Z Fish Report (9/23/10)

The steady rains have been off for two days, and then back on for two days. From the heavy river outflows, this has pushed the 85° blue water out past the 1,000 fathom line and 30 mile mark.

       Other than a few dorado under floating debris, the offshore fishing has been very slow.
       The one highlight is the light line and fly rod action around the rock pinnacles in front of Ixtapa and down at the White Rocks. There has been excellent action on jack crevalle, green jacks, pompano, and black skipjacks. The schools of game fish are chasing a very small sardine; so the best lure for spin fishermen has been small 3” Mega Bait metal jigs, with fly anglers using a small 2” fly, almost like a small bonefish fly.
        The coastline is still to murky for roosters.
        Ed Kunze

           The following knot illustration is provided by: http://www.fish4fun.com/knots.htm

This week is the Albright knot. Most people know the blood knot to tie two similar sized lines together, but when there is a large difference in the size of lines, this is where the Albright knot is best. We use it all the time when fly fishing to tie a 20 pound leader to either a 100 pound bite tippet for sailfish or a 40 pound bite tippet for dorado, jacks, and roosters

Z Fish Report (9/14/10)

Due to the heavy rainfall we normally experience in September, the 82°-84° blue water has been pushed out past the 1,000 fathom line and at about the 32 mile mark.              No doubt the fishing was slow this week with few boats going out due to the lack of tourists. On a trip to the Centro Mercado today (Friday), I checked out the local catches by the commercial pangeros. There were a few yellowfin tuna, dorado, and striped marlin fillets, and not much else.

  When I pulled up the Terrafin Satellite photos for the blue water (chlorophyll), it was incredible of how much brown stuff was coming out of the Rio Balsas about 45 miles to the North of us, and brown water is worse than green. It is actually reaching areas we fish for sailfish and tuna from Zihuatanejo.
Ed Kunze

Z Fish Report (9/10/10)

Water temperatures, from the Terrafin Satellite Surface Temperatures, for the entire area are recording a warm 82° to 84° degrees. The clean water is showing at 10 miles off the beach, but the deep blue water has been pushed out to past the 30 miles mark. The main reason the blue water is out so far is the series of thunderstorms which hit us early in the week. For three days they rolled in, with wave after wave hitting us for 72 hours straight. At times the rainfall was incredibly intense, with 8” coming during one 6 hour period. The total for the three days was about 16 inches.


The coastal rivers, with tremendous outflows of brown water, have made the inshore waters too murky for roosterfish, all up and down the coast. I have written off the roosters until about after the 1st week of October.

The few boats going out are finding the fish at the contact line of the clean water and blue. The current has created a line of debris which has washed out from the rivers and the dorado are there. The boats are each getting and average of 1 to 2 sailfish a day, but about 4 or 5 nice sized dorado.
Ed Kunze

The following knot schematics are from the web site http://fish4fun.com/knots.htm

I am featuring the Palomar knot this week. It is a true 100% strength knot, simple to tie, and great on light line connections to the hook for any pound test up to 50 pound line.

Z Fish Report (9/3/10)

The 80° blue water is out past the 1,000 fathom curve; at least 30 miles. The 80° greenish (off colored) water is all the way out to about the 9 mile mark. From about 10 miles to at least 30 miles out, the water is clear and clean, but not the desired deep blue we always look for. The attached satellite chlorophyll graph posted yesterday by Terrafin shows the green water out past the 100 fathom line at about 8 miles, and the clean water out past the “curva” at 30 miles to the inside of the 1,000 fathom line of the “curve”.

The commercial pangeros have found the yellowfin tuna, but they are traveling at least 35 miles one way to get them.

Mecate, on the 35 foot cruiser Aqua Azul, got 4 sailfish for his clients yesterday (Thursday), but the numbers for the fleet are less than that; averaging 1 or 2 sailfish a day per boat.

The main attraction right now, besides the sailfish, is the 3 to 5 dorado per boat average. The dorado are running between 15 and 20 pounds, with a few larger fish in the mix. Most sailfish and dorado are being taken around the 12-14 mile marks.

Ed Kunze