Z Fish Report (2/24/11)

H.C. Lee of Arlington Texas with Leonardo on
 the panga Fish On with a very nice bull dorado
Photo by Don Grantages 

While on the municipal pier this morning, talking to the captains for more information for this report, I spent some time with Santiago, the owner of the super panga Gitana, and his client Len Grupp of Minnesota. Their experiences reflected the overall scenario for the fishing this last couple of weeks. They had been getting 1 or 2 sailfish and maybe a striped marlin a day. Most boats are averaging about 1 billfish a day, with the striped marlin being caught about equally with the sailfish.

What really got my attention though is Len is staying out at Barra Potosi and was telling me of the huge numbers of sardines in the surf there. This is an annual thing, and when the sardines come in like that, the jack crevalle follow. And the jacks are big enough, the Mexican hand line fishermen are having a tough time carrying their 4 or 5 fish back home.

The reason I was really interested about the Barra is because this is an excellent way to spend a day, and one of the few areas on this coast the surf is not too high for a spin or fly rod fisherman for shore fishing. You can kick back under the palapa of one of the restaurants there, have a cold one, a few traditional Mexican appetizers, and wait for the jacks to breeze in again. When the jacks start crashing the bait, you go out and catch a couple of the hard fighting fish, and then back to the cold one. Any fly in a 3 or 4 inch sardine pattern will work, and the spin fishermen are having better luck with shiny 1 to 2 oz spoons and Mega Bait jigs of the same length as the flies.

Otherwise, Santiago told me he made a long run down south to La Barrita and only got a few jacks and a couple of small roosters. Other inshore fishermen are picking up a lot of very nice sized sierras.

Lee's dorado in action

With the cold current pushing down from the north, the clean water is about 6 miles off the beach, but the good blue water is way out at the 50 mile mark. Some of the boats are getting into the 10 to 15 pound yellowfin tuna between 16 and 20 miles on a 240º heading, but Ruben Lara found the bigger tuna, on the same heading, at 54 miles and has been hitting them every day. Ruben used to be the captain of the Vamonos III and is now a commercial fisherman. After a long hard day, he has been getting back to port averaging about 700 pounds of 40 to 80 pound tuna a day. Not bad for a single guy hand lining on an open panga. He told me there are schools out there with some really big tuna. But, he would rather catch 15 tuna at 40 pounds in the same time it would take him to get one 200 pound tuna to the boat.

For an idea how a few of the other captains are doing for a single day of offshore fishing: Mecate, on the cruiser Agua Azul, got 2 sails and 1 nice dorado. Martin, on the Gaviota, got 3 sailfish, and Cheva, on the panga Dos Hermanos II, got 3 striped marlin and 1 sailfish.

Leonardo, on the panga Fish On, fishing with Don Grantges of Texas, had a large Black Marlin on for a while and then it got off. Twenty minutes later they hooked a huge bull dorado over 5 feet long and approaching 60 pounds. It did not get off. It is dinner for several nights to come.

Ed Kunze
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