Z Fish Report (5/27/10)

The 80° blue water is just a couple of miles off the beach, and the action has been fairly steady for striped marlin, blue marlin, and a few sailfish. However, this is the time of year for these kind of results. It is hard to imagine, for the 30 calendar days starting about May 12, there can be better blue marlin fishing anywhere in the world, as compared to what we have here on this coast.             A few years back I made a study about our marlin fishing in May. The blue marlin out numbered the striped marlin by about 10 to 1, plus there were also a few blacks caught. The sport fishing fleet averaged 7.5 strikes a day, with almost 4 fish a day brought to leader. Historically during this time period, we average a blue marlin per boat, for every three days on the water.

         Plus, this was done by boats that were basically geared for sailfish, and found themselves sadly under equipped when the marlin hit. Some boats, like the See-Ya from Cabo San Lucas, spent the fuel money to get here to sample this action, and being they specifically targeted marlin, had a great month with 24 marlin brought to leader. Plus, there was an insignificant difference in fish caught between the pangas and the cruisers, proving the fish doesn’t care how fancy a boat you are on; only the hook in the corner of his mouth.
       For this last week, the super panga Huntress, with Captain Francisco, only caught 1 sail at the 16 mile mark, in what owner Mike Bulkley described as “beautiful blue water”, but had several marlin strikes also. The Huntress was handicapped by a couple of earthquakes the day before, which really hurts the fishing. Mike also told me there was a lot of the bait stealing bufeos (boo-fay-ohs) in the area. Almost identical, but much lager than a porpoise, they are false killer whales, near the top of the food chain, and can shut off a bite also.
       Santiago, on the super panga Gitana, says “fishing is good right now”. He fished three days with John Fuller of Chicago, with friends Ben and Sam, releasing 7 sailfish, and catching a 180 pound blue marlin. They also had 5 more sailfish and 2 striped marlin strikes, but missed them.
         Inshore action was tough this last week, as we had huge waves hit the coast from a storm several thousand miles away. The waves were actually washing up into the beachside restaurants, whose tables are on the sand. But, from tracking the waves on the internet, it sure brought in the surfers from all over the world.
Ed Kunze