Z Fish Report (7/1/10)

We had been experiencing some fantastic action in the early part of this last week. The 84° blue water was just off the beach and the sailfish were going strong. Plus, we were recording some incredible catches of roosterfish and jack crevalle inshore. And then the rains came.

            Adolfo, on the panga Dos Hermanos, told me his clients caught 18 roosterfish on Sunday. They were taken on surface poppers and slow trolled live bait. He was working the areas south of Valentine and down to the antennas. He went back on Monday, and the roosters were gone, but got about 15 jack crevalle, which are not so sensitive to the huge volume of fresh water lowering the salinity of the coast line. Due to the wind and intensity of the rain, he didn’t even try to fish on Wednesday.
             From Sunday evening through Thursday afternoon we have gotten 15 inches of rain, which really screws up the inshore fishing by bringing in tonnage of silt and fresh water from the numerous local rivers and streams. The silt makes the water look like weak hot chocolate and the fresh water lowers the salinity. It will take a couple of weeks to get things settled down again.

             Our normal heavy rain comes at night, in the form of thunder showers, but we have had intermittent heavy rain at any hour of the 24 hour day. Other than the month of September, this is very unusual.
             There is a group of fishermen who have been fighting the elements, and considering the conditions they are fishing in, they are doing well. There are 10 fly fishermen here from the central valley of California, and chartered through Mike Powers of American Fishing Company in Sacramento. Without the 5 pangas they are going out in daily, there would have been only 3 or 4 boats on the water each day this week.
              So far, Adan on the panga Gitana is the high boat in the fleet, raising 15 sailfish, teasing 10 to the boat, with the fly clients hooking 6. Please understand, a hooked fish on the fly is not exactly a fish brought to leader. The line gets wrapped around the reel, hooks are not set firmly enough to withstand the incredible aerobatics of a sailfish, the angler is standing on the fly line, etc. But, the captain has done his part.
              Second captain honors go to Fernando, with 2 sailfish actually getting to the boat for photos.

              When the sailfish action died off on Thursday, all of the group’s boats found the schools of small yellowfin tuna, which were willing to eat the fly. Plus, there were schools of the small pelagic sharks, which rarely get larger than 4 feet, but have a large shark’s appetite. They were eating the hooked tuna.
Ed Kunze