Tournament Season Begins Now, Marlin, Sailfish, Tuna, Dorado and More!

Now that we’re in October, Tournament season has begun. This should be the best indication that we’re in the best part of the year for those targeting World Class Fish in our world famous fishing grounds. We all know there is no such thing as “perfect fishing conditions”. But we’re not far from it. We have all the major species people want and now is the time to meet the challenge. We’ve had a three week stretch where you couldn’t go wrong finding a trash line in the middle of the bay. But currents have changed now and you need to find where the trash lines are now. If you can find one of these mature trash lines, you’ll have all the Dorado you tired arms can handle. Right now we’re looking down the throat of a possible local Hurricane, Lidia to be exact. This will push fish into the area. I’m thinking by this time next week we’ll be talking about what happened or hopefully didn’t happen.

We’ve had a pretty good week at Corbetena this week. The dirty water is out to about six miles before you come to the rock at Corbetena. But no worries, this dirty water is super shallow and is just on the surface. Once you’re at the rock you can expect to find plenty of Sailfish, Dorado from 15 to 25 lbs, Blue Marlin in the 250 to 400 lb range, but they can get huge at any minute. Not that a 300 lb fish is small by any measure! There are also Spinner Dolphin running just north of the rock and they’re running with 30 to 45 lb Football Tuna like they normally do. There is a ton of bait in the area starting with baby Bonito, we call them bullets. The Skip Jack Tuna are n the 30 lb range. Almost too large for the tuna tubes. There is a host of different baits out there and they’re all working. Live bait is king, but lures are working too. Even rigged baits with skirts off the nose are working very well. Your experienced captain will know what’s happening. El Banco this week is an information void. Nobody is heading to this location when the Bay Dorado are on tap! Anything that is happening at Corbetena can happen at El B, or may even be better than Corbetena. And like I always say, “they’re bigger at the bank”. Feeling lucky?

Looking a bit closer in, El Morro to Punta Mita has had a very strong pulse and has been alive with action. Mostly Sailfish and Dorado, which works just fine. Find floating debris, a log or even a floating dead horse, It’s a local secret your captain knows all about. One interesting this is that the “clean green” water is all over the place. As you probably remember this isn’t an ideal situation. But for now it isn’t affecting the fishing any and in fact may help your cause with a bit cooler water temperatures. There have been some reports of Rooster fish striking baits, but no pictures and “iffy” information means it should probably be ignored, but give it all a second glance in a day or three. Those shooting for Rooster fish, the time is perfect for the Cabo Corrientes area at the south end of the bay. An eight hour trip for now is well worth the money!

Inside the bay is the standard “trash line” hunt. As the currents change in the bay as well, so does the trash line(s) location(s). For now it’s moved from the middle of the bay to the Los Arcos area, but in reality could be somewhere else tomorrow. Following those Dorado seem to be a fair amount of Sailfish. What used to be a rarity, is now almost so common you can target them. Having said that, Sailfish have also be running the Los Arcos “neighborhood”. This week we’ve seen the Skippies, aka Skip Jack Tuna running the bay in decent numbers. Normally a Skippie will run under 12 lbs. But for now, they’re very large at just over 25 lbs. Some are too large for Tuna Tubes, a device that they’re put in, basically a tube. The Skippies have water forced up into their face so water goes through the gills. This works for a while. But if you leave that Skippie in there to long, they get disoriented and won’t swim right. Kinda like spinning in a circle until you get dizzy, then trying to walk straight afterwards. So it’s best not to leave them in the Tuna Tube for more than a couple hours. 30 pound Tuna in the bay is fun to catch and they taste great as well! Bay fishing is the best I can remember at this time of the year. Normally all the decent action is outside the bay. For now, I’ll eat those words and join you! FYI: The bay has dirty water as well from all the rain. But again, it’s shallow so any fish under this green water will see your baits, so don’t stress. I still recommend six hours in the bay, but four hours on Magnifico at Los Arcos yesterday produced twelve Dorado over 20 lbs!   

As some things change, some things will stay the same. The bite is still before 09:00, I’d be where I wanted to be before 08:00. Even earlier wouldn’t hurt, some fish are taking baits as soon as they’re seen and you can’t complain about that. Water temperatures are still a solid 88 degrees, some areas are a bit cooler and that’s a great place to drop baits! Frankly, for some reason water temperatures didn’t hit the “boiling hot 91 degrees” this year. So 88 degrees is a fish and angler friend in comparison. Let’s talk bait. You have many options in the bay and surrounding area. Ballyhoos, a famous bait that we haven’t seen in the bay for many years. But now, every Dorado that’s boated is full of Ballyhoos! But there are also flying fish, Goggle Eyes, Bullet or Baby Bonito, Baby Skippies, and the list goes on. Right now Captain Cesar from Magnifico has been having great luck with several different baits, but he’s rigging them with skirts off the nose and they’re working great. Bullets are also a favorite. Dead bait is working too and a skirt doesn’t hurt. Amazingly, live bait is king, but lures are working as well. But the following colors and combinations are where you want to start. There is a small three inch lure, it’s a soft lure called Shugars. Those alone of pink and brown are working very well. Green and pink are killing them as Capt Cesar says! Also, if running a lure or two use the following colors for now: Dead baits with skirts of green and silver. Lures of purple / Brown and Green / Purple are also getting the attention you want. Small lure of three inches are a perfect size to rig baits or run alone.

As mentioned earlier, we’re looking down the throat of Hurricane Lidia. We see Hurricanes all the time, this one is a bit threatening though. The point is, Hurricane push fish and with and Lidia is heading our way. This shoiuld push fish into the area and I predict some outstanding action in the area come mid-week. So stay tuned and I’ll write about what happened next week….

So until next week, don’t forget to kiss your fish!

October 11^th, 2023 Hurricane Lidia Update: For those of you who knew Puerto Vallarta had a Hurricane coming in hot and heavy, everything in PV was about as good as you could expect. I was watching the Hurricane on my phone and saw Hurricane Lidia coming straight down the throat of the bay. Then it stopped moving, broke into two pieces and unexpectedly went south. Once it was around the southern corner of the bay, Cabo Corrientes, the full force hit! I haven’t heard much about that area, it’s not all that populated, that’s probably why.

About 7 PM on the nite of the Oct. 10^th, we got the worst of it… My windows were bulging out and that

scared the Frijoles out of me.. I checked the satellite sites, and it looked like the Hurricane was coming

down the pipe to PV… when it got to the front of the bay, it all but stopped and wound up splitting in two pieces, then for some reason I watched it go south around the corner of Cabo Corrientes, the other side of the Sierfa Madre Mountains!  At that point it all fell apart pretty quickly.

We now know a direct, down the pipe gets pushed off… maybe the pressure packing up against

the mountains and acted like a bumper pool table… either way, Cabo Corrientes got the blunt

impact.  

Those sierra Madres are PV’s Saving grace..

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