Lively Fishing on the Sea of Cortez!

It was before daybreak,even, that Bruce and I waited for Vince and Cindy for a full day of fishing. Vince , through his experiences down here and his command of the language, has gotten to know a couple of professional fisherman. Using this contact, Vince chartered a boat and a pilot/guide to take us out. A gringo friend of Vince and Cindy's introduced as "Hawk" let us use his gear and joined us on the boat. Since bait has been tough to find this year, Hawk also brought an assortment of giant sized lures and spoons. The boat, owner, guide and truck to "launch" us were all waiting for us at the beach. As I watched pelicans silhouetted against the sunrise,Our pilot/guide Victor maneuvered the 25' ponga boat across the glassy sea toward an island we had watched from our beach outside our casita.

I missed the signal, but at a certain point, Vince and Hawk began rigging the lines. I could see that there is a science to not only rigging the lines, but rigging them and placing them in the rod holders for trolling in such a way that they will be effective and not get tangled as the boat made slight turns. Cindy had already given me instructions on how she holds the rod for reeling in, as it takes quite a bit of upper body strength. Then came a discussion on how you know if you've had a strike, whether or not you need to set the hook and how to get 'em in the boat. After 10 silent minutes of raptly watching rod ends, we all got distracted with conversation. Apparently Cindy was the only one still glancing at the rods as she quickly maneuvered into position and began giving us all a live demo on how to reel in a fish. I had to watch her face after I saw how slowly she would crank the reel....that was when I got an inkling of how different this might be from trout fishing in America. Before too long Vince and Hawk were egging Cindy on, or maybe just trying to make her laugh, by asking what was taking her so long to reel in the fish. Finally, I caught just a glimpse of a flash of silver while looking over the side of the boat. Gosh, it looked a long ways down! I knew from snorkeling outside our casita how exceptionally clear these waters are and wondered exactly how big that fish would be when brought to the surface. Another five minutes of reeling and finally the fish was near the surface and Victor identitified it as a barelete Vince and Hawk seemed a little disappointed, but Victor made it clear a photo was needed as he drug the fish onto the boat with his gaff. The thing must have been two feet long and I wondered what the disappointment was. Vince asked Victor if the barelete was good to eat. Victor shrugged, saying, "For me, yes, it makes good ceviche." I guess the gringos are not too excited about eating them. Vince noticed the next strike, but instead of running to the rod himself, he motioned me over to it! Yikes! Ok, so I tried to start reeling and couldn't even turn the crank! What the......? Victor was soon by my side chattering rapidly in Spanish and finally I understood what he meant, pull the rod tip up, then crank while slowly lowering the rod....over and over. I could hear Victor behind me repeating his instructions in a rhythm that matched the motion and soon I was making it happen. Sure felt like I must have had a whale pulling against me! The fish didn't seem to struggle much or change direction, he was just dang heavy. And so I continued the rhythmic reeling hoping my strength would outlast the fish. I found I had a new understanding of Hemingway's classic description of the struggle in Old Man and the Sea. When we were granted our first glimpse of the fish, Victor's disappointing identification called out, "barelete" and ....well...I kind of figured it really wasn't a whale...but it sure was fun reeling in that big ole thing! Then when Victor handed me the gaff with fish dangling from it for another photo, the fish startled me by giving a sudden twitch of his whole body. I instinctively hopped away from it and that gave everybody on the boat a laugh. I took a big gulp of air and accepted the gaff, readying myself for any sudden and unexpected twitches in the part of the fish. By the end of the day we had collected three bareletes. Hawk kept one to cut up for bait. Only after asking our permission, Victor gave the other two away to a friend of his we passed at the end of the day.

During a lull in the fishing action and in the midst of Victor's story of an abandoned ranch on the island, we noticed something coming up out of the water, then another, then a small blow hole appeared. We were surrounded by dolphins! They were swimming all around us, many of them breaching the surface, others swiftly swimming with only a dorsal fin visible. We stayed with them for quite awhile. As we all stood wordlessly watching the dolphins, it felt like a magical moment.

After that action, Victor took us to a place where we should begin a different type of fishing called yo-yoing. It was like what we might do in Montana when we jig, but this was on a much bigger scale: bigger hooks, bigger spoons, deeper water, bigger fish. Even just the empty line was heavy. Victor told us we should find the ocean floor, then pull the hook up about twenty feet and move the hook up and down. When trout fishing, we can quickly feel the bottom and can then use just a finger in the line to bounce the hook up and down. Here it took a looooong time before our big spoons and hooks stopped at the bottom. Then to move the hook up and down took full body motion. Bruce had just found bottom and I was slack-jawed over how much line I had let out and still hadn't hit bottom when it was time to move and try something else. Soon we were back to trolling again.

Barelete was not the only species caught that day. Bruce was the first to notice the next movement in the poles. He got right on it and kept teasing us saying it was something little. He worked and worked to bring it in and then everybody got excited when we got our first flash of silver beside the boat. Victor called out the Spanish name, "pes fuerte" translating literally to "strong fish." Hawk, meanwhile called out the only name he knew for this fish, "amberjack!". Now even Vince was excitedly watching Victor with the gaff to see the new fish. It was a little different shape than the barelete: flatter and wider and longer. As Victor stepped by me he caught my eye and quietly let me know, "Es un grande!". Vince and Hawk looked on with interest, Hawk saying it was early in the season to be catching these. Vince mentioned that he had never caught one and Hawk said he'd never eaten one, but had heard they were really good. Hawk noticed the next pole movement and again motioned me to go for it. I think he had as much fun watching me figure out how to use this big gear as he did using it himself. Again I had to concentrate on the rhythm of pulling up, then reeling while lowering the rod tip. This time, however, the fish jerked around a bit and changed direction. He really was a lot more fun than the barelete. I was enchanted by the process of how much work it took desperately trying to hang onto this fish before ever knowing what type of creature was at the end of my line. All I could see was deep blue sea and my line disappearing into it. Finally someone called out that they could see it. Again Victor was the first to identify it, "pes fuerte.". Oh boy! We were all excited about that. On board it came with the help of Victor and the gaff. More photos, and no one really mentioned just then how much smaller mine was than Bruce's.

The next variety of fish to be pulled out of the ocean was bonita. I had eaten this before, but Vince and Cindy were excited to make sushi out of the bonita. I think Bruce and Vince each caught on of these guys. The last fish reeled in was hooked by Bruce and reeled in by Cindy. This fish was not very exciting looking, but everybody was excited to see a sierra come on board. Even I had enjoyed sierra at a friend's house in Montana, so I knew this was a good fish to eat.

As we trolled homeward, Victor told us of a sea lion colony on one of the points. The sea lions had been "transplanted" from another part of Baja where there had been too many. Victor was afraid they would become a problem here too as the population seemed to be growing. Victor instructed us to bring in our lines and he turned the boat toward the rocky point. We were all scouring the horizon with our eyes, straining to see if there were birds or sea lions on the nearest rocks. After we watched a few fly away, we were close enough we could see the sea lions themselves sunning on the rocks. One displayed an ugly wound in its side, Victor saying it looked like a shark bite and that the sea lion looked pretty sickly. The others all looked lively: everything from big ole bulls to cute little pups and the full spectrum in between. Some slipped into the water for a playful swim while others barked from the rocks and still others seemed to float on their backs, bellies up to the sun. What fun creatures were these to watch! Victor carefully kept the boat from bumping into the rocks while also keeping us so very close for observation. With the number and size, variety and quantity of fish caught this trip had already been a success. Seeing the dolphins and the sea lions was an added bonus for us.

Once Victor got us to shore and the owner pulled the boat onto the trailer, Victor's day still was not done. We all went to the boat owner's house. There under a shade tree and on a plastic table, Victor expertly cleaned and bagged the fish for us, always careful to ask Vince how he wanted the fish filleted. Yoyo, the boat owner showed us his "hoya" where this evening he would start a fire. When the fire burned to coals he would put a goat into a Dutch oven and put the oven down in the hole. The hole, lined with fire brick would keep the coals hot all night. Yoyo would then bury the whole works and by afternoon it should be ready for his grandson's quinciera, a very special birthday party. After he shared the grapefruit with us that a friend had given him, we settled our bill, including a good tip for all the extras. What a day it had been!

But wait, our day wasn't over yet. It was only 5:00, so Vince and Cindy insisted on cooking up some of the fish while it was fresh off the boat. We all ended up back at Vince and Cindy's, everyone pitching in to help cook and soon we were sampling raw bonita with wasabi, grilled amberjack and sierra that had been breaded and fried. It was all delicious. That night we all turned in early, knowing for ourselves that the amberjack is the best tasting fish of everything we caught that day.