Guess I'll throw my report in here, too. Buoyweather was spot on with its prediction of flat water for Friday and Saturday. The only problem with flat water is no breeze -- it's getting brutally hot out there! Yeah, I know... complain about too much wind, complain about no wind. No such thing as a happy medium, I suppose.
Dennis and I joined Ted Miller down in Puerto Lobos on Friday to fish on his boat. Uneventful trip down, slight delay at the check point south of Rocky Point due to the Army checking everybody. Gotta pity those guys standing out there in the sun all day in full gear and helmets.
We got in about noon and waded out to join Ted on his boat. He was sitting very close to shore and was pointing out where the roosterfish run along the beach. He and Dennis had tried catching them before, but the roosters would only follow the lure and not strike it. Ted had ordered up some new lures that were supposed to be THE hot ticket for catching roosters. They're called
Ranger lures and oh yes, they really do work! There were dark clouds of minnows sitting in the surfline, maybe two feet deep, if that. The roosters were sitting in the middle of them, creating a white sand spot in the middle of the bait school. They didn't seem to be actively feeding on the minnows, but were waiting for anything else that was.
Casting a Ranger out into minnow cloud, then quickly retrieving, would bring the roosters charging out after the lure. The water was crystal clear and it was fantastic to watch them hunt the lure down in packs, just like wolves. They are a super-determined predator and would come right to the surface to chase the lure down just like I've seen marlin do to trolling lures. The faster you retrieved the lure, the better they liked it.
We hooked up a nice one and it's a great battle on light tackle. We tried to play him out quickly, but it took about 10-15 minutes to get him to the boat and release him. Ted got some good pictures I'll link to when he posts them. Finally, my first roosterfish! Not a giant, but pushing 25-30 lbs. easy.
The roosters also seem to learn very quickly. You could target a batch of them two, maybe three times, then they'd ignore you. We'd move on down the beach and find another batch to sight cast. It's been along time since I've had that much plain ol' out and out fun catching any fish! By the way - you could have easily done this fishing from shore. The roosters were no more than a few yards off the tideline at high tide, a nice long sandy stretch of beach.
Oh - while we were fishing the roosters, we saw what at first looked like a big, dark bait ball just out from us about 20 yards or so. Suddenly, we saw a fin break the surface and realized it wasn't bait at all. It was a whale shark, about a 14 footer, just cruising by in less than 3 ft. of water. Ted got a decent video of it I'll link to when he posts it. I've never seen a whale shark so shallow, but it seemed perfectly healthy and eventually swam back out into deeper water.
We tried a few other deeper spots with jigs to finish up the day and caught a mixed bag of small fish - sierra, triggers, snapper, but nothing huge.
Day 2 we started out trolling some huge Mann's 50ft. deep diver lures because one of the Mexican divers had told us he'd seen some 40 kilo groupers in 40 ft. of water right off the point. We thought it would be fun trying to catch one trolling. We had one good bump on a lure, but it didn't stick. After a bit of this, we hit some close reefs to make bait. The reefs were loaded with monster size trigger fish. They were pounding the small bait jigs. We finally got a few rock bass and moved on.
We stopped on a grouper reef and Dennis immediately hooked up about a 40 pounder on the same light gear and jigs we were using for bait. First nice catch of the day! He took a break for a minute and dropped back down, only to get slammed by an even larger model. I didn't think there was anyway he'd get the fish in on such light gear, but he slowly worked that fish to the surface and it took two of us to pull it over the side. We put it on the scale and it checked in at 89 lbs. fresh out of the water.
So... time to go big game trolling. Ted had a set of outriggers for his boat, but didn't know how to set them up or use them. I showed him how to get them going and we put out a nice spread of trolling lures and headed for blue water. There were some decent patches of sargasso, but no dorado hanging out under them. We finally found a paddy that was holding some fish. They came out and attacked the lures, but they were just schoolie peanuts and too small to even take one of the trolling lures. We made another pass and cast to them and picked up one immediately. Kept it for ceviche. We spent about 4 hours trolling with no results. We saw several marlin jumping, but never did see one tailing on the surface.
We got tired of the fish ignoring us and headed back in. Since it was high tide, we took another shot at the roosterfish and hooked up a couple of those again.
All in all, a great trip with lots of different kinds of fishing. A nice break from Penasco. Lobos is fairly primitive and reminds of what Cholla Bay used to be like back in the day. Great friendly people and a lot of fun!
ON EDIT:
Here's the link to Ted's report and pictures! Good stuff and MANY Thanks to Ted for great hospitality and a GREAT TIME!!!!
