Awesome week for Dorado
Capt. Tracy Ehrenberg
August 22, 2009
Cabo San Lucas - Saltwater Fishing Report
Overall Catch Success Rate 97.87%
BILLFISH: This week was still a bit slow on the marlin catch with 67.4% of the boats catching them.
We had the pleasure to meet MotoGP racer John Hopkins, he was fishing aboard the Valerie and caught two striped marlin, released one, unfortunately the other one died, the crew tried to revive him for over 20 minutes, but he was gone, it weighed 120lbs, they also caught 3 nice Dorados between 20 – 30 lbs. John started racing at the age of five and started on the dirt track, when his dad introduced him to the world of road racing at the age of 12, then he was discovered by the US Team Valvoline EMGO Susuki team owner John Ulrich.
From that, he became a professional MotoGP racer and has come top places on the MotoGP Championships and the AMA Formula Xtreme Championship.
Now going back to the fishing, the Tracy Ann caught most marlin in one day, released 7 stripeys on August 15th at the Golden Gate for Jessica & Robert Deal and Terri & Robert Marks from Virginia. Another good one was Andrea releasing 4 striped marlin and landed 10 yellow fin tunas and two dorados for Clint & Stacy Barnes from New Orleands, Louisiana, the tunas and dorados weighed between 10 to 15 lbs. The same day, La Brisa caught a 300 lbs Blue Marlin on lures at the Golden Gate, also released one striped marlin and landed one dorado for Dirk and Tricia Rachfall from British Columbia, Canada.
A total of 56 billfish were caught, 53 of them were released.
OTHER SPECIES: Tuna was very slow compared to last week, and Dorado started a bit slow, one or two per boat, but got a lot better by the end of the week, boats were catching 5 dorados, 8 dorados, but the Andrea caught 18 dorados and released 3 of them, and also released one striped marlin for the Robbins Family from Dana Point, CA. 90% of the boats came back with at least one dorado, only 13% of the boats came back with tuna.
We caught another weird fish, It was caught on August 14th aboard "La Brisa". They were fishing just below the Golden Gate on the Pacific and had already released two striped marlin, when they suddenly saw a sea lion with a fish in it's mouth, shaking its' head to try to kill it.....the sea lion managed to take a bite out of it (as seen in the photo...the underside) and what was left of the fish, swam towards the boat and the deckhand ran on to the bow and deftly gaffed it, as the confused sea lion, looked wildly around for its' dinner....out of the frying pan into the fire...out of the mouth of a sea lion, into the boat..... It is well known that sea lions can be pests, stealing anglers bait, or helping themselves to a tasty red snapper, dorado or small tuna as it is being reeled in...but this time the tables were turned, payback.
The deckhand Salvador Flores was familiar with the fish, as he is from further up the Baja near Lopez Mateos, he took the fish home to his family. According to him it is a soft, white meat similar to sea bass.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Sunny days in Cabo, really hot, weather temperature was between 97 to 102F. Seas were calm with a little bit of breeze in the afternoons.
LOCATION: Golden Gate, Jaime Banks, Gaspareño.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F
BEST LURES: Live bait, blue/white, petrolero, guacamayo.
Based on the catches of Pisces by Jorge Narro in Tracy's abcense.
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