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Chromer
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Los Osos, CA (formerly Corvallis, OR)
Posts: 573
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Two months in Baja....1st month
Greetings Salty Dogs,
Sorry this report is so delayed, but I've been busy moving in and trying to find a job. Our latest trip to Baja was our best ever. There was not a single day that we could not go fishing because a wind. A first for me down there. Anyhow, here is the first month of our trip. Sorry it is so long, but a lot happened! I'll post the second month soon. Enjoy.
Baja Fish Report: March 13-April 5
Whales:
Rachael and I crossed the border early on Saturday morning with hopes of taking a leisurely trip down the peninsula since we had plenty of time. Unfortunately, the cops of TJ had a different plan for us...involving something my brother calls the gringo tax. They actually barricaded the normal on-ramp to Hwy 1, which forced us to travel through downtown TJ. We made it through town ok, but then heading down that really steep hill heading out of town, a motorcycle cop pulls in behind us and pulls us over. Troy and I got “taxed” last year for $40 and I asked a lot of folks how to get out of it. They told me the following and it worked; 1) Never admit you were speeding (even if you were), 2) Don’t offer to pay your fine to the cop (they will not ask you too) 3) Agree to go to the courthouse when ever they want you too (we were supposed to come back at 6 pm...”sure, we’ve never seen downtown TJ before!”), 4) Don’t play their game (e.g. we said that we had never been pulled over in Baja before...he kept asking us if we had, like we should know the routine), and, finally, 5) Write down their badge number (the cop really liked it when we did this...he let us go almost immediately after this, but not before saying “This is only Mexico, you are not going to get murdered or anything”.....or pay any gringo tax, my friend!!!!). Rachael and I high-fived each other and headed South. We stopped in Ensanada for supplies and made it to El Pabellon (8 miles South of San Quintin) by 3 pm. We took a nap and then awoke for a beautiful sunset over the Pacific while enjoying a few Pacificos...didn’t take us long to get into Baja mode.
We continued South to Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Scammon’s Lagoon) to do some whale watching. It was a smooth 15 mile dirt road to the whale watching camp, which passes right through the salt mines. There was primitive camping for $3/night. It was a beautiful location and there were tons of shorebirds. The whale watching facility was actually pretty nice, with a restaurant, gift shop, bathrooms, etc... Pretty fancy by Baja standards. Whale watching trip are $35/person.
We boated the panga at 8 a.m. the following morning and were very excited since we heard that there were still over 800 whales in the Lagoon ( I guess they had a bumper crop this year). After about a 25 minute boat ride we started seeing blows. Five minutes later and we were seeing blows all around us...5-10 at a time. We motored amongst the whales for about 2 hours. We had whales cruising all around us, under the boat, and right up to the boat. They really are curious about us. We didn’t get to pet one, but we were within a foot or two of several whales. There were also whales breaching, but fortunately they were several hundred yards away. It was the most amazing thing I have ever done.
We headed to San Ignacio that afternoon and booked another trip for San Ignacio Lagoon. It was $40/person, plus $20 for a 40 mile ride out to the Lagoon from town. Well worth the money considering the nasty bumpy road. The whales are supposed to be friendly-er at San Ignacio, and they didn’t let us down. We had whales spy-hopping all around us and several came right up to the boat. We were able to pet both a mother and a baby. I could not believe how soft they were. It was also interesting that they really responded to your touch, pressing back on your hand. Both the mother and baby were also scratching themselves on the bottom on the boat and blowing bubbles. So cool.
Bait and Boils:
We continued South the next day and finally arrived at the Sea of Cortez. As we came of the hill heading down into Santa Rosalia, I could see that the Cortez was glassy... “Lake Cortez” I thought to myself, and a shiver ran down my spine. We pulled in to Dos Amigos (at the mouth of San Lucas Cove) around noon and set up camp and launched the boat. In the morning we headed out at first light to catch bait. It was a gorgeous sunrise over San Marcos Island...one of my favorite parts about fishing the Cortez; beautiful sunrises over water while fishing. We got a few makerel and headed over to the Northern tip of San Marcos Island. We set up our drift and let down the makerel. I got bit on my first drop, let the fish take the bait for a count of five, engage the reel, and zing....fish on! After about a 5 minute battle we boat a nice 20 pound yellowtail. Unfortunately that was the last YT of the day. Not sure why, but the fish just stopped biting. A little later we spotted a boil off of the point and headed over. I casted out and hooked up immediately, but then there was no fight...barracuda!!! As I landed the slimy fish, careful not to touch it or let it touch the boat for fear of never being able to remove the slim, I noticed a bunch more follow it in. We looked more intently into the water, and, like one of the funky paintings where the image comes out when you look at it crossed-eyed, saw all the barracuda. There must have been thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. They were everywhere....slimy, 20” long, pencil-thin, toothy critters that attack anything that moves. It was unbelievable. We idled around and just gazed at them, no point in throwing a lure in unless you wanted to catch one. A few minutes later we saw why there were so many cuda...huge schools of baitfish. They were small, about 2-3” long (locals call them anchovetta) and there were clouds of them everywhere. About every 10 minutes the cuda would bust in on a school and a feeding frenzy would ensue for about 5 minutes. I saw a few firecrackers (3-5 pound YT) amongst the cuda, but as soon as any lure hit the water the barracuda would be all over it.
Rachael and I stayed at Dos Amigos for the next 10 days. The clouds of baitfish stuck around despite the efforts of 5 trawlers that were hammering the area. Unfortunately the barracuda stuck around too. The combination of millions of tiny baitfish and thousands of barracuda totally shut down the yellowtail fishing. Fortunately, if you let you jig down slowly and just jigged on the bottom it was pretty easy to catch the standard fair of reef fish; pargo, grouper, trigger fish, hogfish, and etc. However, if you made the mistake of reeling your jig in too fast or somehow hooked one on the drop, it was another barracuda on the line. I used to not hate any fish because I loved to catch all fish. However, if you fish in Baja very long you soon come to truly hate the barracuda. These ubiquitous slimy-toothy critters are the definition of a pest fish.
One day we did run across a huge school of ladyfish or machete. They are related to Tarpon and behave a lot like them, although they don’t get as big, with a standard fish being from 3-5 pounds. Rachael and I followed them for about a mile down the beach as they were almost constantly boiling on the immense schools of anchovetta. We casted iron and swimbaits into the melee for about two hours. It was pure kaos, with Rachael yelping out with ever hit and jump....ok, I might have been yelping a little too. Ladyfish have very hard mouths, and, thus, are very hard to hook, especially given their passion for jumping. Boy do they like to jump, often jumping 3 or 4 times during the span of a fight. Combine these head-shaking acrobatics with a hard mouth and what you have is the perfect catch and release sportfish (as Jeb would later say). We would get about 3 or 4 hits per cast and land about one out of every 5 fish hooked! Totally crazy non-stop surface action. You have to be aware when you are in a frenzy like this, though, for your lure can easily become a high speed missile coming right back at you. The “3-D effect” as I like to call it. I like how Neil and Gene describe it in the Baja Catch “With ladyfish, expect to lose at least half of your hookups. As you set the hook and the fight the fish, keep your rod out to the side rather than straight up and over your head. That way, the flying lures have a better chance of missing you. Wear a wide brimmed hat and glasses, and crimp those barbs for self protection. If you use heavy spoons, you might consider wearing a catcher’s mask. With ladyfish, it’s you that’s in the line of fire!” Classic.
One day we had a close encounter of the whale kind. While heading across the Craig channel we saw some spouts off in the distance. We mortored closer and observed 8 whales cruising along the surface with their backs out of the water the whole time. They were just swimming along slowly, breathing about every 10 seconds, and staying at the surface without diving underwater at all. I gauged the direction that they were heading and idled the boat several hundred yards in front of them. I killed the motor and we drifted on the greasy calm water watching their approach. One pod of four passed about 100 yards off our stern, but four others came right at us. They actually split on either side of us, two going off our stern and two off our bow, one pair about 10 yards away and the other much closer. When one pair got to within about 10 feet of the boat, they raised their heads and looked right at us and then dove straight down, with their tails popping straight up into the air, nearly close enough to touch. Totally insane. We could tell from their tails that they were Humpbacks. As one person said while we were whale watching in Scammon’s Lagoon “Boy, this sure is addicting.” It really was. How amazing to get so close to such huge creatures. They sounded for good and we did not see them again.
After 10 days at Dos Amigos, we moved camp down the coast about 20 miles to Punta Chivato, where friends from Corvallis, Oregon were meeting us the next day. We launched the boat in the evening during the high tide and moored the boat in the natural harbor. A picture perfect spot, my favorite in Baja. Rachael and I fished early in the morning and discovered that the bait and ‘cuda from up North were here too. We caught a few standard reef fish for fish tacos, but mostly we tried to keep from catching barracuda. I was a little bummed, because I had hoped for better fishing for our friends. Dave, Jeb, and Jen showed up that evening after about a 30 hour drive, only stopping one night in Catavina. They were wiped out, so I gave them some Pacificos and fed them fish tacos. They were happy to have finally arrived, but jonesing to do some fishing, so we set up their rods and got prepared for the morning.
We headed out in the morning and tried the usual YT spots; the 210 and Isla Santa Ines. We yo-yo’d and yo-yo’s for several hours until our forearms ached and did not get a single take. We moved to the inside reefs to at least catch a few fish...it was Jeb’s first time to Baja and he wanted to catch something. We jigged along the reefs and were catching the standard reef fish. Nothing big, but they were keeping us entertained. On our third drift some splashing water catches my eye. I look over and there is a huge boil. We reel up and I zoom over, figuring that Jeb would enjoy witnessing his first boil, even if it was just barracuda. As I got closer I realized that it wasn’t barracuda, but grouper! And some big ones!!! Grouper are hilarious when they boil. They aren’t the most graceful fish (imagine a black rockfish boiling up out of the water) and when they are boiling on bait right at the surface, they often come flying out of the water, and, when they do, they are usually twisting and turning and flipping and landing very awkwardly. We would all chuckle on occasion between screams of excitement at the site of a grouper backflipping out of the water and landing on its side or tail.
Each of us was armed with a 7 foot light action bass rod with 50 pound spectra and a 1 oz. jig. We’d cast into the best looking boil and reel like mad. Catching grouper on the wind is one of my favorite ways to fish. There is just something special about casting out and reeling in as fast as you can and catching fish. I wish all fish could be caught that way! Anyhow, grouper hit a fast moving jig like a train and immediately head for the rocks. If you get them on the surface you can usually stop them, but if they are on the bottom it is sometimes tough. The spectra helps out a lot! We fished in the boils for several hours, catching and releasing many grouper, including some that were close to 8 pounds. We also caught a few lady fish and the dreaded barracuda. At one point, a big bait ball came in and hid under our boat. A great idea until the fish decided not to care about our presence and attack the baitfish anyway. We had fish boiling all around the boat, under the boat, and, I kid you not, we had fish actually hitting the bottom of the boat as they attacked the baitfish. It was crazy. Pure and total kaos. Jeb was impressed...and so was I.
We stayed at Punta Chivato for 6 days. The fish came up to boil every day for several hours a day. It was great. I could never get tired of fishing for boiling fish. Dave busted his fly-rod out a few days and caught a nice grouper and several lady fish. We also caught some other cool fish in the boils, like a 10 pound amberjack and a 5 pound sierra. We saw YT on the reefs daily and had them follow our lures in several times, but we only hooked one. Hooking a 30 pound YT in 40 feet of water is exciting but futile. I had the fish on for about 30 seconds. In that time, it swam in one direction 50 yards and then in the opposite direction for 100 yards, before rocking me on the reef. Fun while it lasted.
At one point we tried to get the YT on bait in the shallow water, figuring we could horse them on 80 pound spectra, but we only hooked one on bait and it didn’t stick. What we discovered was that big grouper, which apparently don’t like to hit lures either, really like to eat live big eyes fly-lined over the reef. Three mornings we drifted bait over the inside reefs and caught some really nice grouper up to about 15 pounds. It was great drifting over the reefs, fish boiling all around and your bait swimming happily along...then, suddenly, something grabs your bait and makes for the bottom. You engage the reel, set the hook and hold on because you’ve got the drag cranked all the way down so the fish won’t rock you. The battle is short, but intense. You either stopped the fish and fought him quickly to the boat, or you got pinned to the rail and the fish rocks you and busts you off. Lots of fun either way.
One day while fishing near Isla Santa Ines, we spotted some high spouting off in the distance. The fishing was slow and the Cortez calm, so we motored over to check out some whales. They turned out to be Fin whales, the second largest creature on earth (reaching lengths up to 80 feet). They were feeding on a krill which we could see all around us. The water was glassy and we could clearly see the huge creatures feeding in the crystal clear blue water, turning sideways just under the surface and opening their huge mouths. We hung around the whales for about an hour. They didn’t really respond to our presence, but merely went about their business as if we weren’t there. One whale surface 15 feet from the boat and dove right under the boat, turning upside-down as it dove. It was just a little bit bigger than our boat! Amazing to be so close to such huge animals. Definitely a highlight of the trip.
We decided to move on to a different fishing venue, even though we were having a great time at Punta Chivato and the wind hadn’t drove us out yet (it usually....always does!!!!). We decided to head to Bahia de Magdalena via Puerto Lopez Mateos, before continuing on to the East Cape.
Next Chapters:
Basketballs and Whales
Dolphins and TUNA!
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elkhuntr28
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