Though not a traditional bonefishing destination I get many requests from subscribers for fishing information on Mexico’s west coast. Typically associated with a family holiday and the often asked “should I pack my fly rod?” I’ve fished the Pacific side a couple of times and always been able to manage a few fish (jacks mostly), but I’m far from an expert and appreciate any reports I can pass on. Thanks to subscriber Mark Davis, what follows is a great report on his recent trip around Puerto Vallarta. So the answer to the question is: Yes, pack your fly rod. “We stayed at a hotel right on the beach called Costa Sur, which is a few minutes south of town. The hotel has it’s own breakwater that they set up to provide a safe snorkeling area for guests. We did snorkel there one day and saw quite a few fish a few of which would have been legitimate targets for fly fishing, but it felt a little like fishing in someones aquarium so I didn’t fish in there too much. I did fish off the rocks just north of the lagoon, and caught one nice jack there. We fished off the shore a few other places including the pier in Yalapa (you can only get there by boat) where there were schools of small jacks that would attack anything that moved and we found ourselves trying to keep our flies away from the very small ones. Other than that fishing from shore was really hit or miss. About 15 minutes by bus (8 pesos per person) south of our hotel is a small picturesque fishing village called Boca. We went there to explore one day and spoke with a couple of different guys with pangas. We agreed on 400 pesos per hour (they were asking 500) and then set up trips for later in the week. Both of these guys had taken fishermen out before but never fly fishermen. When we arrived for our trips later in the week I explained what we needed, as in the shade cover needs to come down, and that we needed to be fairly close to the action in order to reach by fly casting. These guys figured things our really fast including that they had to get a bit closer for my wife to reach than they did for me. Then I relied on their fishing knowledge to find the fish. Gilberto and Yoari know were the bait (sardines) hang out so that’s where we looked. We caught fish in places where the bait was hanging around rocks and such. We would catch a few fish in those spots but we would also see places where the pelicans were diving into the water and motor over to those areas. There we would find fish, mostly jacks of all sizes attacking bait that they had corralled up agains the beach or the rocks. Then for a period of 15 to 25 minutes it would be a feeding frenzy at that spot and you would get a hit or a fish every cast. I landed jacks up to about 8 or 10 pounds and had one on that would have been well over 20lbs but did not land it. My wife and I often had fish on at the same time. When the action would die down we would look for more pelican action and motor over to a new spot. In some cases the sea was a bit choppy and standing on the front deck of the panga was a bit challenging. In some cases we were positioned just a few feet from shore riding the waves in the middle of a jack attack. The best flies were just about any baitfish pattern that was tan and white or just white. Other colors such as chartreuse or blue or orange just did not seem to work as well. Light olive was the next best, but the tan and white always worked the best. I generally used a 7wt or 8wt from shore and we used 9wts in the boat. Most of everything we caught could have been easily landed with a 7wt but the few bigger fish we caught or had on made you glad to have a heavier rod on the boat. Each day out we ended up with 11 fish in the boat which we gave to Yoari and Gilberto, except for the fish that they prepared for us at one of the beach cafes in Boca, set up by Yoari. We did this on 2 different days, once for almost 5 hours and once for 3 hours. All together we paid about 3500 pesos for both days which is around $250.00. We tipped each of them several hundred pesos on each occasion, but they didn’t seem to expect that. If you are headed down that way you can contact Yoari Estrada on Facebook. We also went out the first day with his cousin Gilberto.” Thanks Mark
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