One thing I learned in my recent trip to Baja is that heavenly angels can assume the shape of large schools of corvina that fly in with the tide and strike readily on flies, one after the other after the other, one angel to bless each cast. I caught a few of these fine fish my last time down to Baja, but this time they were really IN. I knew things were going to be good when I reeled up the first one to the kayak, and about a half dozen other 4-5 pounders were swirling and darting around it as though they wanted to get in on the action. It's a wonder that I didn't end up with a double!
Got them on "Wruckers," small clousers tied by my kayak fishing friend Jim Wruck:
And also on bigger whistler-type flies tied by my friend Ben Taylor:
Here too is a video from corvina heaven -- note the music of the breakers in the background (the breakers in heaven mostly break behind sheltering sand dunes, and do not end up smashing your foldable kayak like certain waves of the world):
I should add that there are some demons, too. I lost both of Ben's whistlers to savage, drag-running strikes that ended in cut lines. Demons have teeth (grouper do, and especially pargo do) and there are few fish swimming in these waters that do not have spines sticking out somewhere and even nasty paper-cut scales. After a few days of handling fish and paddles and other salty, wet stuff, my hands were red-speckled with irritating rash. I lotioned them up while on land, but the only way to really stop the pain was to rub them in nice salty water until they hurt so much that you didn't notice it any more. Then I could go ahead and grab the paddle and get back to fishing.
I'd have more pictures for you, but I screwed up and left my camera battery charger home. Pictures were thus precious resources, and I did a bad job of deciding when to use them. On my best day out, I landed two big pargo in the ten pound range, and a couple of grouper in the same category, but I didn't get photos. At the time, some set-net fishers were anchored nearby watching my every move, and for some reason I was shy about taking pictures. They called out in disgust when I released all these fish, and I figured, "OK, I'll show these guys and bring over a big-ass 20 pound grouper for them."
But therein lies a sad tale. My grouper/pargo limit is about ten pounds, and the reason is that they strike like large trucks, and drive immediately for cover. I lost a LOT of lures, fished with wire leaders, in scenarios like this: OK, here I am, trolling along close by the mangroves in 15 feet of water, and starting perhaps to daydream a bit, when WHAMMO!!! The rod is bent down double and is yanked back so hard that the handle is wrapped tight in the deck rigging, to the point where I can barely pull it loose . . . and by the time I get my hand on the reel and turn the kayak away from the mangroves, the line is pointed deep into the mangroves, and only makes occasional pulses . . . the fish is somewhere down there, deeply tangled up, and after a few minutes of futile pulling I give up or the line snaps. Crap.
I tried letting up on the drag so that I could theoretically have an easier time pulling the rod out of the rigging; but then fish just ran against the drag into their mangroves and holes. Cranking down on the drag again would only cause the rod to twist around at strike time and get stuck in the rigging, which made life very hard for me. Once, I yanked so hard and frantically to get the rod out, that I ended up switching off the anti-reverse. The crazy-spooling result was so ridiculous that I had to laugh. I think a big fat pargo was down there somewhere doing the same.
So in the end I was stuck with this kind of thing -- no trophies, but quite a bit better than a glob of seaweed on the hook:
One of the compensations of heaven is that the food is pretty good. It might be better yet if you could get someone else to cook it and serve it, but that's not how it works. I ate fish once a day, never consuming anything more than two or three hours old, and this was the menu for the first several days:
Fish tacos with corvina
Grouper fillet sauteed with olive oil and lemon pepper
Whole pompano grilled over mesquite coals
Snook fillets in garlic butter
Ceviche de Sierra
Fish tacos with spotted bay bass
And of course, I wasted a few shots photographing my food:
Fish that escaped being kept, bled and cooked include: barracuda, lizardfish, hogfish, and scores of beautiful little roosterfish that caught straight from the beach in front of my camp. In fact, I was able sit and sip coffee until I saw one of the rippling roosterfish boils coming within range, and then grab the rod and jog down to the beach and hook up one of these little gems:
Small but extremely scrappy, and I don't see right now how I'm going to avoid going down again sometime closer to peak rooster season.
#1 unpleasant surprise of the trip: not getting a single yellowtail. I unbuttoned one fish that must have been a yellowtail, and then solidly hooked another one right in Puerto Escondido. The fish headed out, burning the drag on its way toward moored sailboats, and I showed my yellowtail rookie-ness by cranking down on the drag until the hooks popped out, straightened. I thought that the drag must be too loose, because jeez, that fish is NOT slowing down . . . but actually the drag was tight enough, and this is just how yellowtail fight. On one day I paddled six miles out to a deep seamount near Isla San Marcos to try for them, and though I saw sea lions and dolphins and finback whales, I did not see a yellowtail. The only thing I actually hooked on that long paddle was a sort of a bad joke:
#1 pleasant surprise of the trip: snook. The first one I got seemed like a pleasant accident (they are very, very tasty as well as fine, attractive fighting fish) but then I realized that when the water was really cold on the incoming tide, the grouper and pargo would shut off and then the snook had a chance at grabbing your lure. On one of my last days of the trip, when I was killing fish to bring back in the cooler, the water turned extremely cold and the grouper and pargo fishing was quite awful:
Yes, it can be tough down there in Baja. Sometimes the wind blows, and sand finds its way into everything. You can watch out carefully for scorpions and stinging jellyfish, and then get a nasty surprise by scratching sensitive chafed areas after cutting up serrano peppers for your ceviche -- owww! Without a hose of fresh rinse water, you and your equipment don't get coated with salt -- you get ENCRUSTED with it. But like I said, in then end it comes up looking like a project well worth the effort.
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