Z Fish Report (11/23/17)

Above and below from Dan Putland: "No sail fish
 but we had a double header of Mahi Mahi
 and a nice day out! My Mother-in-law got
 the other dorado (Jan Fozard is her name) Angel and his crew were great!" They fished
on the cruiser Aqua Azul. 

Offshore (average) surface water temperature - Includes from the 5-6 mile mark at the 100 fathom line, then to the 1,000 fathom line being at 32 miles: 85°.

Inshore (average) surface temperature. From the beach to about 5 miles: 85°

Blue water: (Chlorophyll amounts and surface temps from Terrafin SST) With the exception of fresh water releases from the Rio Balsas, up at Lazaro Cardenas, the blue water is basically on the beach. This is great for the offshore fishing, but makes it tough for catching roosters on the back side of the waves.

Offshore: We had a 4.8 earthquake centered only a few miles south of Zihuatanejo Bay early this week. With extremely sensitive lateral lines, which pick up bait school vibrations from hundreds of yards away, the pelagic billfish must feel like they are in a bowl of shaking jelly. Either they take off, or just go off their feed. I am not sure. Either way, maybe new fish move into the area, or the others start feeding again. But, after 24 hours the bite turns on again.

Gord Roberts on the panga Porpy, with Noe

Gord Roberts of Canada emailed me this: We made it back to Zihaut again this year. Fished with Noe in the Porpy on Monday. We went to the White Rocks, Los Morros, to start and stayed for 5 hours, I missed two wahoo. One by the boat, the other further out. 

We were using spinning reels with light tackle and small open face reels, we did get 2 small dorado in the morning on live bait, big eyes and anchovies. We could have had all the bonitos (black skipjack) we wanted but we were out for the tasty fish.

It was very busy around the Rocks with as many as 11 boats I could see at one time, 5 were locals in open pangas fishing for skip jack, they were being very successful in addition to the skip jack I saw them pull in 4 dorado.

We left after lunch to troll further out and got another dorado just as we were heading in.

So it was a good trip with an afternoon nap. It was good to see the dorado back. 

Things are now picking up again.  

Inshore: The water along the beaches is very warm, and very clear. Warm is good, clear is bad. There are lots of small to mid-sized roosters all up and down the coast, and even small to medium dorado at the white rocks.

Jason, with a medium sized rooster.

Today (Thursday) Jason from the San Francisco Bay area fished with Adolfo on the panga Dos Hermanos. Jason understands the concept of distance casting and even brought the right kind of gear. I think Adolfo took this as a challenge, because he told me this afternoon, Jason is “dead”. He caught so many fish (40 black skipjack tuna, and 5 roosterfish), he was flat out wiped out. 

Keith Paul says it best. “El Senor put me in the bottom of the boat...again”.

John Torres of Arizona, also fly fished with Adolfo earlier this week. John told me this… 

Fished with Adolfo yesterday for an unbelievable trip.  The guy is amazing.  I had more fun than any man should be allowed to enjoy.  Fly fishing only, we fished going north and caught just about everything except a rooster. Adolfo brought oysters, and the fixin's for tirita's (ceviche). 

We caught a bunch of barilletes (black skipjack tuna) right out of the gate.  I caught so many, my shoulders started to hurt.  Moved up further north and hit pods of the incredible tasting pompano, an occasional needle fish, and one tiger grouper.

Lunch time was oyster's and tiritas. Friggin oysters were outrageous.

 

I finally figured out that I had the wrong line set up on my fly rod.  Will fix that as soon as I get home.  Need a 28 foot heavy, sinking shooting head and 40 feet of thin running line.  I have been trying to throw 78 feet of standard weight forward line and about the time I get it all in the air it becomes too heavy and slow to shoot the line and collapses. All these years of fly fishing and I don't know squat about fishing the salt.  At the age of 74 I guess there is still time to learn. 

Ed Kunze                                                                            

 (Director of the Roosterfish Foundation, IGFA Representative)