January 14th to 20th, 2005 Weekly Fish Report BILLFISH: Another excellent week here in Cabo, with an overall success rate of ninety-two percent for all species combined, which means just a few boats got “skunked”, even then, these boats saw fish, but just couldn’t find one hungry enough to bite. Striped marlin dominated with several boats having three to five fish in one day as well as smaller game. Francis and Daniel Ryan from Armenia , New York , had multiple hook-ups on January 15th aboard “ Adriana ” releasing a total of five stripers at the Golden Gate . Next day out “Ni Modo” had four for Scott Abercrombie. Steve Rhodes fishing with Stanley Ross and Louis Fiore, all from New York has a great four days aboard “ Adriana ”; they totaled eight striped marlin, three dorado, one yellowfin tuna, two hammerhead sharks, a sea bass and 45 lb roosterfish…..they went home very happy. “Karina” had a quadruple marlin day for James Cushman and friends from Colorado on the 18th and “Valerie” followed up with a four marlin day this time, for Steven Rama and buddies on the 20th. As we approach full moon we expect that the bite will slow somewhat, as the marlin will be feeding during the nighttime, also we have been seeing quite a lot of squid in the area, which is a marlin food staple. However, right now the bite remains on. Most of the fish this week took live bait and fishing concentrated between Golden Gate and Land’s End . Pisces anglers caught a total of one hundred and six striped marlin this week, with just one fish boated the rest released. We also released a solitary sailfish. Seventy-nine percent of charters caught marlin. OTHER SPECIES: It’s nice to see the boats catching sharks; we went through several years, where we hardly saw any as they fell prey to commercial fishing boats, right now though, we are seeing and catching Mako’s and hammerheads, as well as the odd thresher here and there. Thankfully pretty much all of the sharks are being released. The weight on the Mako’s is averaging 70 lbs, and not much more on the hammerheads. We were pleasantly surprised by an influx of yellowfin tuna, this is not to say that catches were great – only fifteen percent of boats caught them – but there was some size to them; “Karina” boated a 100 lb fish for Harry Culver from Texas on the 16th . When found, between the Old Lighthouse and Golden Gate boats averaged a half dozen each, with some getting up to 15 in the 30 lb – 50 lb class. Dorado catches were a little higher with nineteen percent of charters catching fish around the 18 to 25 lb mark, but the catches were seldom more than one or two. Just one smallish wahoo for us at 28 lbs and inshore on the slow side, but some sierras, roosters and skipjacks. LOCATION: Golden Gate to Land’s End on the Pacific. WEATHER CONDITIONS: Skies partly cloudy, seas mostly calm, day time temps low 80’s, nighttime temps low 70’s, 66 just before dawn. AVERAGE WATER TEMP. 74 F BEST LURES: Live bait.