Puerto Vallarta Fishing Report: February 2007
Greetings from Puerto Vallarta. In continuation of my previous sport fishing report when I wrote about our big tuna season being late this year and our anticipation of a great start to the new year. Unfortunately, it don't work out as we had all hoped for, it seems as if "El Nino" has stolen this year from us. We noticed signs of more bait fish in the waters in late November and yearly December and had a few weeks of non stop action from the bigger schools of tuna with 8-12 hooks ups per day, but just as we thought our season was starting late it quickly faded away. Not to say we didn't get a few big ones but it was definitely not the season we had all hoped for.
Currently there are many smaller tuna out there, however its seems to be that some days the fish are biting and other days they are not. On the good days we've been most successful using the kite, and live bait. Besides the tuna we are also finding a lot of other fish, dorado, sailfish, striped marlin, and even a couple pargo. Most of which we are catching off of Corbetena and El Banco, which both form part of an underwater mountain range.
We have also been following large schools of bait fish 20 - 30 miles north of Punta de Mita, and we've had a few days with 3-5 stripped marlin hook ups, not to mention a few dorado, sailfish and a couple smaller tuna. We are having the most luck with lures, but we've also been casting live bait (caballitos) when we see them on the surface.
We are also finding schools of medium sized tuna swimming with the spinner dolphins which seem to pop up randomly from time to time, usually about 10 miles west of Corbetena, and we've been most successful using live bait (caballitos), lures, and cedar plugs.
Typically the new year is our slowest season in Puerto Vallarta for fishing, however we seem to be having quite a few good days as well. It seems that day in and day out we are on one species or an other. On the slower days we have headed into the bay to take advantage of the good inshore fishing this time of year. Just off of Punta Mita we had a few days where we can't keep the rooster fish from biting, its not quite the thrill of a 300 pound tuna but its still a lot of fun. We have also been catching smaller dorado, a few sailfish, amber jack, pompanos, and big tooth bonita in the same area, all on a variety of live bait, lures and jigs.
As I previously mentioned this is the slow time of year, but even the slow time of year in Puerto Vallarta is action packed. There are still a lot of fish out there and its just going to get better. I've personally had a great month, a lot of good days, a lot of nice fish, and my teams first place finish for tuna and dorado in the recent international sport fishing tournament in Barra de Navidad.
Good luck, good fishing, and I hope to see you in Puerto Vallarta soon.
Captain Juan Pablo Moll
sportfishing.com.mx
