Cabo San Lucas - A Gamefishing Mecca

Offshore Adventure

If there is ever a destination where you should be guaranteed to catch a billfish, it is Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas. Editor of NZ Fishing News magazine, Grant Dixon recently co-hosted a readers’ trip where 16 anglers took this famous fishing base by storm...

Cabo San Lucas - A Gamefishing Mecca

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At just over two hours flying time from Los Angeles, American anglers have made Cabo San Lucas their own, but it was the turn of a bunch of Kiwis to set a hot pace in late May.

In conjunction with Tony Orton from Offshore Adventures, my wife Faith and I co-hosted a trip that many of the participating anglers are calling their best ever.

The previous year a small group of friends and I fished with Tony out of Cabo and had a taste of what the area could produce. Eighteen billfish were landed that trip, with our best day producing six marlin from eight bites after coming to grips with the tease-and-switch techniques. No wonder I wanted more of the same.

The party had been divided into four crews of four, and the plan was to rotate randomly through the four boats over five days of fishing.

A sweepstake had been organised with $50 per angler, paid out to the three top anglers on a most-billfish-caught basis. Tony’s other plan saw the anglers contribute, along with Offshore Adventures, to a US$1000 pool the boats would fish for. The charter boat catching the most fish would walk away with US$500, with second and third most successful crews taking US$300 and US$200 – carrots that we hoped would motivate the crews to produce their best efforts. 

Cabo claims to be the ‘striped marlin capital of the world’, and when it comes to numbers, few would argue. Thanks to Tony’s knowledge gained fishing out of Cabo as a professional skipper, he was able to secure not necessarily the biggest or most expensive boats, but the ones with solid reputations. Local knowledge is invaluable, and Tony could not have chosen better.

What transpired was some of the most exciting marlin fishing most of us had ever experienced. Tony and I based ourselves for the five days on Go Deep and Go Deeper, two boats skippered by competitive brothers Frankie and Louis, and recorded some great action.

Very few lures are towed, except as teasers. Instead, dredges and daisy chains are used to raise the fish, and then a bait is pitched to them. At times the crews ran ballyhoo (think oversized garfish or piper) behind the teasers, and these were particularly effective. Light traces (normally 100lb or less) were used with 8/0 circle hooks on the business end.

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Each morning we would stop at the bait boats and pick up 10-20 live baits, depending on how lucky we felt, at US$3 each. It saved time catching our own and the captains were keen to get out to the hotspots.

Over the week we found the best action was 30-plus kilometres offshore at a spot known as the ‘1150’, a reference to where an extensive patch rises sharply to 1150 metres out of more than 5000 metres. Multiple hook-ups are not uncommon, playing out something like this…

The boat trolls along and either raises a fish ‘blind’ into the teasers or spots a tailing fish on the surface. If this is hooked, the skipper keeps the boat moving forward for a short distance in case there are other fish about – invariably there are.

With the angler playing the hooked fish from the cockpit, another angler is despatched to the bow with a live bait, which is quickly deployed over the side. Meanwhile, the skipper is still looking for more opportunities, with anglers at the ready in the cockpit armed with more livies rigged and ready to go.

The other common scenario is where the skipper marks a fish on the sounder and pulls the gear in, then swaps out the trolled baits for livies. These are dropped down from a stationary boat with the aid of a sinker to the depth indicated, with another angler fishing from the bow. At one stage we had four fish hooked up this way – three from the cockpit and one up forward. Unfortunately, only three stayed attached to be released to fight another day.

Before getting too excited though, readers should know that an 80-90kg striped marlin is at the top end of the weight scale in Cabo, with the average weight being around 40-50kg. What makes these fish so much fun is the anticipation of regular bites and that the tackle used suits these fish. 

Shimano Torium and Talica 30 reels, top-shotted with 15kg line over braid backing, are common, as are Penn International 30LRS reels, due to their large line capacity.

Fishing on this lighter gear made for some spectacular action; indeed, the ‘jumping marlin’ section of the magazine’s photo library is now filled to overflowing!

Each night the crews would return to our digs, the Los Milagros Hotel, for a swim and then catch up with the non-fishing contingent to share the day’s adventures on and off the water.

Our group totalled 27 in number, and was a mixture of couples and anglers travelling alone. We had taken over the hotel for the week, which made it that much more unique for the group, with host/co-owner Sandra doing a great job taking care of the finer details, including putting on a sumptuous final night’s barbecue.

By the numbers

Days fished: 5

Anglers: 16

Billfish caught: 71

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Average number of fish per angler: 4.44 

Most fish caught, individual angler: 8

Least fish caught, individual angler: 2

Striped marlin (average 40-50kg): 70

Blue marlin: 1 (est. 250kg)

Other species landed (mahimahi, sharks etc): 12

Average hours fishing per day: 9

Angler hours fished per billfish caught: 10.5

Marlin caught by top boat: 25 Go Deeper

US$ suggested daily tip given to each crew: $160.

Off the water

One of the enjoyable things about Cabo San Lucas is the variety of things for non-fishing partners to do off the water, as well as for the anglers after a long day chasing billfish.

Our base was the Los Milagros Hotel, just five minutes’ stroll from the marina and the surrounding restaurant precinct. Although not old, this hotel has the feeling of having been established for ‘centuries’ due to its Spanish-style architecture, ivy-draped walls and picturesque grounds.

The rooms are comfortable, homely and cool; the pool is a great place to relax from the dry heat; and the courtyard was popular for sharing the day’s activities in the evening.

Los Milagros is surrounded by good shopping, a myriad of bars, and some excellent restaurants that won’t blow your budget.

Alcohol is inexpensive – many restaurants offer a bucket of four local beers (Corona) for around US$5. Spirits brought at the supermarket are about a third the cost in New Zealand. If iyou like a  rum, I recommend the 18-year-old Flor de Cana, a Nicaraguan brew that is silky-smooth when simply drunk over ice. It also comes in 12- and seven-year-old versions and is similar to Mount Gay in taste – only better!

During the week the non-fishing, partners had a ball with some of the activities including…

  • Shopping (silver jewellery, leather goods and fabrics)
  • Sky diving
  • Snorkelling, swimming and sunbathing
  • Organic cookery classes
  • Camel rides
  • Desert trekking
  • Shopping
  • Art and craft galleries
  • Bar and restaurant hopping
  • Day trips to the likes of Hotel California at Todos Santos
  • Shopping (Did I mention that already?).

Two special fish

While every billfish capture is memorable for the angler, two really stood out on this Cabo trip.

While her husband Mark is a veteran of many billfish encounters, Robin Vincent came on the trip not having caught a marlin before; she’d never been in the right place at the right time – until day one in Cabo aboard Go Deeper.

A decent-sized stripey zoomed in on the dredge and spotted the trolled bait above it, taking a shine to what must have appeared to be an easy dinner.

Robyn was hooked into her first billfish, a particularly athletic specimen that gave her a great workout until traced and released. High fives all round and Robyn was on cloud nine, celebrating well that night.

The next morning, by her own admission being a little ‘dusty’, Robyn, Mark and crewmates Warren and Annette Harris set off on Go Deep.

Robyn was again in the chair when a ‘decent’ fish popped into the spread and nailed a bait.

This was something much more substantial in the form of a blue marlin, estimated by Tony and the skipper as being ‘in the vicinity’ of 250kg – a good challenge for most anglers to handle on a decent 24 or even 37kg ‘gold’ outfit. In this instance, however, the gold was more matt black, in the form of a ‘well used’ Shimano TLD 20 reel spooled with just 15kg line.

Fortunately though, the marlin played by the rules and never went particularly deep, enabling Robyn to stay in close contact with it, aided in no small way by some frantic winding and great boat driving. What resulted was the catch of the trip, traced and released after a frenetic 35-minute scrap. Marlin fishing for Robyn will never be the same again.

The second memorable fish came for Te Awamutu angler Paul Davies. This was neither Paul’s biggest nor his first billfish – (he has caught a number before, including a 317kg blue marlin in Vanuatu). What was special about this striped marlin is that it is the first to be tagged under a new research programme initiated by Greys Taxidermy. This American company, a specialist in ‘conservation’ taxidermy (where the angler releases a fish after measuring it, and Greys produces a similar-sized likeness), has had a long association with the region and its sport fishery.

The fish needed to be given a name, with Paul nominating it ‘Donna Lee’ after his wife

   This article is reproduced with permission of   
New Zealand Fishing News

August 2015 - by Grant Dixon
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

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