 |
| 15 Sailfish Day |
 |
| Small Black Marlin |
Billfish numbers on the rise in the East Cape of Baja California Sur, Mexico. October and November turned out to be the biggest two months of the year when it came to billfish. Hotel Palmas De Cortez hosted several billfish tournaments in October and November including the East Cape Classic, Dark of the Moon, Dove Island Pickle fest, and the Salt Patrol annual tournaments. Each of these tournaments includes billfish as part of their scoring system and are 100% catch and release. In early October we started to notice that the billfish numbers were on the rise. Many sailfish and stripe marlin were being reported by captains and anglers each day at the docks. As October came to an end, the East Cape Classic came to Hotel Palmas De Cortez for its annual tournament. 37 boats fished the tournament and after 3 days of fishing the total numbers were incredible. 134 sailfish, 72 stripe marlin, 19 blue marlin and 2 black marlin for a total of 227 billfish over the three day tournament. Next up was the Dove Island Pickle fest annual tournament. This tournament was much smaller with only 6 boats fishing the three day tournament and they landed 120 billfish. At the same time, over at hotel Playa Del Sol, the Dark of the Moon tournament was taking place. They had 5 teams fishing the two day tournament and they landed 50 sailfish, 26 stripe marlin, 46 dorado, and 11 tuna. As if this wasn’t already great news, on November 4th the annual Salt Patrol tournament arrived at Hotel Palmas De Cortez. 20 boats fished this three day tournament and the results were staggering! This tournament broke the all time Baja’s Van Wormer Resorts record for 20 boats or less with 221 Sailfish, 112 Stripe Marlin, 4 Blue Marlin and 1 Black Marlin for a grand total of 338 billfish. It was really great to see so many billfish in the East Cape over the past few weeks. Catch, Photograph and Release….IT WORKS!
Eddie Dalmau
Baja’s Van Wormer Resorts
