la ribera 9/20-9/27

La Ribera 9/20-9/27

I headed south last week for what is becoming a traditional post harvest fishing trip the last week of September. We finished harvesting almonds the day before flying out of Sacramento, so we cut it pretty close and were really ready for a break.

This year my brother in law Matt came with his daughter Kristen, and Nate, a fishing buddy of mine, rounded out the foursome. We typically fish three people to a super panga, but we hooked up with Pedro in La Ribera, who has a nice new super (I think maybe 26’), who is licensed to fish with four. We made arrangements with him to fish Monday and hit the sack early that evening.

Day one, Monday, we caught a ride down to the beach in front of town where Pedro and his brother waited to launch the boat. We headed straight out to jig up some Humboldt squid for chum; Matt and I have spent plenty of time on the work end of making bait, so we let Nate, a newbie to the squid game, hook and land the first one. Nate’s no dummy, so I think one of us landed the second, then we were on our way to find sardines and go fish.




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Nate with his squid

That first day we fished just south of the lighthouse near Rincon on a school of 10-20 lb yellowfin. We landed a few tuna as well as a couple of dorado that wandered through the chum line, then we headed back to the beach by 3:00 or so.
That night we ate dorado tacos…always best the day it’s caught. My neighbors Cliff and
Carol have one of the best recipes on the east cape for taco batter, and try as I might I’ve never been able to duplicate the closely guarded secret, so I’m resigned to do the fishing and let Cliff do the cooking, which isn’t all that bad a deal.


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Kristen and her first dorado.


Day two, Tuesday, we launched from the beach again with Pedro at 6:30 AM, made squid bait and bought sardines. This time we headed further south to Frailes, where we heard there was a school of larger tuna holding. Sure enough, there were probably 15 boats drifting when we got there and several rods already bent. It didn’t take long to get our first hookup, and the reel smoking first run told us we were into a larger grade of fish. Before we had color on that fish, we had a second one on, which made things interesting in the tight conditions on the panga. As luck would have it, both fish got to the boat about the same time, and in the fire drill to follow one managed to break the 40 lb fluoro leader we were using. Later that morning we managed to hook up three out of four rods simultaneously…Matt, Kristen, and I all stumbling around the boat…over, under, through armpit, around the rail we went as 50 lb tuna had their way with us…good thing we’re all family. There was a great deal of cursing and name calling going on, with Matt waiting for his fish to die of old age before it got to the gaff.


Matt and his voting age tuna.

At any rate, with Nate standing there holding his rod and watching the family bond, we failed to notice old Pedro continue to throw sardines and squid chum…as if a triple hookup wasn’t enough. Sure as shi#, here come a couple of sails through the chum, and we watch as Nate gets bit and hooks up on one. About then the real fire drill started, with our three fish pinning us to the rail, Nate scampers around the boat a couple of times as the sail runs circles dancing around the boat. Somewhere in there one of us lost a tuna, the sail was leadered and released, and we boated a couple of more tuna.

We fished a total of four days with Pedro, and managed to catch a few more dorado, and one wahoo south of Frailes.


My long awaited wahoo.

One of the four days we fished the inshore area in front of la ribera down to the lighthouse and caught small roosters (all released), and surprisingly enough, a slug of sierra on wired hoochies. We attributed part of our fishing success to Kristen, who had a different bikini for each day of the week…the bait guys always lingered and aimlessly shoveled more sardines into our tank, and for some reason there were always boats showing up wherever we stopped to fish around us and add to the line of chum we threw into the water. Hell I think we could have skipped making bait every day…whenever it got slow we would send Kristen up on the bow to fish and we had all the chum we wanted in short order…she was good natured about it and we all had a good laugh over the whole deal.


Nate and Kristen double up on tuna.


We had heard the local fish cops were checking licenses and limits, and sure enough, we were boarded one day by the feds out on the Vigilante II down at Frailes. The fellow checked our licenses and fish, which were all in order, and was very pleasant and professional with all of us. We have always been a little foggy on limits and combinations allowed, so he took a minute to explain the 10 point system…at least as it existed that day, on that particular piece of the sea of cortez.

We took a day and went over to Cabo Pulmo in the morning to do some snorkeling and then have lunch there in town. Water conditions were great, with 87 degree water and good visibility, we saw plenty of fish and I got to try out a little underwater digital camera I picked up for the trip.


Matt and Kristen at Cabo Pulmo.



Local wildlife on the inshore reef, Los Arbolitos.


The highlight of the day was when two shiny humvees pulled into town and puked out a bunch of scrawny throwbacks there to save the planet and pet the turtles, dressed in their Obama 08 shirts (no kidding one of them was)….I wondered to myself why they weren’t driving hybrids instead of the rented hummers, but I never bothered to ask…no sense ruining what was a great day with what would have been pointless conversation.

On another day we walked to the top of the flat hill over near Leonero to get some pictures and see some new country, then went over to LB to have a burger at buzzards and watch some football.


Matt and Kristen before the hike to the top of the hill.



View back toward La Ribera.

After lunch we drove up the arroyo past the dump up to the place where the old guy makes hammocks out of palm leaves. He didn’t have any on hand, but I put in a request for one come November or December when I hope to visit him again. The brush up that arroyo was about as green as I’ve ever seen it, with lots of yellow and red blooms along the way.


Almost to the hammock makers place. LB in the background.

Hopefully the baja will be blessed with a little more rain before the season ends. As usual, I’m looking forward to my next visit, next time with my family.
Steve

[Edited on 9-30-2009 by luckyman]

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luckyman..

luckyman, Thanks. You are a lucky man.