Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Capt. Tracy Ehrenberg
August 22, 2003
Cabo San Lucas - Saltwater Fishing Report

August 14th to 21st, 2003 BILLFISH: Not many anglers visited Cabo this past week, which is reflected in the lower catch rates. However some people did outstandingly well; James Karuskopf from Livingston, Texas was fortunate to hook three blue marlin aboard “Valerie” on August 20th as well as a sailfish – one of the blues died and was brought to the dock weighing in at 280 lbs. Raymond Bihn & Ed Metzger from Ohio and Maryland respectively were kept busy this same day aboard “Tracy Ann” with a sizeable blue, hooked just three miles out from Cabo and then strangely, fourteen large squid that attacked the lures, weighing between 15 and 30 lbs, as well as a yellowfin tuna. “La Brisa” had two blue marlin releases on the 17th for Brandon Ferringo & Bill McCarthy from California, this time ten miles out from the Old Lighthouse. Boats had a bit of a hard time finding out where the fish were as the location changed on a daily basis, however most of the action was on the Pacific which is unusual for this time of year. Notable this week was an absence of striped marlin, in fact we caught just one. It looks like we have a good blue marlin season ahead of us, based on what has been caught in the last two weeks. Not everybody was lucky, in fact quite a few boats were “skunked” or had just one small game fish, resulting in an overall catch success rate of seventy-four percent, down by twenty percent from last week. The success rate for billfish was thirty-one percent. Pisces anglers caught a total of twelve blue marlin, with ten released, one striper released and four sailfish all released. OTHER SPECIES: Yellowfin tuna dominated the action this past week, though they were not as numerous as the previous seven days - William Shaddock (see photo) loaded up on these last week with twenty plus fish on Tracy Ann over two days- catches ranged from three to an average of six in the 25 to 35 lb class. Top producer was Seamint with 18 on August 16th. The largest tuna this week was taken by San Diego angler, Mike Wellman, weighing in at 180 lbs – this fish took a red and white marlin lure 16 miles out from Cabo and took him 2 hours and 45 minutes to land on 60 lb test, aboard “Ruthless”, they also landed seven smaller fish. Dorado catches were steady, but not numerous, with every third boat or so catching one or two up to 40 lbs. Skipjacks are now being caught closer to shore and there was the odd wahoo here and there, but not much bigger than 40 lbs. Inshore action was slow, forcing most pangas to try their luck further out. LOCATION: San Jaime to Chileno, with the Old Lighthouse the most productive area, from 3 to 30 miles offshore. WEATHER CONDITIONS : Partly cloudy, rain twice, lasting no more than 15 minutes, seas calm. AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 82 F BEST LURES: Live bait became scarce towards the end of the week, but most fish were taking lures anyway –red/white, green/yellow, purple/black. Based on the catches of Pisces Fleet by Tracy Ehrenberg .

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