Fishing Basics, The Trash Line and Fishing High Season

By Stan Gabruk of Master Baiter’s Sportfishing & Tackle

As we come into the summer season, for the most part now the ‘breeding season’, you know Spring fishing season when the fishing is not at it’s best. No worries, it passed us by this year, but that means we’re coming into the beginning of High Season for Big Game Fishing! Sailfish will be picking up  in numbers, Striped Marlin may already be roaming PV’s deep water locations and this is just the beginning. It gets pointed  out to me all the time that most people don’t have my level  of knowledge about the bay. Now I am a long way from being  an expert, but I am familiar with the local area and this is what we’ll be seeing in the next few coming weeks. Puerto Vallarta is coming back to life, Fishing is open, but the supporting local businesses open June 1st and we’re already getting reservations.

Historically from mid April to early June is both a breeding and transition period, aka not the best fishing during this time. Which coincides with the end of Tourism High season after Easter. For those of you planning future fishing trips this would be good to remember. Normally a group of friends of mine get this pool going where we all guess when the first real seasonal rain happens. The rain has to be over a specific curb we all choose to qualify. After the last few years now I always put my money on the second week of June. You may ask: Why would that be important? Simple this is when the Seasonal Rains begin. When this happens we get the famous Trash line. A Trash line is the result of the rains washing all sorts  of things down the mountain sides into the local streams and then into the Bay of Banderas.

This all turns into something similar to a dividing line of organic materials. Behind this line is dirty water the color of coffee. It can look pretty bad, but in reality to the experienced fisherman this is a beautiful thing. The ‘trash’ in the trash line is mostly leaves, twigs, seeds, all sorts of stuff in this ‘fish trail mix’. Naturally smaller fish will take this free and easy meal, which in turn attracts larger fish. Now this dirty water can be a few inches thick to a few feet thick, but normally not more than six feet. Running a planer and a small lure or hoochie can pay off in fish dividends. Now in the bay the trash line isn’t going to produce monster fish, but it is great for assuring action! Every river in the entire area will produce a trash line. There are several rivers in the area so there can be several trash lines. When the trash line reaches places like Punta Mita or Corbetena the species are larger and more abundant. A trash line at Punta Mita is Dorado Heaven, in fact any floating debris will do the same thing, but the trash line is more predictable. Corbetena can be the same but there you’ll have SkipJack Tuna feeding on this trash line, drawing in larger fish of all kinds. So the farther out the trash line is, means  bigger fish. Last year there wasn’t all that much rain in Pv so the trash lines were a little scarce. We should have considerably more rain this year so things will return to normal.

On the positive side, by the time you  read this article the business of tourism will be coming back to life on June 1st. Naturally there are some limitations, but we’ll all be open again on this coming Monday. I am already accepting reservations for fishing and there are no real restrictions on the boats and they’re completely safe in the sun, humidity and salt water, all enemies of this “virus”…..  

We are hearing now that fishing may begin again June 15th… Stay tuned…

Until next week, don’t forget to kiss your fish… 

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