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Then it's away leaping all over the ocean, except that the
man on the rod doesn't get to see any of that as the boat is
backed down sending bucketfuls of water in over the stern,
over your head, and into your eyes.
My next visit to Mexico was in January 2015. For years Paul
Haynes at Warrior Boats had talked about the fabulous
marlin and yellow fin tuna fishing out of Puerto Vallarta
further down the Pacific coast from Cabo San Lucas. So
when Dawn and I decided to go to Mexico on holiday, that
seemed the logical choice.
We both loved the place. Very clean, lots to do, and very
nice helpful people too. A far cry from my previous Cabo
experience.
Obviously, some fishing was also on the agenda. But first I
needed to suss out where the boats were and what they were
catching, so I headed on up to Marina Vallarta hoping to see
them coming in, which in theory was a good idea, foiled
only by the fact that none seemed to be going out fishing in
the first place.
Gordon Thornes, big Needlefish I saw plenty of boats and advertising boards. But I never
saw any fishermen at all coming in. So as you do, I started
asking around, and very quickly got the distinct impression that things weren't what they used to be.
I was told that tuna were scarce and hardly worth bothering with. The only people still doing a bit of
rod and line fishing were the panga's. These would come right in onto the beach in front of your hotel
to pick you up, which is eventually what I did.
A word of warning though. Even in flat calm conditions you still get one big roller at the edge, which
makes pick ups and drops decidedly dodgy.
Also, I would advise taking your own tackle. I had more eyes than the battered old rods they provided
on the boat. And still we caught fish, all of which is okay if slow trolling live-baits for good sized jacks
turns you on. But that pretty much is what it's come to there now by all accounts.
One day we took a rackety old bus ride down to the Malecon, which is the old Puerto Vallarta where
all the shops, bars, and night time entertainment goes on. A great place to visit, and while I was there I
went off scouting for vantage points to fish, where on the far side of the river, I found a small brand
new concrete pier that some of the locals were fishing from with hand lines.
The following morning, armed with a pack of calamari bought at Wal Mart and my telescopic rod, I
was on the bus and back there before daylight, making my way down to fish the pier where it was instant
success.
Every drop a hit. All sorts of fish from jacks and snappers through to trigger fish and porcupine fish,
plus weird looking blue spotted flatfish with their eyes set wide apart, all of which I was able to identify
from my photographs using the Internet back at the hotel.
The big problem was that the trigger fish kept biting my size eight hooks off their eight pounds bs
monofilament snoods. There were some better fish in there amongst them too, with several stripping
line from the spool. I also saw some very big fish mooching around the concrete legs, including
stingrays.
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