Z Fish Report (3/7/13)

The blue water came back to the 100 fathom line this week, and about 5 to 6 miles off the beach. Plus, things cleared up after the full moon down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero for the inshore fishing. 

I checked the Terrafin Satellite Imaging photos and saw the cold water has now pushed down from Puerto Vallarta to almost Manzanillio. This means we will probably get our cold annual April current within the historical time frame.

Photo by Mike Bulkley on the super panga Huntress

Mike Bulkley, of the super panga Huntress, sums up the blue water fishery about as well as anybody with his report: “The offshore fishing has not picked up since the full moon and boats have to look hard to find the bill fish. A few blue marlin are being hooked just outside the 100 fathom line.  The pretty blue water continues to be close but has cooled down a couple of degrees.  We are averaging only one or two strikes a day with a lot of lookers who don't come back on the bait.That’s bill fishing”.

There are still a few dorado being taken, and the yellowfin tuna are being caught by the commercial pangeros out around the 35 mile mark. There are a lot of small dorado being taken just a few hundred yards off the beach all up and down the coast.

Keith Paul of Minnesota fished a day with Francisco on the Huntress and released two large sailfish of about 85 and 100 pounds.

Bill Fillmore with a nice hard fighting jack crevalle

The inshore fishing is improving again, and we actually found roosterfish down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero again.

Sequence 1 - Jeff fighting an unknown fish

Jeff Burbank, and Kim, of Minnesota fished with Arturo on the panga Janeth early in the week, and scored well on jack crevalle and sierras down near Petatlan.

Sequence 2 - the mystery resolved

Then, today (Thursday), as Arturo had no clients for his panga, I took Jim, Arturo, Jeff and Kim down to Puerto Vicente Guerrero in my Suburban. The fishing was outstanding, but the actual catching part lacked a bit. We raised at least 20 roosters, and several jack crevalle. 
I was very impressed with Jeff, up on the bow of the panga and casting all day long. Most of the roosters were from 8 to 15 pounds, but a few large ones were there also. Jeff hooked one of the large roosters with a Mega Bait, but the brand new “out of the box” lure I had tied on that morning, had its hooks pulled straight. Within 5 minutes, all the new baits, had new and proven hooks on them.

A nice jack crevalle on a light line spin outfit

Plus, the roosters were mixed in with the jacks. You would fight a fish for several minutes, not really knowing what was on the end of the line, because you saw the big rooster going after the bait. And sure enough, the jack crevalle was faster and got hooked.

     

Ed Kunze (IGFA Representative)

FADs - I want to commend Gunner Erickson, who has a home at the Barra, for setting out a couple of Fish Attracting Devices (FADs) a couple of hundred yards off the shore at Barra Potosi. They were the floating cover type with palm fronds on top, and anchored to the bottom. After three days they had attracted bait, and shortly thereafter, the locals and sport fishing captains from Zihuatanejo were catching small dorado. He did this with out of pocket expenses, and is still in the experimenting stages. It is not for his benefit he is doing this, but the locals.

As I had researched FADs in the past, but only thinking deep water, this motivated me and reset my thinking. This week I also set three FADs down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero in front of river bars which have produced roosters, dorado, jack crevalle, and sierras year in and year out. The FADs I set are not the floating covered type, but have a surface float and streamers, tied to a dropper loop off the main line. I have several clients this next week. If the FADs produce, I will saturate many areas I know of at Vicente with a bunch of them. We will all benefit.

For a better understanding of our seasons and species of fish here in Ixtapa /Zihuatanejo, please click on the link to my web site and scroll down on the left side bar for “Calendar”… http://www.sportfishing-ixtapa.com/index.html  

I have also made two new informative web pages for people coming here for their first time. The first is for when you go to the municipal pier in Zihuatanejo in the morning to find the boat you will be fishing on:   http://municipalpier.blogspot.mx/2013/02/the-municipal-pier.html

The second is for people who are looking for a place to stay: http://edkunze2.blogspot.mx/2013/02/places-to-stay.html