crappiefisher
Ā Pork,
Are you going to have a chance to fish for Peacock Bass? How are the bikini babes treating you down there?
No chance on peacock bass. No fresh water on our resort and too chicken to leave, besides about 100 yard walk along the coast area.
The resort was much more bikini babe friendly than fishing friendly. There was a large group of 18 year old girls from Spain on a graduation trip. 99% of them in thongs/semi thongs from breakfast til dinner time. Well over half of the other ladies wearing the same. So many that it made it a little easier to not be creepy staringā¦
The resort was not fishing friendly at all. They allowed fishing at a rocky shoreline area that was snag city. Same with the walk that I took off of the property. I ended up fishing three mornings for maybe an hour or two each time. I caught fish every time, but all small. But all fish that I have never caught. Got a few blue striped grunts, a bar Jack and an orange spotted grouper. I had a few nice hits and a surface strike on a popper. Right after that, something about 4ā long shot into the knee deep water that I was wading and crushed a baitfish or something about 20ā from me. Guessing barracuda. I failed in my attempt to catch one, but didnāt really try hard. Didnāt even tie on the $15 cuda lure that I bought. Maybe hit some FL water at some point to use it.
The resort was mostly catered to snorkeling. At least for outdoors. Mostly catered to the dining, drinking, swimming pools and sunbathing crowd. The beaches that were off limits to fishing were completely loaded with fish. There were 7-8 coral reefs that held a ton of Caribbean reef species. I did a ton of snorkeling. Saw some really cool fish. Trunkfish, sea turtles, sting rays, barracuda, snappers, and many other. About half of this list. I was there 18 years ago (different resort), this one was much better for snorkeling. We were going to do a snorkeling excursion to Puerto Morales, which I did 18 years ago. That is āworld classā snorkeling there, but not much better than we had access to. That was a 20 mile or so van ride and they require you to wear a life vest, which doesnāt allow you to dive down and get right with the fish or grab conches. So we gave up $250 in excursion credits that we had. Oh well. Kind of kicking myself, since it would have paid for a half day deep sea fishing trip for me. It is only about 2-3 miles off shore that they get into marlin, sailfish, tuna, etc. The marina was two miles away too. My son wasnāt into it, so I didnāt want to leave them all for the day. The wife gave me the green light, but figured that Iād just chalk this up as a vacation without much fishing.
https://www.rivieramayasn...ral-reef-fish-species/Most of the shore has a sand flat beach sections before the reefs. Not sure if the flat areas were natural or not or if they shipped in and covered some of the rock reefs with sand? Kind of felt manmade to me. Regardless, those were loaded with steelhead sized bonefish and permit (not really big ones). The bonefish would come relatively close when snorkeling the shallows. The permit would eat out of your handsā¦. It was big down there to feed the turtles bananas. Which I guess had 1/4 of the fish hungry for bananas. To lure the turtles in you break off small pieces of banana. Which usually brought the ballyhoo in first. Than the permit and Bermuda chubs. Once you had a feeding frenzy it would draw in the turtles and barracuda. It was pretty cool seeing all of those fish and would allow you to swim right with them. Hard to touch them, usually would dart away.
The snorkeling was great. My son really enjoyed that part, not much of an angler, so was great to enjoy that outdoor activity with him. The food was really good, but I am not the type to go out to eat for every meal. That got old to me rather quickly. Not tipsy, but starting to drink at lunch just about every day, I need a good detox week or two. Every one of my family got the Mexican runs at some point too. My daughter was out of it for 2 days. It was complete torture on the way home since everyone had some sort of left over stomach issues and ended up being 11 hours from our room to our driveway. Pretty much the same as NC/SC drive. Iād rather be driving than sitting in and uncomfortable plane seat and sore neck from trying to sleep, wake up 10 minutes later and repeat for 3.5 hours. The room was really nice, but no privacy from the kids, which gets old on weekend trips. We did the premier level, ocean front room with jacuzzi (that was used to dry bathing suits). It would have been perfect for a couple, but not for a family. The kids also need that down time on vacation, so having basically a hotel room for that kind of stinks. Add in the stomach issues and overall doubt that I would do it again. I am much more of a vacation house type person. Condos are doable as well, but much more prefer the ocean front house with pool type thing. Fish whenever I want. Go out to dinner a few times. But we have an extended family that we go with and I have to concede to them at times. Hopefully next year, back to a more fishing friendly place. That I will likely catch the same amount of small fishā¦.