OFFSHORE OUTING ON THE SPORT BOAT PESCADOR

Oct. 2, 2005, Larry Lionetti, El Pescador, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Fishing Report:

I went to Puerto Vallarta last week with the intentions of fishing with my daughter so she could catch her big tuna, but that all changed when I got a call from Capt. Josh Temple. He informed me that he had ESPN scheduled for the next two days to shoot an episode of Wanna Go Fishing produced by Chris Fischer.

Josh's trusty vessel Prime Time had some maintenance that need to be taken care of and could not make the assignment so Josh asked if EL Pescador could do the job.

The fishing trip was finalized around 8 p.m. the night before, so the next thing we had to do was provision the boat for 12 people for two days. Thank god for Sam's Club and Walmart or we would have been stuck eating Cup a Noodle for two days.

With just a few hours of sleep, we left the Puerto Vallarta docks at 4 a.m. en route to pick up the ESPN crew in Punta Mita.

Fishing off Puerto Vallarta on day one, the weather was horrible on El Banco. The crew was green, and we saw no bait or life. "That's why they call it fishing," was the explanation I gave to my daughter.

Fishing day two I knew would be a winner by 3 a.m. because making bait was a breeze and while leaving the Puerto Vallarta harbor the dolphin and marine life was bubbling all over.

We were fishing three miles from Roca Corbetena and we rolled over a football field size of skipjacks. As the large swells moved the boat up we could see the hungry skips feeding on the upper part of the swell almost dumping them on our back deck.

The entire crew came forward and one at a time fired their jigs into the waves, hooking one after another and walking them to the back deck where they were bridled on the 50's loaded with spectra and circle hooks, two on the outriggers, two on the planers and two on the the sides.

With six perfectly alive and swimming skips, we made several passes near the high spots and the bait was being chased and we could hear the clickers screaming as the 6 skips would take off in all directions.

This went on for several hours with no takers. The water got moving with the tide change and we expanded our troll to the edge of the bank where the water drops off.

As we trolled over the drop, the scream of the reel went off and one rod bent in half with a major strike, then a second, and as the fisherman were getting into their harnesses, bang we had a triple going.

We stabilized the first fish and the third came unbuttoned.

The second fish after 20 minutes came unbuttoned.

Now the one fish had our undivided attention, and we enjoyed every moment of this battle with Matt Eastman playing the fish, ensuring that this fish would make him forget how sick he was the day before.

About an hour and a half later, we had a mix of crew on the back deck, two with gaffs and two with cameras, and Chris Fischer in the water with his camera filming the tuna in its death circle.

Finally, the fish was gaffed and brought aboard and a sense of success came over everyone, as we knew we got the fish, footage in the can, and the show, which will air in January.

(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.