Puerto Vallarta Fishing Report: May 2007

Greetings from Puerto Vallarta. I happy to say that the past month has provided for some incredible fishing. Although you may hear differently, those of us who know the waters and play a role within the local fishing community have had a lot of fun. There are huge schools of fish in those places that not too many people know about, and we've been fortunate to find some great spots loaded with sailfish, snapper, rooster, and most recently TUNA. Yes tuna, and it is starting to look like last years disappointing tuna season will be made up for with an unusually good year.

The month started with most boats heading out to Corbetena and El Banco hoping for a tuna or two. Not to say that their efforts were completely un-rewarded, most boats were getting one or two strikes from smaller tuna each day but it was nothing to get too excited about. Therefor I decided to go north to look for warmer and cleaner water, which I found just off Lo de Marcos and Guayabitos.

The skies were full of feeding gulls, and the waters with some of the biggest sardine bait balls I have ever seen, and it didn't take long for us to realize that the entire area was loaded with sailfish. You could see up to 15 sails on the surface at the same time, it was just a matter of casting into the bait, and you were catching sailfish all day long. In all my years fishing in Puerto Vallarta I have never seen sailfish conditions this good, we got 47 in just five days, and are proud to say that 46 were successful released.

We were most successful casting live caballitos, also known as google eyes into the bait balls, but we also had some luck trolling lures and dead bait. It got to the point where it didn't seem to matter what we were doing the sailfish were taking everything, and we were also getting some smaller dorados on the trolls.

On the few off days when we didn't have the time to go north, we've gone to the El Moro reef just behind the Marietas Islands and have enjoyed some incredible snapper fishing. On any given day we have found 8-10 big schools of 500 or more snapper, and it seems as if the conditions have been the same day in and day out for the past month. We've been most successful with crome jigs in the mornings, and live caballitos and sardines when the fish are feeding on the surface in the afternoons.

We haven't had a lot of time to fish the snapper with all the sailfish action up north, but on the few days we've fished El Moro we've had 4-8 strikes each day in just a few hours. In my own personal opinion I'd prefer to fish for sails but I think a lot of people would disagree. When you see a school of 500+ snappers below the boat, the water seems to turn red just before the reels start screaming, its definitely an amazing experience.

We've also had a lot of fun just off of Punta Mita fishing for roosters, again we haven't had too much time for the roosters with all the other action in the area, but the few times we've had a chance to drop a line we've enjoyed an open bit. Most boats are getting between 10-20 roosters between 15-25kg each and every day. Again we've been most successful using live bait, both caballitos and sardines, and have also found some pompanos, amberjack, and jack crevalle in the area.

All in toll the past month has been great, good weather, calm seas, a lot of bait in the water, some incredible fishing, and with all the indications that the good conditions are just going to get better as the summer approaches.

And just at the point when I was ready to post this report it seems as if my predictions were correct, the fishing conditions have gotten better over the past 3 days, much better. In all honestly it took me by surprise when we went to look for a tuna or two and out of nowhere we landed 9 fish in just a few hours. It seems as if the conditions changed from one or two strikes per day, to 10-15 overnight. Yesterday alone we had 17 tuna strikes, all fish weighing between 15 - 100kg. This bite is not that unusual but it's definitely early in comparison with previous years; we are all hoping the tuna are here to stay, especially after a shorter season last year.

Good luck, good fishing, and I hope to see you in PuertoVallarta soon.

Captain Juan Pablo Moll