Thursday, March 25, 2010

Accurate visits Puerto Vallarta, land of the cows.



It had been awhile since I had been to PV in search of the "Cow" Yellowfin Tuna but Brandon Hayward and myself were invited by the crew of the "Martuni" to give our luck a try. Captain Keith Denette, deck hand and chef extraordinaire Brant, and the boat owner Keith Jones are veterans of the cow tuna in PV, and we had the experience on the boat, and the desire to catch them if they cooperated with us. After a week of 25 -40 mph winds prior to our arrival, we arrived to absolutely flat conditions, beautiful and warm.
Getting everything in order on Wednesday we headed out to catch bait and spend the night at Punta Meita. Thursday brought great conditions and we were on the grounds looking for bird schools at day break. After a trip around the grounds we pointed the boat outside and found what we were looking for, Boobie birds on large bait schools with both spinner porpoise and our targeted quarry, Yellowfin tuna. As we approached the first school and all troll rods with Mauraders went down and I put a cabito in for a drop back which was quickly consumed by a nice schoolie fish.
This was the trick for the day as we put numerous fish on the deck between 20 and 50 pounds looking for the larger grade fish. The first day had come to an end with good action on smaller fish and great conditions.
Friday we awoke to the same beautiful conditions and it took about 20 minutes for Keith to find a bird school in the gyro's and before you knew it we were in position to start the Melli. Today was different in the sense that Keith told Brando and I to go to the bow with poppers. I had a Halco Max 130 in my bag and tied it on to give it a whirl. This type of fishing is my favorite and it was full speed all day with several nicer fish in the 50 pound range.
Sight casting to tunas in the middle of porpoise schools is the most bizarre thing I have done with a visual on the spinners and looking for the black backs of the tuna sunning on the surface. I would have never believed it but after numerous fish caught, it was all time. I never picked up another bait until later that night and had the best tuna fishing I can remember with the Halco Max 130 in a bait fish color. OFF THE HOOK!
After a full day of fishing the porpoise schools we set up a drift for the night and Keith put a bait down while we started dinner and finished the chores. It didn't take long before we got bit and ended up landing a fish in the 120 lb class. Fun stuff. Just before dark we had found bigger fish but could not get them to bite. Unbelievable what a littler perseverance does. Well after cleaning the rest of the fish we had another excellent dinner by Brant, shared a few fish stories and hit the sack. Saturday brought the same fishing with excellent results on 20 to 60 pounders.
We spent the rest of the trip going from one bird school to another having the best time I can remember.
It is a pleasure spending quality time with good people, and it was awesome having someone like Keith finding the bird schools literally one and after the other.
We went down focusing on small reels and big fish but the cows were elusive but we caught plenty of fish on the Boss BX-500 and the B2-30N casting on the porpoise schools. I couldn't have had a better time and look forward to getting back down there this year to pursue a cow on a small reel.
Thanks again to the crew of the "Martuni" for a great time.

Until the next time, keep your lines tight and enjoy your time with family and friends.

Ben

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Right now fishing is great at el Banco and Corbetena, when you have a chance come back and fish Puerto Vallarta, I love my accurate reels they are great/