BIG GAME FISH FEEDING ON DEEP BAIT

October 17, 2004 Capt. Josh Temple, Prime Time Adventures, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Fishing:

The water temperature continues to hover between 86.1 and 87.9 degrees, and the water is deep, deep blue, both just inside and outside the bay. The current swung around late Saturday afternoon and is now pushing strong from the south at over 1.7 kts. Puerto Vallarta fishing weather patterns appear to have settled into the "usual" fall and winter conditions, and the light offshore winds in the morning give way to light to moderate northwesterlies by the early afternoon. Once again the predominant baits offshore are oceanic red crabs, squid, and puffers.

There's plenty of bait out there right now...so much in fact that there is little if any sign of game fish feeding through most of the day. The bait fish are causing quite a commotion but the game fish are feeding below sight as there appears to be no reason to push bait all the way to the surface. Don't let the lack of sign fool you though! There is a tremendous variety and size of tuna, marlin, dorado, sailfish, and wahoo out there, and fishing live bait around meter marks and along the ridge will produce exceptional catches.

Robert Ives from California spent most of Sunday on the bitter end of a giant Puerto Vallarta yellowfin tuna and fought a savage battle against a fish that after 2.5 hours of hard pulling still managed to scream with over 40 pounds of drag. Eventually Robert managed to bring the fish to leader and with a carefully aimed shot with the flying gaff, 318 pounds of yellowfin tuna hit the deck. Not bad for someone who until Sunday had caught tuna to 40 pounds.

We scored a Puerto Vallarta fishing super slam on Wednesday with a nice blue marlin release, a sailfish release, a 35-pound dorado and a 140-pound tuna.

The rest of the week has been filled with tuna to 120 pounds and lots of fish in the 65 to 90-pound range. The dorado continue to push through and the average size is 25 to 35 pounds. Sailfish are out there, and yesterday we caught one we spotted trying to eat a piece of 2-by-4 floating on the surface.

The Puerto Vallarta forecast is great, as this south current should really get the fall season started, and the 318 pounder is a great indication of things to come.

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from Puerto Vallarta and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for Puerto Vallarta may be found at Mexfish.com's main Puerto Vallarta page.