Sargassum in Cancun: What It Means for Your Fishing Trip

If you've been reading up on a Cancun trip lately, chances are you've seen something about sargassum, the brown seaweed that piles up on beaches in parts of the Caribbean. It's a real thing, so let's talk about it honestly, and about what it actually means for a day of fishing with us.

What is sargassum, anyway?

It's a floating seaweed that drifts in from out in the Atlantic. Some years the currents push a lot of it onto the Caribbean-facing beaches, where it builds up on the sand near the water's edge. Hotels and beach crews clean it up regularly, and how bad it gets really depends on the season and what's happening offshore that particular week.

Why it has nothing to do with our fishing

Here's the good news for anglers. We fish the Nichupte Lagoon, not the open ocean beachfront. The lagoon is its own separate body of water. It connects to the sea through a narrow channel, but it's tucked away from the currents and wave action that actually carry sargassum onto the beaches. It's just not part of that picture at all.

What that means in practice is calm, clear water for sight fishing, day in and day out, and it means whatever is happening on the beach that week has zero effect on your trip. Light sargassum season or heavy one, the lagoon fishes the same either way.

So don't worry about it

If sargassum has been on your mind while planning the trip, you can relax on that front. Tarpon, snook, bonefish, and permit in the lagoon don't care what's washing up on the sand, and that's exactly where we'll be putting you on fish.