Zihua - Skein...here's the article

[Popeye]

Posted Saturday, February 28, 2004
The cooler 74º blue water is about 12 miles out, and the cool water has really hurt the fishing for our "bread and butter" sailfish. Only about 1 sailfish a day is being hooked by each boat. However, the cooler water has really turned on the blue marlin fishing. At least three boats a day are getting a blue between 250 and 400 pounds.

Do to the very slow offshore and inshore action, I have been taking my fly fishing clients about 45 minutes north of Ixtapa and fishing the beach at Saladitas. This had been productive, until the larger surf kicked in. One day this last week we watched Bruce Polley and his friend Brad cast Hopkins spoons with spinning rods for the 25 pound jack crevalle. They were having to duck under the waves as they slammed into them, but they caught a lot of fish.

For us fly fishermen, it was an almost impossible situation, because even if we had tried to put the stripping basket on our head, we still would not reach the fish. The following is a letter Bruce sent to me by e-mail.

Hello Ed,

I guess you talked to a friend of mine last week (Brad) while we were fishing at Saladita Beach.

We had a lot of fun playing with the Jacks in the surf and fed quite a few locals with our catch.

Blue water was tough, although Monday we were setting up ahead of some hot porpoise and birds and thinking tuna when we had a tripple strike on sails. Hooked up 2 for a short period. The first one ran across the other lines and burned the 30# mono so we broke off both fish we hooked.

That was about 8 miles straight out front of Zihua.

Last year we came in March in the bright of the moon and had cold green water. Tried February in the dark of the moon this year a got cold green water again!!

The surf fishing was the highlight. Really fun and different. My other friend Keith got nearly spooled then broke off on 30# leader Sunday morning right after we had spotted a Rooster while walking down the beach.

I wanted to thank you for your reports. I may e-mail next year for recomondations on dates etc.

Thanks Again!

Bruce Polley

[skein]

Thanks, Popeye, and let's hope for warm water. Going in late March should help, but it's still a crapshoot. I'm going to bring some surf gear though, because that looks like a hoot.

I'm going to go up and meet with GunRodBow and see what he has to say.

One thing about it, their "cold" water is gonna feel a lot better than the 51 degree stuff in Yaquina. :shocked:

Skein

[Gun Rod Bow]

BTW,

What GRB has to say is listed above on Ed's report after "Hello".

Here's the link to his report http://www.sportfishing-ixtapa.com/reports.shtml

It's updated roughly weekly.

See you next week Skein.

[ 03-04-2004, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Gun Rod Bow ]

[FASTWATER]

For Zihue sails the end of December and January are the money in the bank lights out sailfishing times!! Middle of January around the wanying moon is the very best time, we usually book are trips early in the summer for the next year as the good boats and skippers are usually booked up pretty fast as word gets out on the fishing oppurtunity down there we have seen major increase in fishing pressure yearly but for a fairly low budget awesome fishing the area really cant be beat then. We usually raise 10 to 15 fish daily and the best we did this year was 9 to the boat. Airfair,panga,and hotel room for 4 days fishing from Seattle was 1300$ how can you beat that if anyone is looking for any info on the area e-mail me and I can usually answer questions brought up!!!

[FASTWATER]

I should also mention the link GUN ROD BOW put up, Ed Kunze is probably the best resource for info in Zihue, he strictly flyfishes but knows the boats and skippers and has a wealth of info on the area. He always replys to any e-mails sent his way so is a great resource for zihue!!!

[Sublime]

Great stories!~ I can almost imagine being there!

If you can get any pics, I'd love to see them [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]