Jon and I put our minds together to write two articles, one about our adventures in La Paz, Mexico fishing the Sea Of Cortez, and the second about fishing for bonefish in the Bahamas on a budget. In addition, we made several contributions throughout the magazine. Stay tuned for your chance to get a copy!

After several Tuesdays had passed only a few brave fishermen remained. We had been in a serious slump and only myself and two of my friends, Colin and Nick, had joined me this particular night. Neither of them had caught a tarpon yet or anything of good size, but on this fateful night that would all change.

The night started as any other. I was the first to arrive at the bridge and I started out by trying to catch some live bait. Colin and Nick arrive not long after, and Colin was armed with his big offshore reel. We had seen some large sharks in the area recently and thought it best to be well prepared. Colin dropped his bait straight down from the bridge, and it wasn’t look before he hooked up with a big tarpon. I had promised Colin a big fight and some serious acrobatics, but this large tarpon did neither. Of course, he was using a massive reel spooled with 80lb mono. The fight was quick and apart from a few close calls with the bridge pilings, the silver king did little to escape. I went down to pick up the fish, and to my surprise it was much heavier then the previous tarpon I had caught, and I could barely lift it out of the water. Colin’s first tarpon, an honest 100 pound fish!

Colin kept just a single scale to remember his first tarpon!

It was no more then a beer or two later when I hooked up. Another Tarpon! This one was clearly much smaller, but it fought well and showed off its acrobatic skills.

After catching two quick tarpon, things got quiet. This was often the case with night fishing for tarpon. If you weren’t around during the small window of opportunity, the fish simply would night bite. We sat around for quite some time watching the tarpon sit perfectly still in the dark water below. It was clear that they were no longer feeding and seem to gather just to be social. In a last ditch effort we let about a hundred yards of line out of the big reel to drift down in the current. We had no idea what was out in the darkness, but we would soon find out. We all sat back finishing the last of the beer. The big rod leaning against the rail in front of us with the line alarm engaged. There were no cars passing at that moment, and everything was quite. A lout click broke the silence and we all peer at the rod, the tip started to bend and both Colin and I looked at Nick. “Your turn.”

He lunged for the rod, and as soon as he picked it up, the reel started screaming. He set the hook and we waited for the sound of a splash, a telltale sign a tarpon was on the other end, but we heard nothing. Whatever it was, it was big. We all thought it had to be a shark, we had never seen anything else besides a tarpon that was big enough to pull that kind of line in the area. As cars drove boy they saw Nick fighting the fish and they stopped. All traffic was at a standstill in either direction as people got out of their cars to watch. Not long after we got a glimpse of something orange, clearly not a shark, and not as big as we had believed either, but this fish fought like it was six feet long. Nick got the fish to shore as the crowd applauded when they saw the big snapper. The hook popped out with alarming ease. I tried to pick up the fish to get a photo with Nick, but the brute still wasn’t done fighting and with one last thrash of its tail, it flew out of my hands and into the water, disappearing into the darkness.

Tarpon Tuesday continued until once again I was the only fisherman. I spent my last night on Tortola alone at the bridge that had brought so much joy and excitement to me and my friends and I promised myself I’d return.

Well at least moving forward we can do the right thing. The music in these videos was provided by The Total Camble Experience.

I know you’ve probably seen these videos before, but it spent some extra hours up late getting the audio to match perfectly (or as perfectly as possible) with the video. So please, for the sake of all the sleep I lost, watch them!

via reddit

WORLD RECORD SNAPPER APPROVED

Think back to June, and remember that one Roula Cornell captured a monstrous mullet snapper. You will of course also remember that it weighed in (on official certified scales) at 45.6 pounds, apparently eclipsing the current record of 36 pounds by a metric shit load. Well, as of September 6, 2007, our sources at the IGFA in Florida tell us that his record has been approved. Cornell, who has been saddled with the term “pending” ever sense has been released from this nether world and is now official, unique, and certifiable in his position atop all of the mullet snapper fishermen in the world. Although his life has been a world wind of paparazzi, nubile pursuers, and sycophantic followers since that fateful day, he has maintained his humble “everyman” approach to life and fishing. Here’s hoping that his hat size remains static, and that his world record stands for a long, long time. Congrats R.C.,

David

That’s just another notch on the belt for the best guide services in all of Baja California Sur!

You should also check out some of the older posts from our time living in Mexico and our fishing trips with Fishermen’s Fleet.

While you’ll still have to wait for the official Fishing Fury Mexico video you can find us in David Jones’ great Fishermen’s Fleet video.

And if you’re still feeling nostalgic of 2004 from the previous videos you can check out Clive’s video.

We wasted no time once we arrived at the beach and immediately jumped in our boat, and Dan into his. We had the same guide as before (Cayo), since he seemed to share our intense passion for catching fish. The sea was a little bit calmer this day and we were able to make very good time getting to our destination. Cayo carved his way through the waves and swells with the precision only a person who had spent their entire life on the ocean could do. The sun beat down hard on us as our guide netted bait fish. It was obvious that today was going to be a very hot day on the water, even though clouds had begun to move in. We lathered up with sun screen and headed for deeper water.

The day started slower then our previous trip. We circled the area for a quite a while before we had our first hit. It was certainly worth the wait when line started peeling off my reel. I had decided to stick with the equipment supplied by Fishermen’s Fleet this time instead of my muskie equipment. Now I was using a nice big Shimano reel spooled with forty pound line. While many anglers use a heavier line for fishing saltwater, all the reels here seemed to be spooled with the forty pound line because the main fish we are targeting (Pargo, commonly known as Snapper) have very good eyesight and don’t hit the bait on heavier line. The only drawback to using only forty pound line is that these fish are extremely strong and can reach over one hundred pounds. They immediately pull straight down into the sharp rocks below, cutting your line. The idea is to chase the fish once hooked and bring in as much line as possible. You can only hope that the fish will head toward deeper water, because if they don’t, you will more then likely loose the fish. I of course learned this first hand after battling a good size pargo for almost five minutes before my line got cut. There isn’t a whole lot you can do when these fish start to run. I tried my best to keep the rod tip up and bring in as much line as possible to no avail. When you try to bring in the fish quickly you risk the chance of breaking the line from stress, but when you reel to slow you run the risk of loosing the fish to the rocks. It requires a very precise mixture of finesse and brute strength.

Continue reading Cerralvo Island, March 11th 2005