Gone to Baja trip report memorial day, lots of pics

Went down to the Castle to take my friends on a "no kid" memorial day trip. We go every year. I had a trip cancel last week and had been off of the water for over 2 weeks and I was getting pretty dry. Day 1 my buddys Eric and Mike decided to head out on the kayak to get some fillets for Ceviche


Eric started by getting some small crabs for bait. Sometimes half of the fun is getting bait. With a pocket full of crabs (that sounds kinda funny) they headed out

They went out to the point and started to drift crabs and also to throw plastics. They got the usual wide open bite in front of the Castle and came back with the goods.

I love the sight of a pile of fresh fillets that you got the same day. We diced them up and they went into the lemon juice and into the fridge

This was some great ceviche. I had some fun with the girls and told them that it was illegal to make ceviche in mexico. I had them going for a while thinking that they were breaking the law. "Yea, you have to buy the ceviche from a local or they can put you in jail" It was funny to me.

Later that day my friend Johnny came over. He asked me if he could have some of my new 80lb big game trilene tha I just bought. I guess he thought because I had a big roll of line that I could spare some. Even though I was still in sticker shock recovery on my new line purchase (and damn near in a coma at the price of florocarbon) I gave him the spool of line. He told me he was going to "make a new setup for fishing"

This is a Baja fishing setup. 80lb mono on a gatorade jug. the rock is tied on the end and thrown out via sling style with a dropper loop on it. The bait is snails that he keeps in the jug. He also keeps the hooks inside what he calls "my tackle box"

The snails can be removed from the shells and used as bait. I have seen him haul many a triggerfish and spotty on this hardcore setup.

We lit the tiki torches and started to drink more beer. the first night we ate shark steaks.

there were alot of sharks around. The campo had transformed into a fishing camp with lots of pangas bringing in their catch. We bought a small hammerhead from them and steaked it out and put it on the grill. Damn good, I dont like the amounts of sharks that they take but a dead fish is a dead fish, so I might as well eat one.

The next day we headed to the islands. I looked ahead and saw that there was a pretty stiff chubasco blowing straight east. I was observing the white caps to estimate the size of them and to decide if I was going to head to shore or back to the ramp. I have had the wind out here blow up 6-7foot chop in 30 minutes. As I watched the horizon and the big whitecaps I decided that I would head closer to shore and skirt the coastline to the islands then head out. Thats when I noticed that one of the white caps was not changing. It was staying white. I got my binocs and looked. It was a boat. I was too far away to see what kind of boat, I only noticed that there was no bow spray comming off of it. They were in a sideways drift heading east towards Sonora. I figured that no one in their right mind would drift fish in 500 feet of water in a wind storm, I then changed course and headed out to see if they were indeed in trouble. They were about 18 miles out and as I got closer I could see a person on the bow waving a life jacket. He waved the jacket for a while, thinking I did not see him. When we got there I found out my hunch had been right. It was a nice striper that had a bottom end failure on the prop. I have had the wind mess me up before by steep waves putting strain on the prop and transmission. I dont know why his went out but it was wasted.

They threw me a rope and we started to pull them back to the ramp. They were lucky, there were no othere boats out in his area and that wind would have blown them straight out to the middle of the gulf. While I was circling them I had to give them a little bit of a hard time...."Now is when I give you my advertisement for our fully outfitted guide service, complete with rescue boat on shore for a standby.." They laughed, it was cool. Sometimes when your boat is screwed up and you have just been rescued laughing is pretty tough. this pic is my friend eric. One thumb up means we saved them, one thumb down means we just used all of our desil to tow them back and our island dreams were sunk.

We got back to the ramp. The guys in the boat were super cool. I have snached many a person from the clutches of baja and usualy only get a "thanks man" out of it. Its the rule of the sea down here that if you see a vessel in destress you HAVE to help. Most of the time people you rescue are not able to pay you for your fuel or time. These guys were different. They hooked me up with 400 bucks! it is only the second time I haved been paid for a rescue and the first time was because I wrecked my prop saving a kayaker and made him buy me a new one. these dudes were cool and I was glad to be able to help them. just then I was about to reap my Karma. I hear a shout and see a small zodiac with a couple of tourists in it looking in the water. It was a Whale Shark! I hopped in with him and got to swim and play with it for a while. I took lots of pics.

This pic is of the front of him. I am riding him and then snapped a shot. If you are gentle with them you can ride them and they wont leave. If you touch them wrong or touch the tail they will dive. They are very strong, you can feel them when they tow you that they have power to spare.





There were a couple of them by the ramp. After I got tired of riding whale sharks I grabbed my Riffe MT-3 and started to hunt. the vis was 15 foot. I dove down into the rocks off of the ramp. It gets deep fast here and I was able to go down into some big cracks in some giant boulders. There were schools of pargo going in and out of caves. Some yellow but they were small, then I saw a decent sized pargo and nailed it. I was able to snap a couple of nice pargo for dinner. Looks like I was going to have fish dinner after all! There were lots of pargo, we also saw a couple of nice grouper but I was a little winded from swimming with the whale sharks and the current was stiff. My bottom time on my dives was like 30 seconds. Towards the end of the afternoon I was exausted so we went in.

Spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beer and sitting on my porch lookin at stuff through the beer glass. One of my favorite passtimes. I consider my self an expert in beer optics. Notice how perfectly the tiki torch bends in the beer bottle neck. I tell ya, thats skill at work. You other amature beer drinkers should not try this stunt at home. If your attempts at beer optics are not perfect you can tilt your beer at too much of an angle and spill it. Like I said, beer optic stunts take a lifetime of practice. Im considered a professional.


Well looks like a couple of weeks before my next trip. Time to read Baja Nomad and dream.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day. And thank you to all of the people who that holiday is for, for giving me my freedom to enjoy the USA and live in a free country where you can be what you want, because without their sacrifice I would not be able to live my life like I do now.

Tight lines and head shots.
GTB
www.gonetobaja.com

gonetobaja, Thanks for the pictures and the story.

Good stuff. Almost makes up for not being there.

GTB, great report as usual. I bet those guys would have paid a lot more if you would have negotiated on the water. I know that is not your style. You are living the dream bro. One day we will cross paths. You need to hold up the finger, you know which one I am talking about, in all your self pics.

Maybe you should repost that story for the newbies..

Quote:

Originally posted by Minnow GTB, great report as usual. I bet those guys would have paid a lot more if you would have negotiated on the water. I know that is not your style. You are living the dream bro. One day we will cross paths. You need to hold up the finger, you know which one I am talking about, in all your self pics. Maybe you should repost that story for the newbies..