Hire a Panga? The story of my 1st Panga trip

2000 was our first trip to Baja, I had just bought a boat to fish the Oregon coast, a 1999 20' trophy, and as soon as I purchased it my neighbor, a 20 year Baja vet, started banging on me to go with him on his annual trip.
Being cautious my wife and I decided to fly into Loreto for Fourth Of July and check things out, our plan was to rent a car and get a feel for driving in Baja and take a few guided trips to check out the fishing.
Driving around wasn't to bad with the exception of the side trip to Mulege, it wasn't the drive or Mulege we just didn't expect to come up over a rise and see teenagers with automatic weapons, needless to say the Military checkpoint scared the heck out of us but we got over it quiclky.

Back to fishing, I had pre booked a couple days from a VERY reputable outfitter in Loreto (not going to mention the name because I still think they are a good) and they arranged to pick us up at the resort we were staying in at Nopolo before daylight. As luck would have it there had been a serious storm a couple days before we were scheduled to fish and all of the people that were scheduled to go had to wait, when the sea settled down there were more people waiting to go than there were guides available, we weren't aware of the situation or we would have waited a few days.
We met the owner of the company on the beach and we were introduced to our Captain Jesus, I asked if he spoke any english and was told no, but it shouldn't be a problem.
As we approached the Panga I noticed the Panguero pulled the owner off to the side for a "private" conversation which I attemted to eaves drop on however it was in Spanish so I didn't have a clue as to what was being said. A few moments later the owner came over to me and said "we have a slight problem, the Panguero doesn't have any hooks with him, so he is going to take you over to Loreto Where I will meet him and give him some hooks", you would think that the red light would have just come on but hey it's Mexico lets just roll with it and see how it turns out.
We get to Loreto pick up the hooks and were off, on the way out I noticed all of the other Pangas were heading out in a north/east direction then stopping and throwing cast nets for bait, but not us, we kept racing due east.
After about 10 minutes at full throttle we were startled when water started to shoot up from the bottom of the Panga in a stream about the size of a 50 cent piece, Jesus quickly shut down the throttle and we could clearly see the hole in the bottom of the boat and I was thinking we gonna sink, Jesus fumbled around, smiling the whole time, and found a plug which he quickly forced in the hole and stopped the flooding water. After plugging the hole he began to scoop out the water until it was pretty much gone and then proceeded towards the open sea, we were stunned and didn't say a word because we didn't know what to say and he wouldn't understand anyway.
After another 15 minutes or so Jesus stopped the panga and started to rig a fishing pole with an unusual lure, he dropped it over the side and began to fish while looking at us with a big smile.
After about 10 minutes of this I asked "Jesus, aren't we supposed to be fishing?" Of course he didn't understand and just kept smiling and fishing. By now the other Pangas had started to pass us and we were really starting to rethink this trip and maybe try to tell this guy take us back in---- then he got a strike, a significant one that put a serious bend in the 2x4 rod he was using. As soon as he was sure it was hooked good he handed the rod off to my wife and she battled what appeared to be a very strong but sluggish fish for 5-10 minutes, it turned out to be a HUGE squid which Jesus promptly cut up. We caught 2 more squid and then we were off.
Jesus rigged the squid pieces to be trolled so they would skip on the surface, we trolled for about 2 hours before we finally got a strike on my wifes pole. My wife is a VERY good fisherperson and would put a lot of men to shame but because of the excitement she grabbed and Jerked at the pole and missed the fish, after all we had been through the gray cloud of disappointment hung over both of our heads.
We trolled for another hour or so with nothing and my wife was encouraging me to try to get him to fish for somthing else, we just wanted to catch something.
After many hand signals and dredging up every word of Spanish I remembered from my 9 week spanish course in the 7th grade i was pretty sure he new what I wanted he said "Cochi? Trigger?" I just said "si" hoping for some action.
We tucked into a rocky spot next to the island and YES! we started to catch a few fish, not big, but fish.
After about an hour we had a bunch of triggers and we headed in, the wind had picked up and the boat beat me so hard my spine still hurts 10 years later (not really).
When we arrived back at the resort Jesus attempted to dump us off with a mess of un filleted fish but the resort staff helped and we did get our fish cleaned.
After an interesting outing it was a much neeeded c-cktail hour to laugh at the experieince and feel blessed we were still alive.
Later that day the owner called and asked how it went and if we wanted to go for the second day, needless to say she got an ear full and then gave us a discounted second trip with Jesus #2 (thats what we called him) and it turned out to be a great trip, we didn't catch any really big dorado's but it was fun.
This was a lot of fun remembering this and sharing it.
I have been taking my boat ever since and love every minute I get to spend in Baja, Leaving in a little over a week with my wife and my boat, can't wait to see what this adventure will bring.
Would I go out with a Panga today? Heck ya life is an adventure.

that's why they say the worst day fishing is better than, well, almost anything!

YOu obv!0usLy dont TraveL with a CardBoard CutOUT of yer Mascot and a Guitar.