miles out.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 74 F (this is higher than normal for this time of year, it should be 70 F)

BEST LURES: Live bait, petrolero, trigrillo.

Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg