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HIGHLIGHTS OF WINTER SAILFISH SEASON OFF ISLA MUJERES, MEXICO
Enrique's marina was only partially full, for the most part just North Carolina boats. There were plenty of private boats at the other marina, but the fishing grounds were never very crowded. Weather was warm and pleasant the entire season, a hugh improvement from last years unusually cool weather. Once again, fishing was spectacular virtually the entire time we were there. This year was a nice mixture of fishing around "balls of bait" corralled by sailfish swimming around and underneath them, with frigate birds hovering and diving over them, and just straight trolling in areas where we see sailfish 'free jumping' or just mark areas of bait or sailfish.
Richard jumped in the water and swam with the sailfish and got an hour of good underwater video which he has posted on You-Tube. Mate Richard Wright swimming with Sailfish, Isla Mujeres, Mexico, January 2011 You can also link to it on my website obsession-charters.com. After two boats in a 2 week period reported seeing a 600 lb mako shark eating sailfish, for some reason I could not get Richard to get any more underwater photography for us. We have also added a good video of Jim Kelly and Nathan Curtis' trip this January and Rob White's groups sailfishing trip several years ago on the Mexico section of my website (Fishing in Isla Mujeres, Mx Video). Contrary to reports in the newspapers of murders, hijackings & travelers advisories in Mexico, our trip to Isla again this year, as has been the case for the last 7 years, was totally hassle free for myself, my crew, my dock partners and all our customers. No one had any travel problems or other issues. As always, islanders are extremely friendly and helpful, and the local federalies, while present never confronted anyone. My wife and her friends traveled around the island by day or nite without hesitation and felt safer than in many places back here in the USA.
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Deckhand Richard Wright and I headed down to Isla Mujeres, Mexico Sunday, January 2, and after a frigid December in the boat yard, we were ready for some warm weather. Like last year, getting out of North Carolina was the toughest part of our trip.....travelling with Big Al on the F/V Country Girl, we ran into thick fog a mile south of Pirates Cove Marina.....took 3 hours to go what should have taken 30 minutes, but once we got into Pamlico Sound, we were able to run our regular cruise though we could not see more than a hundred yards till we got to the Nuese River, then things cleared up and we got to our planned destination of Southport at sunset....from then on, we hauled ass as we needed to get to Key West by Wednesday afternoon for a 24 hour period of forecast calm weather. Got to Ft Pierce, FL Tuesday afternoon and stayed just long enough to take on fuel, bait, a turbo charger for Anthony's boat in Mexico, and get Big Al's generator overheating problem fixed. At 9 PM we left for Key West.... got there at noon, took on fuel at a commercial dock where we get cheaper fuel, and 3 lbs of Stone Crabs and headed for Mexico.....finished the stone crabs by the time we got in sight of Cuba....had beautiful calm weather the whole way and got to Mexico Thursday morning at 10 AM.....made the trip in 4 days which is a record for us. Weather was sunny, temperture was 82 degrees.
Local mate Raoul again joined Richard in the cockpit and as so many who fished with me commented at the end of the day, these guys worked great together, in total synch without having to say a word, things get done super fast....made life easy for me. Our first day of fishing was January 11, a warm up day with the crew off another charterboat..... in half a day we had 29 bites and caught 21 sailfish....a decent start! Nathan Curtis and his crew fished a few days later and caught 21 their first day and 38 the next day.....and fishing stayed that good for the next 6 weeks! Tom Noonan's crew fished 4 days the third week in January and released 126 sailfish, including 37 & 40 in successive days. The next week Craig Sudbrink's crew fished 3 days with us and released 121 sailfish. We averaged 31 sailfish/day for the month of January! That is ACTION!!
Dan Homa and his crew released 43 sailfish in one day the first week in Febuary, Les Matthew's group caught 42 fish in one day the second week in February, and Peter Zeliff, Larry Waite & crew released 45 in one day the third week in February. Fishing slowed up the last week in February and beginning of March. We ended up averaging 22 fish /day in February, but 27 fish/day the first three weeks of February. After we left, fishing picked back up in mid-March with catches of 15-30 sailfish/boat/day. The bottom line is every year is a bit different. In 2011, February, especially latter Februray, was better than January, so you never know....We ended up catching 916 sailfish, our second best year ever, but averaged better than 25 fish/day overall, the best we have done to date......From year to year it almost seems like fishing is getting better and more consistent down there, with conservation measures and the use of circle hooks probably attributing to the better fishing.
LIGHT TACKLE FISHING FOR SAILFISH IN MEXICO IN 2011
Deckhand Richard Wright, who did a great job fishing the 2009 & 2010 North Carolina fishing seasons with me, is back for the 2011 season on the OBSESSION. We have already fished a few days out of Oregon Inlet since returning from Mexico and have been catching 150-300 lb bluefin tuna.
TOURNAMENTS IN 2011