August 7th-14th

OVERALL CATCH SUCCESS RATE 70%

BILLFISH: We saw a marked improvement this week, as the weather finally turned into a true Cabo summer – the kind where you immediately begin to sweat when you walk outside. Conditions right now are perfect with hot, mostly clear skies and calm seas even on the Pacific. Our overall catch success rate was up this week ten percent from last week. Although we did not have any blue marlin, we did have fairly good numbers of sailfish and striped marlin.

Boats fished predominantly on the Pacific up as far as Golden Gate, though some did catch fish on the Cortez near Santa Maria. Paul Findlow and Wayne Moores from England fished aboard “La Brisa on August 10th. While other boats raced to Golden Gate, the “La Brisa” captain chose to stay closer to La Margaritas and Cabeza de Ballena, resulting in two sailfish and one striped marlin released. The next day at Golden Gate, the “Tracy Ann” released two sailfish, a striped marlin and boated a dorado and yellowfin tuna for a group from Southern California. The same day “Adriana” fishing in the opposite direction with David, Andrew and Melanie Kearns from Shropshire, England released two striped marlin and a sailfish.

So, the Europeans did well this week. We also had Julian Calderon from Madrid, Spain who released two striped marlin and a sailfish and boated a dorado aboard “Ruthless” at the Golden Gate on August 12th. Pisces anglers caught a total of 42 billfish this week consisting of 32 striped marlin and 10 sailfish, all released.

By the way we heard of another huge blue marlin, over 800 lbs caught at the East Cape, but are trying to verify the information.

OTHER SPECIES: Billfish really were the main item this week in Cabo, but dorado and yellowfin tuna gave a fair showing as well. Yellowfin tuna is where we saw the biggest increase with forty four percent of charters catching between one and thirteen fish in a day. Sizes were average at 15 to 35 lbs. Top tuna catch was Johnny and Stacy Powers, fishing on Stacy’s birthday, August 8th aboard “Bill Collector”, where they surprised Stacy with cake and champagne….and by catching thirteen tuna! Thirty percent of boats caught dorado but the catches occurred while trolling for marlin, usually one or two fish only in the 20 to 40 lb class.

LOCATION: Golden Gate, San Jaime, Cabeza de Ballena.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Hot, partly cloudy, seas calm with the exception of a couple of days when there were whitecaps on the way back from the Pacific. Daytime air temps in the high 90s.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 85F

BEST LURES: Live bait was scarce this week, but what worked best, dorado on assorted lures, tuna on cedar plugs.

Based on the catches of the Pisces Fleet