Z Fish Report (12/5/13)

The blue water is just a couple of hundred yards off the beach, all up and down the coast. Combined with a two degree drop in the temperature to about an average of 83°, and two decent sized earthquakes last Saturday night (magnitudes of 4.5 and a 5.1), and the overall fishing this week was not as good as we had expected. But, it was not bad either.

 

Carl Taylor on the panga Gitana. Note the tag for the release

Offshore – The boats are each averaging 1 or 2 sailfish a day, and usually getting a decent sized dorado of 15 to 20 pounds also. This will improve by a whole lot this next week.

A nice dorado by Mike Cody on the Gitana

Striped marlin on the Bloody Hook with Captain Chiro

Some notable catches were made by Ron and Gabe Hubbard, with fishing partners Norm Cook and Brad Suckey fishing with Armando on the panga 3 Hermanos. They fished 5 days and recorded 12 sailfish and 11 dorado. Plus, today (Thursday), they saw a pod of 3 humpback whales coming into the area. This is the start of the season for the humpbacks. They come here to feed on the abundant shrimp, and have their calves. Then about March or April, when the calves are ready, they head back up to Alaska in the Bearing Sea for summer.

I saw Adan on the Gitana II this afternoon when he came in to the pier with his clients. They tagged and released 3 sailfish.

A nice jack crevalle we got down at Vicente Guererro 

The inshore has really been shaken up (pun intended) by the earth quakes. I have always known sailfish are affected by them and need about 24 hours to recover. They are independent of the bottom, because their habitat is generally in water several thousand feet deep. Can you imagine what you would feel like when your house is shaking, rocking and rolling on a 360° basis? This is what happens to the fish, and it is dramatically increased with the lateral lines of the fish, which can detect schools of bait vibrations from up to a half mile away.

Aldan with the same jack as in the photo above,  with Rich Carbajal
trying to get another. Abel is on the tiller and looking on.

I honestly felt the roosterfish would not be affected as much by the earthquakes. But, was I ever proven wrong (with firsthand experience). Roosters are a bottom oriented fish, basically living in the 100 foot depths, and moving into the shallows behind the back of the waves to feed. But, they also have a resonance chamber, where the air bladder actually penetrates into the inner ear, increasing the ability to hear minute sounds and vibrations.

With Adolfo Jr. as my deckhand, we went down to Puerto Vicente Guerrero with client Scott Cook on Sunday, and got skunked on roosters. Ditto for Rich Carbajal on Monday, and then again on Wednesday with Paul Warmly.

It appears the roosterfish are even more affected by the earthquakes than sailfish, and took off to Costa Rica, or other parts unknown. (But, it must be remembered, the roosters are rarely around here in numbers after Christmas, and maybe the quakes just triggered the migration a bit quicker).

Adolfo, on the panga Dos Hermanos, was having the same problem fishing his normal producing areas this last week, so today he proved his worth by heading way up north, and even above the Ranch, intercepting the migratory roosters coming down from the north. There were lots of roosters coming down, tons of sierras, and lots of jack crevalle.

Being Adolfo is so popular; he is splitting his normal deckhand off onto another boat. When I saw his deckhand Jesus on the pier this afternoon, he had several huge sierras and his French clients also hooked 14 jack crevalle in the 15 to 20 pound plus class. They got them down at the Barra de Petatlan. Everybody, including me, is eating sierra fillets tonight. 

     

Ed Kunze (IGFA Representative) 

   

We now have PayPal for the Roosterfish Foundation!

Launching the Roosterfish Foundation (roosterfish.org)