PISCES WEEKLY FISH REPORT FEBRUARY 25TH TO MARCH 3RD, 2005 BILLFISH: Everybody was excited after last week’s outstanding catches, but as I mentioned I thought it was unusual to be so good right as March was about to start. As predicted we did see a fall on marlin catches, but we were still able to produce an overall catch success rate, for all species combined of seventy-four percent, with fifty-six percent catching marlin, down from eighty-two percent last week, which is quite a sharp drop. Still, some boats had outstanding days, whilst others got “skunked”; it usually wasn’t a case of not finding fish, but of finding the ones that were hungry. On February 26th “Ni Modo” scored big with six marlin released for Glenn Moss from Riverside, Ca. This same day “Valerie” had three stripers, plus one sailfish released for James Kauffman from Ann Arbor MI, fishing with friends from California, Freddie Randall, Rich Murray and Francesca de Fusco. Next day out “Rebecca” scored big with six striped marlin and one sailfish for Bryce Coleman from Roanoke Tx, fishing with Eric Kugle, Craig Reid and Mike Koelzer – all from Texas. This boat headed up the coast beyond San Jose to Destiladeres, which is about the farthest day charter boats go. “Valerie” again did well this same day releasing four in the same area fro Tom Fox and buddies from Grand Ledge, Mi. March is traditionally one of the slower months for marlin, due to falling water temperatures and colder weather and also they seem to be uninterested in food, (maybe it’s their mating season?). Pisces anglers caught a total of ninety-two striped marlin this week of which eighty-eight were released, along with two sailfish……not too shabby. OTHER SPECIES: Not a lot going on….the most exciting thing was when “Ruthless” returned with fourteen yellow fin tuna between 15 and 30 lbs, that they caught ten miles off of Pozo de Cota on February 28th. Otherwise just the odd, small tuna was caught here and there. However as we close this report, boats are finding tuna on the Pacific from the Old Lighthouse to Golden Gate in the 10 to 30 lb class, with catches of up to 11 fish, though we know this could move on any day. Dorado catches were very slow with just five fish for us – all picked up whilst trolling for marlin. “La Brisa’ did have a nice 50 lb wahoo, the only one of the week. Inshore lots of small roosters, plenty of red snapper and sierra. WEATHER CONDITIONS: Partly cloudy, seas calm to moderate. LOCATION: Destiladeres, Los Frailes, Palmilla, Golden Gate. BEST LURES: Live bait, purple/black, brown/cream. Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg