Fishing in playa del carmen

Anyone have any advice on charter companies?

not Captain Ricks…

Roberto Navarro

I d say save your money my wife and I want last year 7 foot plus waves didnt even feel safe puked went back to shore no refunds only if the boat cancels. Big waste of money.

The 40’+ boats you see in the advertisement are always “being maintained”… they throw you in a 26′ boat in 9′ seas… diesel fumes and rollers = FUN !

A group of friends were there last week, they went out on the Poverty Sucks boat and had a good time. Fishing was slow with one average mahi-mahi caught but the boat was nice and the crew was good with their kids (4 of them, ages 9-13).

My family is heading down in 5 weeks for spring break and if we go on a boat, we’ll probably try to go jigging vs trolling so the Roberto Navarro rec is helpful.

zooks wrote:

My family is heading down in 5 weeks for spring break and if we go on a boat, we’ll probably try to go jigging vs trolling so the Roberto Navarro rec is helpful.

I tried jigging once and it is hard. We were fishing in ~300ft of water with 7 or 9oz jig, don’t remember which. We dropped to the bottom and then ripped it up, reeled down to get the slack, ripped it up again, etc until about half way up and then drop it back down and repeat. The crew had a really good rhythm to it and could do it really fast, I couldn’t really get the rhythm down. It was a really rough water out there which didn’t make it any easier but that was definitely the sorest I’ve ever been from fishing before and it was only half a day.

We went out of Playa a bunch over the years. Alot of unsuccessful very sea sick trips on half day trolling with nothing. Salvaged the last hour buy anchoring over a 50 ft reef of some kind and reeled in a ton of snapper and trigger fish and grouper. It was an absolute blast. A 5 lb snapper feels like a 40 lb sturgeon, pretty crazy.

Tried to explain to them thats what we wanted to do the whole time on later trips but they weren’t too keen on the idea. I think because its more work for them, handling fish and baiting and whatnot. Easier money for them just to troll until you puke and then head in.

Even took the snapper to our resort and they cooked it for us and brought it out on a giant platter one time. Was the greatest thing ever!

big_g wrote:

not Captain Ricks…

X2

I just looked through my email and Roberto Navarro was booked and gave me somebody else to contact. No idea if they are still around because it was a few years ago but their email was [email protected].

Reef W wrote:

We were fishing in ~300ft of water with 7 or 9oz jig, don’t remember which. We dropped to the bottom and then ripped it up, reeled down to get the slack, ripped it up again, etc until about half way up and then drop it back down and repeat.

That is what we did too. I thought it was a blast. We trolled for a bit too and slammed a big black grouper. One of the best trips I’ve had.

My guide was Captain Edy Pena.

Here is a thread from a while back. I posted more details.
Mexico

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Joe Scegura wrote:

This is what we did too. I thought it was a blast. We trolled for a bit too and slammed a big black grouper. One of the best trips I’ve had.

We didn’t catch much unfortunately, I didn’t catch one at all. I might have forgot how hard it was otherwise I don’t blame then though, they pretty quickly realized something was wrong and had the crew all jigging too to make sure it wasn’t just our bad form, moved a lot, and stayed out an hour longer than we agreed. It was just a bad day I guess.

If they were moving and trying hard you can’t ask for more than that. Fish don’t always bite. That said I’m glad they bit for me I hope you get to try it again sometime.