Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - While it is true that Ernest Hemingway is one of my favorite writers, you should know that I liked fishing, shooting, reading and writing long before I had read him or even knew who he was. Ask anyone. Ask my father.

One thing he did make me want to do though was to go deep sea fishing on a boat in blue water and catch marlin. Part of the reason I came to Puerto Vallarta was because of the fishing. There were many other places where I could have done journalism, but I chose Puerto Vallarta mainly on hearing that the fishing was unlike anywhere else in the world.

Other reasons include that I wanted to improve my Spanish, and that Cuba, where I am going next, is quite close. Going to Cuba is the other thing he made me want to do. You know I would have gone fishing there but they say the water off Havana has been fished out for years because he made everyone else want to do that too.

There are many fishing charters in Puerto Vallarta. After a lot of research and taking into account my lack of funds I chose a shared boat of eight hours fishing with the well-established Master Baiters. The man whom I was sharing the boat with was a retiree from Oregon called Jerry. He did mostly fly fishing for trout and salmon on the golden water there. Like many other Americans he was here on a short vacation and a break from the cold weather.

Neither of us caught a marlin. We got three Jack Crevalles, a Sierra mackerel and a needle fish. The biggest was a Jack I caught that was getting on for ten pounds maybe. It was a shame, but we were happy being out on the water with the sun coming up in the morning and a fresh salty breeze blowing over on a very hot day. We saw huge shoals of fish, a large turtle breaking the surface with his fat head, and many different types of sea birds.

A lot of the time we were stationed on the quiet side of the Marietas watching the roaring white waves break on the rocks. Moving off we saw a shoal of small Jacks. You could see them all, shiny and round and in a pack so that sometimes it looked like one big fish and your heart jumped in your chest. A Jack Crevalle is a nice fish with a forked tail that looks a lot like a deeply shaped tuna. The tuna is more like a bullet. The sailfish is like a torpedo. The Sierra mackerel has pretty orange spots. The needle fish is from hell.

The trigger fish makes for good eating. We found one floating dead on the surface and Ramon, one of the boat captains, gaffed it and brought it up and got down to some filleting. He made Ceviche from the trigger fish's white meat. It was very cool and refreshing because the limes, tomatoes, onions and avocados had been on ice.

I also lost one fish at the end of the day. We had came up alongside a shoal of what Ramon said was bait fish. He took the free rod down, stood at the front of the boat and made a cast right into the middle of the shoal.

On his last cast, he said, before he gave up, a swelling bulge rose in the water as the fish attacked. He struck hard, the fish diving down and rod curving right over. He handed me the rod and I fought the fish as it went on diving down taking line. It felt like a big fish - certainly bigger than my big Jack - and I thought: this is supposed to be a bait fish! It was the first time that day that my arm had ached.

After a while, the fish nearing surface, it went off to the side and I struggled to stop its path. Then Ramon suddenly shouted for me to stop reeling, and I saw that the line was tangled up in the propeller. The fish was gone.

'What sort of fish do you think that was?'
'Skip Jack.'
'I thought they were supposed to be bait fish - it felt bigger than the Jack Crevalles.'
'It was a big one. Not really a Skip Jack. More like a tuna.'
'How big do you think?'
'Over twenty pounds maybe.'

At the end of the day, coming into the marina, another fishing boat passed us with a very big tuna on the deck. It was no marlin; but man what a fish. I turned to Jerry.

'I really wanted to catch a marlin.'

'You've got the rest of your life to do that,' this old guy from Oregon said.

So the quest for a marlin continues. Right now I can only afford the one trip and therefore it will have to continue elsewhere and in the future - unless there is any boat captain or charter owner reading this who will to take me out for free in exchange for an article about him or about anything he wants.

About Master Baiters

Master Baiters have run fishing charters in Puerto Vallarta for over fifteen years now, and specialize in big fish species such as marlin, sailfish and tuna. Stan Gabruk runs their shop in Marina Vallarta, where you can drop by and talk to him about boats and prices, or just ask him how the fishing is going. When I asked, he was honest and told me that it wasn't very good currently, which shows he is not out to scam ignorant tourists. Stan certainly knows a lot about deep sea fishing in Puerto Vallarta and he writes great weekly fishing reports on his website.