Cerralvo Island, March 11th 2005

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

Beginners Luck; Gracefully Out-Fished by a Novice

It’s been rather difficult finding fishing partners here in La Paz since Clive left for BVI. I’ve found many people willing to go, until they find out we leave Fishermen’s Fleet at 5am. Not many people seem interested in waking up at 4am, but I managed to con two great guys, Mike Brum and Philip Barbosa in to giving it a shot. Promising them an unforgettable experience, the fury was upon us.

The alarm goes off, it’s 4:20 am October 5th, 2005. I made sure to find out how much time they needed to get ready since I’m generally awake and out the door in 5 minutes. To my surprise everyone was sticking to the plan, I thought for sure I would lose at least one of them since there are only two chairs in the panga, but they were both awake and ready in no time. When we arrived at Fishermen’s Fleet we headed upstairs for some coffee and breakfast. Upstairs was the largest group I’ve seen, in total it would take four huge vans to shuttle us to La Ventana.

In the van it was the usual conversations you find on these trips. Where are you from? What do you do? Etc. One of the guys kiddingly refers to us as “the new guys”, but I explained to him how I’ve been living here for a while and have gone out plenty of times. Since I don’t know this fellows name, we’ll just call him “the weekend warrior” since he later admitted it was his first day fishing on this trip. We’re joking back and forth, and before you know it, the ability to catch fish comes up. He makes a funny comment about our ability, and I kindly replied. “We’ll be looking for you on the beach.”

By some strange occurrence of beginners luck and being dubbed “the new guys”. Phil, who has never actually caught a fish in his life, was our lucky charm.

Continue reading Beginners Luck; Gracefully Out-Fished by a Novice

Fishing Has Been Canceled Due to Rain

This morning I woke up at 4am to go fishing with Fishermens Fleet, however it rained quite a bit last night and some of the roads were flooded. It wasn’t as bad as Mondays storm, seeing as my house wasn’t all flooded, but it certainly didn’t look good for fishing.

Hoping it would all blow over, I hopped in my car and drove downtown. There were quite a few times where I thought for sure I was going to flood my car and be stranded in a few feet of water, but my tactic of driving extra fast through the rivers that used to be streets worked. Though it left me quite wet, I have to admit it was very satisfying.

When I arrived at Fishermens Fleet, I touched base with David and it was decided that we were still fishing. I had my fill of coffee, exchanged a few fishing stories with other fishermen and jumped in the van. As we got closer to Punta Arenas, where we launch the boats, it became increasingly apparent that the storm was much more intense than I thought and lightning could still be seen flashing behind the mountains. When we arrived at dirt road that takes us out to the beach, you could see a long line of vans and trucks parked and a large group of people standing around. The captains were all standing together in a group talking and examining the washed out road. Wondering if we could even make it the rest of the way to the beach, and more importantly would we be able to get back. It was eventually decided that we had to at least try.

The drive to the beach was slow and extremely wet with large portions of the road completely underwater. We eventually made it to the beach, but nothing but dark clouds could be seen on the horizon. There was to be no fishing today, canceled due to weather, an unfortunate set of events but there was nothing we could do about it.

It turns out that a tropical storm off the coast had upgraded to a full blown hurricane this morning and was looking like it would make landfall around Sunday. Hurricane Otis is being compared to a huge storm that happened 29 years ago, and there are now talks of evacuating Los Cabos and turning off the electrical grid to prevent injuries and fires.

I really hope my house doesn’t flood!