April 23rd to 28th, 2009 Overall Catch Success Rate 88% BILLFISH: Things are beginning to finally look up on the striped marlin front, but only just. "C Rod" this week however, did manage to release three marlin on April 28th 20 miles out from Cerro Colorado for Yvette & Elliot Bailey from Albuquerque and Noel Carte from Nevada. This same day we were thrilled that Andy Atkins from London, England was able to catch his first marlin aboard "Tracy Ann" as well as four dorado. Our anglers caught a total of ten striped marlin this week which gave us a billfish catch rate of twenty five percent. We also heard of the only swordfish of the year so far caught last week aboard Bandido by Canadian angler Ken Crowell from Kitchener, Ontario. The fish weighed 178 lb and was caught 23 miles out in front of the Riu Hotel on a live caballito; the deckhand broke the back of the bait fish before casting to the sunning swordfish, taking 40 minutes to boat- great catch especially as Ken had fought a marlin for an hour and a half before the line got wrapped on the propeller and cut it off and then they saw the swordie…. Of course with the swine flu scare we have had a lot of cancellations, which is a shame as the weather is beautiful the fishing is on the up and up and there is not one case of it in our state, in fact if you look at the Google swine flu map you are better off here than many places in the U.S.A….so far there have been 90 confirmed cases in the country, mostly in Mexico City. Seeing as we are geographically isolated and the flights coming from the U.S don't go through there, we are all feeling confident and are not overly concerned. It is reported that 36,000 people a year die from regular flu in the U.S.A, this whole things seems rather exaggerated. OTHER SPECIES: As mentioned last week the yellow fin tuna have shown up giving us a catch rate of forty seven percent on football size fish, with catches as high as 40 fish (La Brisa) in a day with many of the smaller ones released. Catches generally ranged from one to twenty five fish around the San Jaime and straight out from Land's End. Feathers, cedar plugs and lures all worked on the tuna. Dorado catches were fair with twenty five percent of boats catching usually just a single fish. Inshore boats skipjack were the most plentiful fish as well as a few of large squid up to 35 lbs, still hanging around. One mako shark was caught. WEATHER CONDITIONS: It is still hovering between winter and spring and can't seem to make up its mind, but overall sunny skies, mostly calm seas, chop on the Pacific in the afternoons. LOCATION: San Jaime, off of Land's End, Chileno, Old Lighthouse. AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 68 -71 F BEST LURES: Live bait, cedar plugs, feathers, white blue, green, orange. Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg Here's Pancho, welcoming the anglers from their trip, and of course, he needs to run a quality control before you can take your catch. {%image_id=9309%}