These incredible photos were taken by Jon Schwartz

“They were flipping out because they’ve never seen anything like that in their lives, and they started looking at the eyes, and the eyes were red and pink, and they started hollering out albino, albino, and then they called into the marina, and that’s when we learned that it was a special thing.”

via Blue Water Jon

via Moldychum

More Baja Fly Fishing at The Reel Baja.

10 points for originality, -50 for killing sharks.

via Miami New Times

“Cocaine is a hell of a drug!” (part 2)

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

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

I came across an article on firstcoastnews.com while reading up on marlin fishing and I found the wording a little strange. There is a lot of emphasis on the word “attack” but I’m sure this sort of thing has happened before, if not with marlin then with another species of fish that jumps a lot. Although it is impossible to determine whether this marlin really wanted to attack a fisherman or it was just a freak accident, science dictates that if you are pulling something towards you, it’s going to come to you. This marlin just came in a little easier and faster then anyone expected. Then again, Jon is the scientist, not me.
Photo via Marlin Nut

Watch the video.

As all deep sea fishing trips begin, we were up bright and early. It was almost 10 am as we reached the dock carrying loads of beer, margarita supplies and ample amounts of sandwich ingredients. The plan for the day was to head out from Marina Palmira in La Paz out to the area around Espirito Santo. We’d spend some of the day fishing and then a few hours snorkeling with the Sea Lions at the north end of the island.

Our boat for the day was the 38 foot Mediterranean “El Ganador” that we rented from Desea Adventures. It came crewed with our Capitan and our deck hand David. We settled in on the bow with our breakfast for the 45 minutes ride out to the open water.

Due to the fact that we’re not really fishermen and that we couldn’t be persuaded to arrive at the dock between 6-7am, we’d missed out on live bait. Our bait for the day would be brightly colored squid shaped lures. In total we had 5 rods out in the water. After trolling for about 15 minutes, I watched as a marlin leapt into the air. The zip of the line was unforgettable! My shipmates turned and saw just in time as the marlin landed back into the water. The line went silent. We all knew we lost it.

Continue reading My First Marlin by Rachel Larratt