NEW CABO RECORD

[Hwhydah17172002]

WHOOOOOO AHHHHHHH !!!!!!!

[Captain Fred Archer]

Hurrah Cabo!

I for one am not surprised to see this cow and the others "suddenly" show up. The truth is that they have always been there, but tackle, crew, and technique issues have always mitigated against them being landed by the bulk of the charter fleet. That's primarily because of Cabo's primarily striped marlin and smaller meat fish orientation. The bottom line is that most Cabo tourists are pleased as punch to catch a striped marlin or two, plus some dorado and school tuna in the first place. Most aren't interested in duking it out with a grande tuna that ties up one angler for a long time while the rest of the party sits there and gets bored as hell and who wind up far less happy with one big tuna and they caught nothing. Compare that to a group of four to six people that each catch a marlin (entirely possible in Cabo), plus some dorado and maybe a tuna or wahoo or two that they can take to local restaurants to have prepared three ways on the cheap.

That is no contest when it comes to all but the true hardcore big game angler, and maybe those who dream of catching big tunas. That brings me to another reason why Cabo is not known as much of a big tuna venue - that is, the average fisherman who goes there versus the one who goes to other places with big fish reputations. The percentage of hardcore tuna fishers who come to those places prepared mentally and physically deal with what it takes to fish for and catch the cows is far higher in those places than in Cabo.

Thus, it is self-fulfilling prophecy that more big tuna are caught in those places than Cabo. Take the average group of tourists out, park them on a faraway bank, let them sweat and bake in the sun, chunking or slow trolling a big live bait, then subject one of them to a long, hard, hot fight with a huge tuna and with few exceptions, you are going to wind up with an unhappy customer, even if you catch him a fish or two. And God help you if you don't catch anything, which can and does happen when you fish for anything, including the big tunas.

Too, some of the top, "known" big tuna venues have a predominance of a relatively small number (vastly smaller, compared to Cabo) of highly experienced charter crews who know big tuna fishing like the backs of their hands. And they have the right boats, tackle, rigging and other skills that prove critical when hunting and catching big game fish like tunas.

Contrast this to a fleet of over two hundred charterboats in a primarily smaller gamefish venue where lighter tackle and line and other equipment and boats and techniques handle the fish and meet the needs of the vast majority of those who come there and charter. Just as it is with the big marlin, this eventuates in a lot of boats that are simply not ready to handle big fish. Some big fish are "caught" off of boats with a lot to be desired in these areas. But "caught" is relative. I can't tell you how many times we watched or heard radio reports of fish that overpowered the tackle, but went down and died and were subsequently hand lined back up. Sometimes that was successful, many times it was not. Invariably, if you ran into the lucky angler, he'd be regaling others in a restaurant or bar about the big fish that he "fought and caught".

For as long as I can remember, very big tunas have been caught in Cabo waters. Throughout that time, the top fleets, like Picante (that big tournament tuna was caught on one of their boats - no coincidence, that) have been catching them.

I suppose that the message here is that if you choose to go to Cabo in search of a big tuna, they are there. But all boats there are NOT created equal. Choose carefully and select a boat that is ready to hook, handle, and land them, because striped marlin, dorado, wahoo, or school tunas, they ain't!

[FAT CAT MX]

Once again Capt. Fred gets it right about Cabo San Lucas. But, I'm going to go out on a limb and make a scientific wild ass guess (or just an observation) about what's going on.

While it's true that there are cow class tuna in southern Baja waters every year, this year is an exceptional case. I've been fishing down here since 1991 and living here on the East Cape since 2002 and I never seen so many 200 pound plus tuna caught. They've been in the area since early July and it looks as though they're still hanging around.

It has not only been an unusual year for tuna, but for fish behavior in general. I believe the cause of all this was an unusually high sea water temp. Many good fishermen here put their boats away or went offshore very infrequently because there just wasn't anything to be found. So, the feeling was why spend the money for fuel, just to go for a boat ride.

So, my theory is that the tuna that we're enjoying this year in southern Baja are the tuna that would normally be bending rods over at Puerto Vallarta. Maybe they just swam past there on their way here. Just an idea.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Cat,

Good theory. It IS an El Nino and I have been through more than a few down there and have seen come really unusual events. My views on tackle, techniques, and the desires of the typical charter customer remain the same. Basically, there are always big tunas in Cabo each year and they simply don't get landed, barring tails wraps and dying fish, off of the typical charterboat.

A good example of that is the small group of private boaters years ago who caught big numbers of true cows chunking the Jaime and other good tuna areas. These guys had the long anchor rodes (or borrowed ours...we had it), tackle, and fishing knowledge and tackle to chunk right and it paid off in pretty amazing numbers of big fish that most didn't talk about, except between one another.

That said, there's no doubt that this year's El Nino is doing it's usual devilish stuff.

Thanks for the commentary, Fatty!

[buckeyetuna]

Whatever the theory, there have been some big Yellowfin in the past few years out of Cabo. However, on Capt Fred's point that they have always been there, it should be noted that Zane Grey caught his then record Yellowfin of 318 Lbs there in the 30's.

Of the 4 photos below, all were Cabo Tournament records when caught.

(1) 2006 Los Cabos Billfish Tournament - 310 Lb Yellowfin

(2) 2006 Los Cabos Tuna Jackpot - 318 Lb Yellowfin

(3) 2009 Los Cabos Billfish Tournament - 336 Lb Yellowfin

(4) 2009 Los Cabos Tuna Jackpot - 383 Lb Yellowfin

[Captain Fred Archer]

Roger that, Buckeye. It has always been a very good big tuna venue and a lot of very big ones were caught over the years outside of tournaments. Those catching them (usually chunkers, but some big live bait trollers) maintained very tight lips about it. After all, if the whole Cabo charter fleet, or even a goodly percentage of it started anchoring up on the banks and chunking, there would have been little room for the real cow nuts to fish. In the end, fleet size was probably THE major factor in the secrecy thing.

One fish that was not a secret was a 350 or so pound critter that was caught chunking on the drop on the bay side of the Arch (maybe two hundred or less yards offshore) by the guy who owned the dive shop in the rear of the marina. As often used to be the case, there were a lot of tuna there and mostly gringos used to run out in their dingies and chunk them after a day offshore.

Most of the fish were school sized, but a goodly number of the anglers got spooled by what were obviously big ones. So the dive shop guy went out in an inflatable, chunked with an 80W, hooked up and then fought (more like got towed around by, actually) the fish for something like three hours, and caught it. He had the fish mounted and it was on display in the dive shop for many years. I have no idea if it or the shop are still there.

It is a mistake to overlook Cabo as a true big tuna venue...you just have to be certain to charter the kind of boat with the kind of gear and crew and fishing knowledge to do so.

[lilharcher]

According to Tony Berkowitz who is friends with the caotain that caught the 383lb monster, the fish sat in the sun for 5 hours prior to hitting the scale with no ice or insolation of any kind. This fish had to be well over 400lbs when it was landed. Just loosing 5% of its weight puts the fish at 402lbs.........something to think about.