Marlin, Sails, Tuna, Fish Everywhere, El Banco Slow

      Marlin, Sails, Tuna, Fish Everywhere, El Banco Slow

Written by: Stan Gabruk owner of Master Baiter´s Sportfishing & Tackle

 

Every once in a while mother nature lets us know who´s boss and this week Hurricane Patricia was a big, huge news story around the world. It had its impact on Manzanillo and other coast areas, but thankfully they were sparsely populated. There have been reports that Puerto Vallarta had big issues with Patricia, but in fact we got little more than constant, medium heavy rain. Not even a breeze thanks to the Cabo Corrientes Mountains once again. After this scary Hurricane we see the fishing is off the Richter Scale with abundant Blue Marlin and Sailfish. They´re everywhere which of course means shorter days can pay off in Billfish! Fishing is on fire in PV and I hear they have plenty of hotel availability also….

Every angler, visitor or local alike have endless possibilities from the moment you leave Marina Vallarta. It´s an amazing thing come this time of the year, Sailfish increase in numbers to the point of being the dominant species in the area. This week you can pretty much find Sailfish any where you´re heading to, anywhere. At Corbeteña there are plenty of Sails in the 200 inch range, well over 150 lbs, Plenty of Blue Marlin in the 350 to 600 lb range. Cubera Snapper to 60 lbs on trolled Skip Jack Tuna (Skippies). One nice development this week is Yellowfin Tuna are a little more abundant running 40 to 80 lbs, with some in the 125 lb range if lucky. I have also gotten 300 pounder Monster Reports, but nobody has seen any pictures, so I´ll leave that up to you.

El Banco is slow, which is a nice way to say nothing much is happening there. Couldn´t tell you why, but the action for the moment is mostly away from El Banco.

What has happened this week, the fish have spread out. Once you´re at the Marietta Islands, it´s best to drop baits and start trolling. Anything can happen as close as four miles off El Morro towards Corbeteña. Sailfish are picking up baits like crazy and even a 400 lb Blue Marlin was boated barely off the Marietta Islands. Strange, a little, but this whole year is upside down. Any area from the Marietta Islands and El Morro, to Corbeteña, then back down again to the point of Punta Mita is alive and active with world class gamefish. An eight hour day will get you in the thick of it, but ten hours will get you bigger fish in deeper water.

You already know the Marietta´s and El Morro are cooking with gas already with Sails and the possibility of Marlin a few miles farther out. For now this area is still mostly about Bonito, Skip Jack tuna, Jack Crevalls seem to be moving in with larger numbers, the warm water is the reason. Another symptom of El Nino. There are some larger Cubera Snappers for the ¨jiggers¨, but they´re taking trolled Skippies readily, so here´s a secret to keep to yourself. Rooster fish, yes I said Rooster Fish are in tiny numbers around the Reef, nothing you can plan for, but they´ve been taking bullet Bonito Baits, Skip jacks and full sized baits over twenty pounds! They´re big, Rooster fish in the 50 lb range are serious fighters and well worth the risk when you hook up!

The bay is hard to keep up with this week, 40 lb Yellowfin around Yelapa, Sailfish off Los Arcos, plenty of Jack Crevalls around Nuevo Vallarta. Bonito and Skippies are also everywhere. With the other regular players of Bonito, Snapper and Snook at the river mouth. But the rain water is flowing heavily so be warned, the bay is getting full rivers of dirty water dumping in the bay. So how the bay fishing is going to be for the next three or four days is yet to be seen, stay tuned!

The bite is in the morning, be where you want to go before 9:30. But in reality the bite has been happening all day, just this time in the morning is when they´ve started taking baits. The late bite has been around 4, not too late, but when everyone has left the Rock at 4, then it´s time to do some Rockin of your own, alone. Talk about a fisherman’s dream! If using lures, Green, Purple are working well. But what´s working well is Pink upper color, blue lower colors and a silver belly… Bank on it! Bait: Plenty of Bait in the bay and around the fishing grounds in the form of Bullet Bonito, Skip Jack Tuna (Skippies), Goggle Eyes, Bonito, Flying fish and the list goes on.

Hurricane Patricia: For all of you out there that heard about the ¨Worst Hurricane¨ ever in the western hemisphere, well it roared when it landed, then turned into a kitten. It´s hard to call the storm a kitten, but compared to the predictions, the closing of ALL businesses in PV, the money, the time lost, but it´s better to be safe than sorry. There was plenty to think about, except one thing, all the comparisons from years ago were different animals. Manzanillo and Colima, Colima mostly got the full force of the storm. This is a sparsely populated area, so the press shows the same small areas that did get slammed. Here in Puerto Vallarta I was telling people that first 1) A Catagory five hurricane can not sustain winds of that force for too long. 2) Once the hurricane hits land it will lose some juice. Such was the case in Patricia, hit land, almost automatically it´s a Cat. 4 … Third 3) it had to travel hundreds of kilometers to get to the Cabo Corrientes mountains (PV resides on the inward side), another drain on the storms ¨Juice¨…. Fourth) If the Hurricane does hit the mountains it will lose more Juice and if it goes over the Mountains (a big ¨if¨), the end of the Sierra Madre´s, then it would have little ¨juice¨ after that. For that reason I was not worried in the least and tried to share this with my friends as much as I could. I evenpostedthis on my Facebook pages (Master Baiter´s Sportfishing & Tackle). But the press was a contradictory voice. I prepared by pulling the electrical plugs from my electric stuff and that was about it…  What happened was it came through Manzanillo and Colima, went toward the mountains, bumped off them as I expected and headed for Guadalajara. They got hit with some heavy wind and rain, but the news services are not talking about how hard GDL got hit, they were talking more about the heavy rain in Dallas of all places! So keep this in the back of your mind if you visit PV regularly, if the strom or Hurricane is coming down the pipe of the Bay of Banderas, then  you should start to worry. But for the last seventy years these mountains have protected my favorite place in Mexico and will continue to be a major factor in why PV is one of the safest locations in all of Mexico and always has been. Weather, crime, PV is safe, hell you can even drink the water! I´ve been doing that for years and  years…. then again it could explain a few things… hahahahaa… So ignore the press reports that PV is slammed, we´re slammed with perfect weather and world class fishing… I can live with that! Enough said from a guy who takes picture of dead fish and sells T-shirts for a living!! It´s hard to complain about my lifestyle, but I still do, that´s how you know I`m not dead!!

We´re still doing shared charters, just contact me with your date and we´ll see if we can hook you up. Naturally the more that are interested in shared pangas, the better it works. So tell your friends and share this article, could save you money amigos! Those on a budget you can still catch world class fish on vacation with this option!

Until next time, don´t forget to ¨Kiss Your Fish¨. . .

Master Baiter´s has changed locations in Marina Vallarta between docks A and B on the boardwalk. Email your Questions to me at: CatchFish@MasterBaiters.com.mx  Web page:  www.MasterBaiters.com.mx , Local Phone at: (044) 322 779 75 71 or if roaming: 011 52 1 322 779 75 71 cell phone direct Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Master-Baiters-Sportfishing-Tackle/88817121325 The trade name Master Baiter’s ® Sportfishing and Tackle is protected under trade mark law and is the sole property of Stan Gabruk.