October 29-November 10, 2009

OVERALL CATCH SUCCESS RATE 96%

BILLFISH: Right now the weather is warmer than it should be for November, and it appears as if the season is about three to four weeks behind what it should be. Many of you may recall that last November was a record breaking one for us, with an incredible number of striped marlin, 2050 in fact, for Pisces in this month alone. That is not the situation this year but we are still having fantastic fishing but more along the lines of what we normally catch in October. So if all goes as we think it will, late November or December will see an explosion in striped marlin catches.

We are not complaining though, this last period produced the biggest blue marlin we have caught all year, just a week late for the big tournaments. The weekend after the Bisbee tournament, “Andale” had a 475 lb blue marlin and seven dorado at the Golden Gate for Ron McCall and friends from Baton Rouge, LA. The next day out, “Attitude Adjustment” fished just beyond the Golden Gate and landed a large blue which, though not officially weighed, was calculated at 550 to 600 lbs, as well as five dorado for Marsha & Stacy Steward, Ken Hoffman & Sheryl Johnson, all from IL. This same boat had a 250 lb blue, a striped marlin, 15 tuna and a dorado later in the week for Donny McVelfy & friends from Parker, CO.

Other boats that released blue marlin between 200 and 300 lbs later in the week were “Falcon”, “Tracy Ann” and “Bandito.” With the IGFA World Offshore Championship currently underway, boats were eager to start practicing for striped marlin for this all-release billfish tournament. On November 4th, “Tracy Ann” released four striped marlin off of Los Arcos for Jeremiah & Tess Hawkins from Des Plains, IL. “Bill Collector,” fishing this same area, released six striped marlin and got four dorado for Sandro Onofaro and friends from Rome, Italy – a team practicing for the IGFA event. There were other boats that also had up to three marlin in a day plus some sailfish. Despite these great catches, the marlin bite could be better; there are plenty of fish, but they are dorado and tuna. Twenty nine percent of charters caught billfish this week consisting of 53 striped marlin, six blue marlin and four sailfish.

OTHER SPECIES: This period saw the 11th Annual Western Outdoor News Jackpot Tuna Tournament take place. This was a hugely successful event with 104 teams participating, the only tournament in California and Baja to see growth in what is considered a slow year all around. This fun event is a tournament accessible to anyone, with a reasonable $700 entry fee and optional daily jackpots, plus you don’t need a fancy boat and the rules are flexible so you don’t have to worry about somebody touching your line, or handing the rod to a friend if you get tired.

The weather was perfect on the first day, November 5th, and you could feel the anticipation and certainty that big fish were going to be caught. We got a call from one of the boats at 10:30 on the first day, Oscar Daccarrett, aboard “Fisherman” called to say that his team had a big fish on at the Gordo Banks. He said “at least 300 lbs”, but then decided to hang up rather than jinx himself and said he would call back when they had it on board. Forty minutes later he called back to tell me they had it on board and that he thought it would surpass the current tournament record of 318 lbs. This was great news as Costa Del Mar sunglasses, one of the sponsors said they would give a bonus prize of $50,000.00 to anybody beating the tournament record. “Fisherman” was the first boat to the scale when it opened at 2:00 pm and nobody was prepared for the monster fish that they had on board. When hoisted up the electronic scale registered an amazing 383 lbs! This is just 5 lbs under the all-tackle world record, making it the largest tuna caught not only in Los Cabos, but in the whole of Mexico. It was 74” long and had a girth of 62”. Everybody knew this would be a tough fish to beat, but team “Fisherman” was not in all of the jackpots so there was still a shot at prize money and, of course, the wahoo/dorado division which ended up being won by our very own “Ruthless” with a 61.2 lb wahoo. The prizes were distributed as follows:

A great time was had by all and the event was honored by the Governor's presence along with other dignitaries - the first time he has attended a tournament awards banquet.

Dorado catches were number one this week with eighty five percent of boats catching from one to twenty with weights ranging from 15 to 35 lbs. The total dorado count for this period for Pisces was 591 fish caught, with many smaller ones released. Tuna catches were slower with twenty five percent of charters catching between one and fifteen in a day, the average size being 25 lbs. “Bill Collector” did have a very nice tuna four days before the tournament a 220 lb fish caught just two miles off of the Old Lighthouse on a green and yellow lure for Gary Geringer from Wichita Kansas. It was a good week for wahoo, with “La Brisa” catching four in a day for Walt Wade from Temecula, CA, going after the wahoo prize in the tournament, but just edged out by “Ruthless.” Weights on wahoo were fairly small with most under 40 lbs. We also had some roosterfish up to 20 lbs and a few amberjacks.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Beautiful, clear sunny skies, calm seas.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 80 F.

LOCATION: Mostly Pacific from Los Arcos to Golden Gate and Punta Gorda on the Cortez side for big tuna.

BEST LURES: Green/yellow, live bait, rapalas.

Based on the catches of the Pisces Fleet