Patience and persistence, when coupled together with local knowledge, often pays big dividends with fishing results. Patience is the hardest part for most skippers but Captain Gil Marquez of the "Fish Cabo" has a long history of simply waiting out the bite while the other boats just go on by. His local knowledge is remarkable and some of his anglers say he "thinks like a fish". The Fish Cabo was high boat for billfish this past week and reported 6 stripers released, 10 dorado and 10 roosterfish released, for his 3 fishing days with one of the days dedicated to inshore fishing. The overall combined fish count for 32 days fished reflected 1 blue marlin, (no weight provided) 16 stripers, (15 released) 1 sailfish released) 2 wahoo, 12 yellowffin tuna, 6 skipjack tuna, 1 Sierra, 15 roosterfish, (10 released) and 95 dorado.

Cabo Climate: Brrr! Cold mornings and evenings with temps down to 60 degrees and then nice, warm and comfortable days, up to 84 degrees with a few passing clouds and lots of sunshine.

Sea Conditions: Near excellent! A 75-80 miles stretch of near perfect water exists from the Finger Bank on the Pacific side, down to Cabo and around the corner and into the Sea of Cortez to about 10 miles or so above the Gorda Banks, with the entire area holding well at 82-83 degrees and clear, blue water all over. Still, the better fishing results are coming from the Pacific side of the peninsula.

Best Fishing Area: The best of the fishing areas continues to be on the Pacific side and extends from out in front of just out front of Cabo, with the Cabo Falso Drop Off being one of the better billfish areas. According to Roberto Marquez, owner of Fish Cabo Fleet, the numbers of stripers at Cabo Falso area is impressive but getting them to bite is an entirely different situation. He says the fish are stubborn to bite and apparently feeding on something we don't have, probably smaller squid.

Best Bait/Lure: Live bait was a must for the stripers with only a few fish being accounted for on the artificials. Most of the fish over the past few days were being taken on live, (but very weak) mackerel.

Live Bait Supply: Hampered by the full moon, caballitos were virtually unavailable. Some mackerel were available, but they were unusually weak and not overly attractive to the billfish.