The format made me select something... Bear with me.

I'm going to intersperse our Chelan Reports with my trip to Mexico that I just got back from. This is for Day #1 (Jan 5).

My son in law and I booked 6 days in a panga with Victor of Santi's Sportfishing. He fishes out of a 23' panga with a 115 outboard on it. We paid $200 for the boat for 5 hours. Unless we said "no mas", he usually kept us out about 6 hours. We left the dock at about about 6:30 and were back by 1PM. We paid between $30 and $50 per day for live bait. We tipped about $50 per day. I picked him for the 6 straight days because of the great experience that my wife and I had had with him 3 years before.

If you want a guy that will make you feel like a great fisherman look elsewhere. Victor is a hard core captain and fisherman who wants you to do things perfectly. These fish are incredibly fast and strong. With the light gear that Victor uses, any mistake will cost you a fish. And you will hear about it... But a few seconds later, "no worries, be happy. Let's go get another fish."

There are 3 main ways to fish. #1 - Trolling fast with lures or dead baits; #2 slow trolling with live baits; #3 jigging /still fishing with live bait.

For me, #2 is my all time favorite way.

Day one we started trolling fast and had a wahoo break off a Rapala on the strike. Then we lost a couple more Wahoo by them simply kicking our butts and us making mistakes. Then we put a dorado in the boat. We broke down the lures and put the light gear out with live bait. We had a couple of wahoo break us off. Then we hooked and boated a nice wahoo. Somewhere in there we got a Needlefish (aka: Mexican Marlin). What a toothy critter! We saw sea turtles and whales. We went to the light spinning gear with live bait and had some Sierra cut us off and got a yellow tail snapper. All in all, a moderately productive day. Had I not made so many mistakes, it would have been an epic wahoo day.

Anton Jones - Darrell and Dad's Family Guide Service
Official Digital Anglers Sponsor, (509) 687-0709 or toll-free (866) 360-1523

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