Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Capt. Tracy Ehrenberg
March 12, 2001
Cabo San Lucas - Saltwater Fishing Report

BILLFISH: I wish I could say that fishing was better, but then I wouldn’t be telling the truth. Boats again struggled to find marlin and when they did, most of the time they were not hungry. Lots of squid in the area at the moment, so they are probably gorging themselves on this. This is not to say that it was all bad this past week, we did have a total of twenty-six striped marlin, all of which were released - weights ranged from 120 to 180 lbs, but only a little over one quarter of the boats we sent out were lucky enough to get marlin. February 23rd was our best day, with half of our boats getting two striped marlin apiece and the others one each. Greg and Nancy Williams from Pensacola, Fl, did best, releasing two stripers and boating two fair size tuna, aboard “Tracy Ann”. Chad Boudreaux and Chris Davis from Texas were happy to release a fish each on “Adriana” this same day. On this our most productive day, the boats fished on the Pacific, off of the Old Lighthouse, Pozo de Cota and Los Arcos, with boats fishing 10 to 20 miles offshore. Rebecca was our top boat this week, catching and releasing five striped marlin, in less than ideal conditions. Weather is still pretty cold and the water is quite green in some place, which should produce some swordfish. Outlook is uncertain, but as the weather warms up we think the fishing will improve; we do have spectacular whale watching at the moment, which is of some consolation. Our overall catch success rate was low this week, at fifty-nine percent.

OTHER SPECIES: The most abundant fish in Cabo right now is sierra, also known as Spanish mackerel (see photo on our site www.piscessportfishing.com). A lot of boats are gearing down, to lighter tackle and landing plenty of these tasty fighters. Some captains are not willing to risk being “skunked” and take anglers inshore for fun on sierra, amberjack, roosterfish and red snapper. Boats averaged from 4 to 15 sierras each, ranging in size from 4 to 10 lbs. Red snapper and yellowtail were less numerous but were caught up to 10 lbs also. Boats opting for this kind of fishing were not disappointed and did well on light and spinning tackle. We had just one wahoo that was small at 25 lbs. A 70 lb Mako shark was released aboard Adriana on Feb. 27th. Dorado catches were slow with just the odd one picked up here and there whilst trolling; average weight is 25 lbs. About the same on yellowfin tuna.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: A strange thing happened this week, it rained all day on Thursday, March 1st. It rained from 4.00 am to 8.00 pm, the first rain I have seen like this in February in 17 years of living here. Boats out this day mostly caught sierra and the odd marlin here and there. Partly cloudy, still cool; air-temperatures in the 60’s in the mornings.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: Inshore 64-68, offshore 69-82 F

LOCATION: Old lighthouse, Los Arcos, moving to Red Hill on the Cortez side, Pacific side for small game.

BEST LURES: Live bait for marlin, dorado green type lures and petrolero, sierra and small game on Hoochi’s, Rapalas - roosters live bait, if you could stop the sierras from stealing it.

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