The Billfish Report is counting down its Top 10 Billfisheries of the Year, with #5 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico . Criteria for our Top 10 include fish numbers, variety of billfish species, reports, average size of fish, length of season and number of boats fishing. With over 9,000 Billfish Reports submitted to us in 2018 from around the World, to even be considered for our Top 10 makes a fishery one of the best!

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico –  From experienced anglers to tourists alike,  Cabo roughly translated means Striped Marlin. Cabo is for Striped Marlin what Sailfish are to Guatemala. If someone wants to catch their first Marlin, it would be tough to not recommend Cabo. For Americans in particular, this is an easy fishery to get to and to fish for that matter.  We last saw Cabo in our Top 10 in 2016, but every year they are in contention. 

This was an extraordinary year for Striped Marlin. From boats fishing close to home or up to the Finger Banks or even Mag Bay, the numbers of Striped Marlin feeding was amazing. It was so amazing, we had to adjust our score card to include 20, 30 and even 40+ Striped Marlin reports. This fishing was “top heavy” with more 40+ Reports than any other category, thirty-six (36) to be exact. We had ten (10) 30+ Striped Marlin reports,  eleven (11) 20+ Striped Marlin reports and then twelve (12) 10+ Striped Marlin reports. That is a total of sixty-nine (69) days/reports where a boat achieved 10+ Striped Marlin. There are far too many good reports to include them all, but here are some of the highlights.

(We get that some people question these kind of numbers, but we can assure you, these numbers are real and are being accomplished by some of the best Captains and Crews in our Sport.)

• Capt. Ben Horning on Fish Tank released 496 Striped Marlin over 5-Days (99/Day Average)
• Shoe released 110 Striped Marlin over 2-Days (55/Day Average)
• Jaruco released 184 Striped Marlin over 4-Days (46/Day Average)
• Captains Luis and Franky Abaroa on Go Deeper released 88 Striped Marlin.
• Capt. Juanjo Abaroa on Karma III released 75 Striped Marlin.
• Sea Angel released 105 Striped Marlin over 2-Days (52/Day Average)
• Go Deeper released 61 Striped Marlin.
• Caliente released 36 Striped Marlin.
• Bad Medicine released 44 Striped Marlin.

With these kind of numbers, it was only a matter of time before a record was broken. Team Fish Tank, which included a number of “guest” anglers and crew, but primarily Capt. Ben Horning, Topher Wightman, Erick Martinez,Van Wichers, Chris & Laura Jessen and Justin Petrelli released 2,006 Striped Marlin over 30-Days of fishing. This beat Stalker’s Season Record on Striped Marlin (1,736) from back in 2007.

Cabo has really good variety in the summer months with Blue Marlin, Black Marlin and Sailfish joining the Striped Marlin. Even with good variety, we only saw four (4) Grand Slam recorded here in 2018.

This fishery does not get a few nice size fish, but they are tough to target them. We got four (4) fish reported to us over 500 lbs. with 2 Blue Marlin and 2 Black Marlin.

This is about as large of a fleet as there is in any of the fisheries we cover, which is to be expected given its great all around fishing. This is absolutely a year round fishery, with Billfish being caught in every month.

Congratulations to Cabo San Lucas our #5 Billfishery of 2018!