Z Fish Report (11/15/18)

Sunrise, aboard the Gitana II. Photo by John Wilkinson

 Offshore (average) surface water temperature - Includes from the 5 - 6 mile mark at the 100 fathom line, then to the 1,000 fathom line being about 32 miles: 84°

Inshore (average) surface temperature. From the beach to about 5 miles: 84°

Above and below, a decent photo of Adan on
the panga Gitana II, with John Wilkenson

John with his beautiful tuna. above. A better size perspective
is with Adan in the below photo. 

Blue water: (Chlorophyll amounts and surface temps from Terrafin SST) The inshore has a little off colored water, but the blue water is still at the 4 mile mark, and on out. Conditions for both inshore and offshore are excellent.

Noe, on the panga  Porpy, releasing one of Gord
Roberts sailfish.

Offshore: The offshore remains stable with about 4 raised sailfish a day, per boat. Plus, at least 1 decent sized dorado. Long time visitor, Gord Roberts of Saskatchewan, Canada, fished this last Monday with his usual captain, Noe on the panga Porpy. They raised 4 sailfish, and brought two to the boat. He will fish offshore again this week, and next week they are going out at night for the full moon barracuda.

John Wilkinson, with Adan on the panga Gitana II, took
this photo of the white bellied porpoise.

Another long time visitor, John Wilkinson of Minn. fished with his favorite captain, Adan, on the panga Gitana II. They were working an area with porpoise, but there were no birds or any other signs of life. Getting a blind strike on a trolled cut bait google eye, two hours later they had a 150 pound yellowfin tuna in the boat. 

Adolfo on the panga Dos Hermanos

Inshore: Like last week, to sum it up, Adolfo told me “mucho gallos, mucho sierras, and mucho jurel.” Which translates to there are a lot of roosters, sierras, and jack crevalle. Excellent inshore fishing.

Yesterday, Wednesday, Adolfo made the long run and fished the areas around Calvario, which is just north of Puerto Vicente Guerrero. They got eight decent sized roosters.

Scoot Cook with a small fly caught jack crevalle.

Today, Glenn Cook (now retired) and his son Scott, owners of a very respected fly shop and fly fishing guide service in Bend, Oregon, fished with Mark Denison today down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero. Adolfo loaned us his son as the deckhand to throw the hookless teaser for the fly fishermen. They got 8 smaller sized jack crevalle. There so many jacks, they were a nuisance. 

Driving back to Zihuatanejo with Glenn, Scott and Jr. I asked about the roosters. Junior is casting from the top of the roof of the panga and sees more things than when a person is standing in the boat. He told me “the roosters were there, but below the jacks, and some of them were huge. But, the schooled up jacks were way faster than the larger roosters, and were all over the teaser lure. It was almost like the roosters were too full to be aggressive.”

Everybody agreed, we were fly fishing only, and if we had hooks on the teaser popper lures, and spin rods instead of fly rods, the day would have been different. This is the enigma of fly fishing, but the satisfaction is sweeter.

Another high point to today’s fishing, is these smaller jacks are relatively non-migratory. Around March or April, when they are 18 to 22 pounds, we are going to have a great day on the water. 

Ed Kunze

(Director of the Roosterfish Foundation, IGFA Representative)