[raw outdoors]

Originally Posted by Etownpaul

That’s a beauty marlin!

I unfortunately had no luck with my shore fishing attempts in Sayulita, but I booked a boat (Cpt. Pablo in Sayulita) on our 3rd day there and we caught 13 Spanish mackerel, 2 rock fish, 2 chilli verde, and a decent sized red snapper in about 2 hours. My phone stayed at the condo since we had to wade out a bit to jump on the panga, so no pics unfortunately. We went out to deeper water to try for dorado and sailfish, but no luck. Our captain said it had been a slow week for both the big fish and the baitfish near shore. He wasn’t surprised I wasn’t having much luck from shore.

I met an old hippy fella on the beach at Sayulita who fished from shore everyday. He gave me a few tips. He used a 1 1/2oz slender silver spoon or a 1oz anchovy swim bait with decent success from shore. 40lb braid with a 50lb floro leader tied direct, no swivels. The best spot to beach fish at Sayulita is apparently north of the river on the main beach, about 3/4 of the way to the end of the beach walking north. There is a large drop 20’ off the shore where the fish like to hide. Take his advice with a grain of salt though, I only had a couple nibbles off the beach. It’s also a pain to avoid the swimmers and beach walkers in Sayulita, I’ll find a more remote fishing spot next year.

I had bought a 8’ MH Rapala 4 piece bait casting surf rod to bring down. I gave it a cursory fit up with an existing abu ambassador reel and everything seemed fine. Once I got down there and was throwing 1-2 oz lures regularly, I found the rod seats were a bit shallow for my reel. The reel kept twisting out of the seats after 3-4 cast and retrieves. It’s easily fixable with my garage full of tools,but I had nothing to work with on the beach.I wish I would have tossed a few heavy lures on that rod/reel combo before I went down.

I would have rather had a longer rod than 8’, but I scored a pretty good deal on the 8’ from Wholesale sports liquidation sale. With the 8’ rod I had to wade out knee deep to get the distance required to be anywhere where there might be fish. A 12’ would make life easier.

How far off shore did you catch the snapper and mackerel? I’m assuming you where jigging for them, then headed out trolling for Mahi Mahi ?