BLUE MARLIN ACTION CONTINUES FOR MEXICAN FISHING BOATS

Feb. 24, 2007, Baja On The Fly, Ed Kunze, Ixtapa Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico:

The Ixtapa vacation area of Mexico has had a very mixed fishing week. Our bread and butter fish, the sailfish, has been fairly slow offshore. Ixtapa fishing boats are only averaging one or two sailfish per day, with many charter boats not seeing a thing.

But, the blue marlin fishing here has been incredible.

One day this week, we had reports of 14 large blue marlin caught by the tourist sport fishing fleet out of the municipal pier in Zihuatanejo, plus another 6 blue marlin from private boats at Marina Ixtapa.

And, this does not include the other 10 blue marlin caught by the Mexican commercial fishing pangueros.

For the entire Ixtapa Zihuatanejo fishing fleet, including the commercial pangueros, we put about 40 boats on the water and caught 30 blue marlin in one day.

The other fishing days in this week have not been quite so plentiful, but we are still seeing a minimum of 10 blue marlin per day being hooked and landed out of Ixtapa Zihuatanejo.

One notable catch was made by angler Bill Hermann from Washington. While fishing aboard the charter boat Gaby with Captain Margarito, Margarito called me on my cell phone at 9 a.m. and they were almost back to the pier already. His clients had enough excitement for the day. A 426-pound blue marlin had wiped them out.

Another notable catch was made by fly fishing angler Onno Van Veen of Holland. He fished 6 days with Capt. Santiago on the Zihuatanejo charter panga Gitana, and released 2 sailfish, 1 striped marlin, and a blue marlin of about 100 pounds, all taken on the fly.

A party of 4 anglers in the Bob Stevens group out of Seattle, Wash., fished on 2 pangas at Vicente Guerrero for one day. I was guiding on one panga, with Capt. Cali on the other. Between us, we tagged and released 3 sailfish for 4 fly fishermen.

While guiding this trip on a panga out of Puerto Vicente Guerrero, we encountered two trapped sea turtles in two separate incidences. Both of the turtles were tangled up in a gill net made for tuna, dorado, and small sharks. Apparently, a large cargo ship passed through the gill net, tangling it all up and cutting it into several pieces. We cut both turtles free, and they were happy to get out of Dodge. We put both tangled gill nets on the bow, and got them into a trash dumpster. If the gill nets are left alone out in the blue water, they will just keep on killing.

There was very little fishing action inshore at Ixtapa this week. Fishing water temperatures on the Ixtapa Zihuatanejo coast of Mexico were at 80 to 84 degrees; air temperatures 76 to 88 degrees; conditions mostly sunny.