Puerto Vallarta is known for its world class fishing among other things. When winter comes we see the major Gamefish species of Marlin, Sailfish, Dorado and Tuna take a powder and head south. They´re replaced by our winter species. This year after what seems to be a never ending El Nino we´re seeing unusually warm water temperatures keeping some summer species in the area. What does this mean, well for one thing you´ve got a shot, not a huge shot, but a shot at Marlin, Sailfish and Dorado. Yellowfin Tuna have moved their operation to the Tres Maria Islands, but nothing in guaranteed and it has been a miss or hit situation. It all comes down to skill with a fair measure of luck, but one thing is for sure, if you´re not out there, you have no shot at all. So, do you feel lucky??
Ever since El Nino raised it´s head again the fishing has been unpredictable and frankly strange. Right now in the depth of winter we´re seeing warm, very warm water temperatures which of course are keeping out of season species like Dorado in the area. Now I`m not going to tell you they´re thick as thieves, but there is a good shot you´ll boat one or several of the delicious pescado (fish in English). For the normal guy or gal, the bay is alive and doing its thing nicely with plenty of action to be had if you don´t mind catching smaller fish. We´ve transitioned into winter fishing species as you´d expect . If you´re good with that fact then you´ll have a great time n the beautiful Bay of Banderas.
Interesting title if I do say so myself, but one thing I haven´t been talking about is how we´re on the back end of an El Nino Year. If you remember last March we were seeing 300 lb Yellowfin Tuna at Corbeteña. That was about when the ¨strangeness¨ began. Now we survived a less than spectacular summer fishing wise and now we´re seeing Dorado in February, the midpoint of winter fishing! The same can be said for Sailfish, Striped and Blue Marlin that that have been hanging out off Punta Mita about 15 miles or so for weeks now, strange stuff indeed. For the person looking to boat a Dorado when they shouldn´t be there, well now´s the time amigo because this ¨Strangeness¨ can´t last forever.
