Deep Sea Fishing Mazatlan, Mexico

I will attempt to give you a fishing report from Mazatlan on January 20, 2009. The beaches are dead here and there are not many people around. We checked out the fishing and the reports were good. A few sails, the occasional dolphin, a tuna here and there, but many Striped Marlin around. Enrique Izquierdo, the GM of the Neto’s Fleet, approaches me on the dock. He has a panga ready to go for the next day. The panga will come with a Cpt., mate and is a typical 27 foot, center counsel with 2 Evinrude 90’s on it. I book it!

We leave the dock at 6:25am…we are the first ones out of the harbor…a good thing in my book. We run on a heading of 200 degrees until 7:30am. We are now approximately 22 miles out and set the lines. We are running baits on the outriggers, lures on the short corners, and one more bait up the middle…but short.

After trolling for about 30 minutes, I spot a tail in the water at about 250 yards. I point the heading to the Cpt. and we are off. The Marlin sees the baits and comes a running. Bam…HOOK-UP! He inhales the bait, so there is not much of a fight. One in the box!

We re-set and keep heading out. Not more than 10 minutes, I spot 4 tails in the air right in front of us. They are all sails, but after checking us out, they decide they are not interested. We continue on.

I’m looking back behind the boat and spot another Marlin. We circle back and this guy gives us a knock-down and a good look. Finally, on the third circle, he decides this is right for him. Bam…another one is inhaled. This one refuses to jump because he is hooked so deep. He gets the bat on the head and we now have our second Marlin of the day. We see several swirls near the boat and circle the areas, but no takers. It is now 10:00am and we have 2 in the boat, circled 4 sails and had other action. By the way, when I was bringing the second Marlin to the boat, I thought I saw something in the water. Turns out to be a school of giant squid. They came right up to the boat and the mate dropped a mullet on them. Twice he had a hook-up, but twice they managed to get free. These squid were in the 4-5 foot category…something I have never seen before. They were capable of biting a mullet in half…apparently, they have teeth!

We are on some birds and we cannot figure out what the birds are on. They act like tuna, but we have no takers. We have passed 5 commercial tuna boats and 1 helicopter…must be something in the area!! By now, the Cpt. has called the other boats and we have company. We split from the crowd (about 5 other boats) and head out further. The blue water was at 25 miles yesterday, but we hit 30 miles and the water was clear/green. Around noon, we suddenly had a visitor on the baits. It was the first fish of the day that we did not tail. This Marlin hit one outrigger (missed) and then went for the other one. Another swing and a miss on this one and we were on our third circle. About the time we were giving up and heading out, he appeared on the middle short bait. Bang…another hook-up! He was close to boat and kept coming toward us. I thought he was just going to give up, but when he saw the boat, he wanted no part of it. He took off and ran about 300 yards out in no time. I’m looking at the line heading directly behind the boat and see this fish jump off the starboard side and was beginning to think it was another fish. NOPE, it was my fish dancing on the horizon and I was beginning to worry about line stretch. This fish had at least 6 good jumps in him before I had to work him all the way back to the boat. It took me 30 minutes to get him there. Turned out he was barely hooked in the corner of the jaw and he did not want to come to the boat. This had to be the toughest Striper I have ever had to deal with. Number 3 was stacked in the boat for the ride home. We trolled a bit further and passed another school of giant squid. One took a run at the outrigger, but knocked it down and kept on going. We trolled in for a few miles and then pulled the lines. It was a great day of fishing. We hit the dock at 2:30pm and called it a day. Cpt. Rigo and first mate Isaac were good guys to fish with. I would highly recommend them and this fleet to anyone. Good guys and a great day of fishing…can’t beat that!!!
Steve Leighton

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Neto’s Fleet
Sport Fishing Trips in Mazatlan Mexico