Cancun Surfcasting

[JohnF]

"Some fishing" is perhaps a reach. I got to make a few casts is more the case. But at least I tried it. I spotted this young feller wading in the surf in front of the resort yesterday and wandered over to see what I could find out. he was a nice young man who spoke no english, at least he spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish - nada. "Dos cervesas por favor" doesn't get you far in a fishing discussion.

 

As near as I could tell from his sign language he had caught two 24" fish, probably Snook from his description and the location, but I didn't see them. He was using a battered Quantum reel on a meaty kinda stick with seriously heavy mono line. He appeared to have fabricated a sort of heavy leader of the same material and had double looped it to a heavy jig with a stainless hook close to the size of my bass worm hooks and was using a reddish coloured sharky looking plastic about 5" in length. It was pretty well chewed so i believe he has caught fish with it. Here are pics of my young friend and the tackle.

 

 

 

He offered me the rig to try a few casts, which I did. That heavy mono is pretty awkward to cast and there was a pretty good on shore wind blowing in our faces so we didn't get much line out on a cast. The technique seemed to be to throw it out as far as possible and then immediately start to retrieve at a moderate pace. The trick was partly in gauging the crash of the wave so you didn't get knocked over during a cast. Some of the waves splashed up around our shoulders so I stayed up closer to the beach to take pictures where I could elevate the camera above the salt water.

 

Apparently there is pretty good flats fishing just a few miles south of our location, between here and Moon Palace for those who know the territory. I can actually see the lagoon from the top of our building.

 

JF

[blakewalk]

Thats a unique looking setup! What a cool experience, thanks for sharing. Your reports are keeping me at least psychologically warm in these -30 temps. =) Soak up the sun!