Z Fish Report (1/5/12)

100 pound roosterfish caught!

This has been an incredible week of ups and downs. Some captains, like Cheva on the panga Dos Hermanos II released 7 sailfish. Others are getting two to four. With the 80° blue water only a couple of miles off the beach, the fishing is really taking off. Cheva got all of his fish at the 11 mile mark.

Sailfish coming in close to the boat- the Huntress with
Captain Francisco and angler Utta. Leboriao

 Cheva switched tactics and fished close to the inshore White Rocks, which are 7.5 miles south of the point at Zihuatanejo Bay. His clients, fishing with live bait, got a sailfish (only a couple of miles off the beach), 3 large dorado between 28 and 33 pounds, a twenty pound California yellowtail (which we rarely see here), and five 15 to 20 pound jack crevalle. It was a great day on the water by anybody’s standards.

Mike Bulkly of the super panga Huntress emailed me this write-up and the following photos.:Utta. Leboriao from Mexico City and Zihuatanejo with her first fish ever. She later released a sailfish also on Monday. We had two large Dorado and two sailfish releases on Monday, and today we released 5 sailfish at the 15 mile mark with Chris Arnold from Australia and his girlfriend Angie from Canada.

Captain Francisco and Utta on the supper panga Huntress

Frank & Petra Craig of Westbank, BC, Canada fished on Jan. 3 with Santiago on the super panga Gitana. By 10 AM, Frank had his 1st & 2nd sailfish ever and Petra had her 1st one. With 3 tagged and released sailfish, they then turned to the inshore. Their friend Gwen hooked up a 20# Dorado and they headed to Ixtapa Island. With fresh dorado for lunch, they snorkeled a bit and wrapped up a great day with Santiago taking them back to ZIH.

Adan, on the panga Gitana II had a 400+ pound blue marlin bust off on 100# braid line. It was a clean cut, so probably a wahoo came slashing through when the lure was ridding up high near the swivel.

Jose Pino, down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero, managed to get his client’s estimated 350 pound blue marlin to the boat for a release.

Jose Pino and Ludo with a 40 pound rooster

On Monday, I was fly fishing with Adolfo on the panga Dos Hermanos with Mexican National fly fisher Teodoro Alonso from the State of Puebla. Even though there was not a cloud in the sky, a couple of hundred miles off shore was turbulence, and the low pressure system moved in on us. The first sign of the low pressure was when the wind shifted from the normal Westerly destination, to coming at us from the South. We got a few fish, but not nearly as much as we had hoped for. Low pressure will put fish down deeper into the water column to balance out the pressure differential, which really hurts the shoreline fishing. Teo was great to fish with, an excellent caster, and a just fantastic all around great guy. We went way up north to the Ranch…and where Adolfo had been fishing this last couple of weeks with his French clients.

During a dry spell, Adolfo casually pointed and mentioned to me: “This is the spot my French client got a 50 or maybe 51 kilo rooster on Christmas”, the 24th of this last week. I slowly turned my head and just looked into his ice blue eyes, searching them for the punch line. He softly said “I have a photo on my phone”. I reached up and pulled his phone from its protected place and said “show me”.

And, there it was! A fish too big to lift and a head almost as wide as the French client’s body… Incredible! Adolfo has now logged 3 roosterfish over 100 pounds for his clients here in Zihuatanejo, including the existing 80 pound IGFA line class world record of almost 106 pounds, and caught by Jeffry Reinhardt in 2008. The angler, MISSERI Jean Pierre, emailed me the following photo.

Its lenghth almost goes from one side of the boat to the other
Plus, this photo does not do justice as to how thick the rooster
is across the back.

This fish was taken on spin gear, as were all the other large roosters. This time it was taken with 30 pound braid backing. But, the client had a plane to catch that afternoon, to get back home, and decided to not contact me for IGFA certification. He was very happy with the way his 14 days straight of fishing with Adolfo finished up. The fish would have been marginally close to breaking the conventional gear 30 pound line class world record, but we will never know. Having released over 450 roosterfish this season (May through January), Adolfo has to be the best roosterfish captain there is.

One of  Ludo's jack crevalle with Jose Pino holding

On Tuesday, fishing with client Ludo Coenen of Belgium, Adolfo Jr. and I went south to Puerto Vicente Guerrero to my “sweet” spot, which is a fairly long run south from the port. And, it paid off again. My spot is about 1 mile off the beach and a rocky sea mount rises to about 25 feet from the surface. It is a fish magnet.

Ludo with his 9 pound sierra

As usual, there were acres of fish breaking on bait, pompano, green jacks, rainbow runners, large jack crevalle, sierras, and even a few roosters. Plus, there were about a dozen sea turtles popping up for a gulp of air, and then with a huge splash, diving down for an appetizer to go with dinner. In the several hours we fished there, we never saw a single boat, not even a commercial panga. Ludo got jack crevalle in the mid-teens, a 40 pound roosterfish, and a huge 9 pound sierra. The seas were dead calm and we spent most of the time with the motor shut off, just letting the light breeze move us along.

With Jose Pino looking on, John and Jonathan with his sierra

With John Neudorf, and Jonathan his 7 year old son, of Canada we went back down to Puerto Vicente Guerrero today. Again, the spot paid off. Fishing conventional spin gear, to make sure Jonathan got some action, we did well. But, the water was a bit off color. We got large sierras, jacks, and lost an estimated 50 pound rooster.

A nice jack crevalle by John

Bert Sandell with a small jack

Whereas Adolfo went north to the Ranch with fly fishing client Bert Sandell, but the water was too clear…go figure. Here is what Bert emailed me this afternoon: Obviously, this is an incredible fishing location with more than enough action for everyone. Many thanks for the recommendation with Adolfo. It was a pleasure fishing with such a seasoned pro.

Ed Kunze