Early and late for Corvina?

[audsley]

I was in Rocky Pt. Oct. 2 - 5 and, once again, I tried and failed to catch Corvina. Seems I just can't quite get it right.

Here were my operating assumptions:

Like most fishing, Corvina are hit and miss and never a sure thing, but they can often be caught around Rocky Pt between late spring and Thanksgiving, and October is one of the best times.

Best places to fish include La Pinta estuary, Rocky Pt harbor and north of Sandy Beach.

Best time to fish is around high tide, preferably a little either side of it when fish tend to be either coming in or going out of an estuary or bay.

Best lure is a silvery Crocodile or something similar.

How am I doing so far?

So around midday, when the tide is nearing its high point, I drive from Las Conchas down La Pinta and park near the pangas and clam shell piles. As I'm rigging up, a friendly young local who's been messing with his boat walks up and offers some advice in English that's much better than my Spanish. He tells me that while my lure (big Crocodile) is a superb choice, I came at the wrong time of day.

"Come back late afternoon and you should do well," he tells me. "But I don't think you will catch anything now. Come back when the sun is over there." He pointed west-northwest.

Well, I'm already there, it's high tide and I'm going to try anyway. I take his name - he is Tavo, and he and his father take people fishing in their boat - and I walk east toward the mouth of the estuary. It's high tide, so I can't cross to the little penninsula on the other side, and Tavo had mentioned a productive channel closer to the mainland side.

Tavo's fishing forecast turned out to be right. I didn't catch anything, nor did I get a strike. Two friends were with me. One caught something about 10 inches long that wasn't a Corvina. (I didn't see it.)

While I was accomplishing nothing but a good workout for my casting arm, a middle-aged fellow pulls up behind me an ATV.

"Early and late," he says to me. "You should fish early and late."

"But the high tide is now," I told him. "And everybody says you stalk the wild Corvina as the high tide is coming in or starting to go out."

"Don't worry about the tide," he insisted. "Early and late." He was a Mexican-American from Phoenix who had built a house nearby, I think somewhere east of the estuary, and had been coming here for decades. At that point I wasn't going to argue with him.

So what do I need to do? Go on a day when the high tide is early or late? On this particular visit, high tide was around 1 p.m and 1 a.m. I didn't have the option of early or late with a high tide. But if I want to catch Corvina next time, do I need to schedule my stay when high tide is early and late? Or do I do as the man on the ATV said and not worry about the tides, as long as it's either early or late?

 

[cholla]

When I think back on catching corvina off of Pelican point, maybe 2 dozen times, it was almost always just before dark or right after. My friend once caught a 10 pounder when the sun had just gone down and it was dark.
I have talked to the locals and they fish the times and not the tides for corvina from the shore.

John

 

[Stuart]

Everybody has their own technique, I guess. Mine's always been get to La Pinta at low tide, then fish as the tide comes in. Time of day didn't seem to matter much - I've had hot bites at 1:00 in the afternoon.

So... I'd say the trick is being there when the fish are there! (yes, I'm being a smart ass!) But on the serious side, I would fish with bait (small pieces of squid) until I caught my first corvina, then switch to Kastmasters and let the games begin! When the school runs through, you can fill a bucket in minutes.

 

[jmcdtucson]

My experience is limited, but I've been fortunate to be catch a few so will add my 2cents.
I've always caught them from a kayak, never from shore, but always near shore.

I've only ever caught them when the tide is high or going out (but have never tried an incoming tide). I have never caught them at low tide even though I've tried.

I've always caught them on trolled blue/silver jointed Rebel minnow. But haven't tried Kastmaster at the appropriate time. Obviously they work.

The two times I've caught them have just been coincident with the tides. Either about 3 in the afternoon (recently at La Pinta) or near sundown (this Spring off Playa Encantada - a supposedly bad place to fish but there were plenty of Corvina).

Both times I was fishing the outgoing tide, not the time of day.

I fished about the same area you were fishing just a week ago but from a kayak and caught them about 1/4 mile off shore.

 

[moore_rb]

I also have had best success on Corvina on a rising tide, and especially when the tide is rising early or late in the day-

I have never fished La Pinta, but La Morua and Playa Encanto have always produced fish for me. When fishing the beaches like Encanto, I always look for channels at low tide, and return to these spots as the tide starts rising.

Wind is another factor- I've found that the calmer the wind- the more likely Corvina will be feeding near the surface. Nothing beats a 5+ pounder hitting a white glitter Zara Spook or chrome hula popper

I also have noticed that when the tide swings are not extreme, the falling tide can also trigger a bite. When the tide swings are really heavy-duty, then fishing the early part of the incoming tide, and right at the tidal peak as it begins to fall back are the most likely times to pick up fish. Fishing a rapidly rising (or rapidly falling) tide, when currents are at their strongest, has been very challenging in my experience...

 

[Kenny]

I tend to agree with Stuart on this one, but there are exceptions. Over by Pelican point Ric and I had caught a gunny sack load of Corvina and some nice Pompano before sunrise on a low tide, and with the wind blowing fairly hard. We were already on our way up and off to breakfast when the "early birds" were just getting there. That's fairly standard over there, and you can see the bait fish scatter as they're chasing them over the shallow rocks. No bait here, and you have to keep the lure up off the rocks. The biggest problem over there is the Pangas going out in the morning. Corvina are very prop shy, and will scatter if one passes by the school.

 

[audsley]

That's a lot of Corvina fishing experience I just got handed.

What I got is that early and late are better than mid-day, but there are no ironclad rules other than be there when the fish are there. Fishing at low tide or mid-day stack the odds against you. Fishing changing tides and when the sun is low or even down increases your chances. Corvina can be caught in the sandy flats but your odds are much better in estuaries or along inlets.

The more I think about it, fishing for Corvina probably isn't any more or less predictable than fishing for largemouth bass, trout or crappie. Your chances are usually better early, late or after dark, but sometimes a hot bite comes on at 2 p.m. Calmer waters are generally better than rougher waters, but sometimes a little ripple turns on a bass bite. There are no rules, only probabilities.

Thanks for sharing. I'll try again.

 

[Kenny]

That's a lot of Corvina fishing experience I just got handed.

What I got is that early and late are better than mid-day, but there are no ironclad rules other than be there when the fish are there. Fishing at low tide or mid-day stack the odds against you. Fishing changing tides and when the sun is low or even down increases your chances. Corvina can be caught in the sandy flats but your odds are much better in estuaries or along inlets.

The more I think about it, fishing for Corvina probably isn't any more or less predictable than fishing for largemouth bass, trout or crappie. Your chances are usually better early, late or after dark, but sometimes a hot bite comes on at 2 p.m. Calmer waters are generally better than rougher waters, but sometimes a little ripple turns on a bass bite. There are no rules, only probabilities.

Thanks for sharing. I'll try again.

I've always thought of them more like white bass, probably because they like Kastmasters, and the way the school on bait fish.
But Stuarts right, when they come in there's only one thing on their mind, and that's food. I've had day's where I changed lures trying to find something they wouldn't hit. They would have hit a table spoon with a hook on it someday's. White curly tailed jigs work too.

Kenny

 

[Shore_Fisher]

...Calmer waters are generally better than rougher waters, ...

I would disagree with this statement, and I think the original comment was just that the calmer surface conditions give you more chance of a surface lure hookup. My experience is that a bit of chop/turbulence improves things - Maybe it stirs up the food source?

Somebody I know here in Tucson, who has fished La Pinta a lot, told my dad that it was still too hot for the shoals of corvina to run up the estuary. My experience of La Pinta has been mainly Thanksgiving time, when we have normally had a lot of corvina. And, based on my trip a week or two ago, I can confirm it is still a lot warmer (Water and air) now than then. So I conclude that the corvina (The large shoals at least, as I did hook up three corvina over two tides on my last trip) prefer to run up the estuaries when the water cools off.

Now I also fished La Pinta at Thanksgiving a few years back when there was a really cold snap, and we caught more or less nothing over the two days. This might suggest that there is a temperature window that the corvina like. I would think that the estuaries amplify the water/air temperature difference somewhat (With the water heating up in the estuary - Compared to the coastal water - if the air is hotter than the water and cooling it when the opposite is true). So if there is an ideal temperature window for this fish, then that has to be taken into account when guessing whether they will move up the estuary.

Maybe some of our boat-fishing brethrin could provide some corvina-catching water temperature data (Does anyone carry a thermometer they can drop down to the fishing depth?) and we could try to match this to some estuary temperature measurements? I'd be willing to give it a try.

My experience would support an improvement in fishing early/late in the day, and a presence of at least a few feet of water over calciferous reef structure being the major tidal influence.

Ed

 

[surfcaster]

I fish mostly Santo Tomas area beaches. I have been doing it for 36 years. I am leaving this afternoon in fact. Work has kept me off the beach and off this board way too much! I fish pretty much all day long every day I'm there. I have had hot action at all times of day and in all parts of the tidal cycle. By far the best fishing has been on a rising tide to two hours after high tide. I don't know how this would apply to the estuary at La Pinta. We drive the beach looking for pelicans and fish where they do. I will fish at any time of day, but make darn certain I am fishing as the tide nears it's peak. I use mostly surface lures (zara spook or other twitch bait and woodchopper or other prop bait) unless it's windy and switch to kastmasters or the like. Goofy prismatic spoon I got at Cabella's works even better, but doesn't cast well. I will give a report when I get back early next week.

TJ

 

[D.juire]

Early and late for Corvina

salt I forgot to check my voice mail for the invitation. Well maybe next time.
Oh That is a nice slam and pics.