"Days to Remember"

The difference between a fairy tale and a sea tale? A fairy tale starts with "Once upon a time". A sea tale starts with "This ain't no chit"!

I'd like to invite you aboard my fishing cruiser, Pompano, for some adventures we had many years ago on the Sea of Cortez. I can assure you that they were enjoyed by each of us who took part in them.



To begin, let us start with an impromtu trip one fine day with some amigos. A guy's day on the water...sort of a 'shakedown' cruise to start the season off.

On flybridge toasting the crew.


'The Nephews'.......some great kids on their first Baja adventure. They were gung-ho to try everything, especially anything to do with the sea. They signed my guest book with this..."The motors are always running at Uncle Rog's."

First lesson....swab the decks.



Second lesson....be alert and aware of your surroundings at all times. Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure.



Third lesson...don't believe everything you hear or see.


I gaff and hold up nephew Brent's first yellowtail.


We had many hook-ups.
Here's nephew Kent with his.


And a few double hook-ups!



Fish flag was flown as soon as the first hook-up was brought aboard.



Some were more than others...



Diving was high on their list of things to do. Nephew Kent was already an experienced scuba diver and eager to try the Cortez.






PEPE, RICARDO AND FRIENDS - DAY CRUISE

What great fun to see some familiar faces from the past in these photos. We were young men all in those days! And all of us were eager to show our prowness at catching some fish on a day's outing aboard my great boat, Pompano.

Hint: Anyone familiar with current Mulege residents will recognize a young Pepe and Ricardo.

Pepe seems to be enjoying the fresh air and sea ride.



Here Ricardo is given an impromptu salt water shower.







Pepe lends a helping hand to Ricardo in cleaning some fish.





SHARKS

I caught my first big shark sometime in 1971 off San Marcos. It was a 9 1/2 foot hammerhead that hit a trolled sharkline with a 'filleted' 20lb yellowtail carcass. I used a shark-snubber to absorb the sudden hit and strength of the shark attack. We fed the whole damn town back then with our exploits, not knowing much about how the shark numbers would soon begin to decline in coming years. The Baja Road took care of that.

Bahia de Concepcion..aptly named, because that's where a host of pelagic fish spawned...including many species of shark. There were many shark camps in Conception Bay back then..starting in 1972 right after the highway opened and made transport of the meat easy.




We used to hook sharks frequently in those early years..in the Bay. But from 1972 on the sharks numbers declined. Not from sportfishing..but from shark nets. There were maybe 20 camps of 4-6 pangas each, loaded with nets, working the bay and it took them just a couple of quick years before there were no sharks left...none. Just piles and piles of shark remnants left to rot in the Baja sun. I can still remember seeing the sizes of the sharks decrease as the years went by...until finally the net mesh sizes were of a size to catch the littlest sharks that could be filleted..about 1 foot long, the latest young. There would literally thousands piled up next to the fish camps.

Then they were gone. We have not had any shark populations in our bay since 1979. I doubt we will ever see them again.

If you never saw the Cortez or in particular, the unbelievably prolific Bay of Conception, before the overharvesting of netters,... then you will not miss the thousands of birds, turtles, whales, dorado, marlin, sailfish, tuna, wahoo, cabrilla, grouper, rockfish, roosterfish, jack crevalle, pompano!!, shrimp, rock scallops, bay scallops, octopus, morays, lobster, and on, and on, all fishes of the sea.... which are all gone from the Bay. The shrimpers broke the laws weekly and dredged the bottom of this bay until finally it is almost devoid of life. The rich bottom marine ecology has been destroyed. Nightly they and the panga netters would throw away the tiny dorado, marlin, sails, grouper, that were caught up in their nets but were considered trash to be discarded...known loosely as by-catch. In just 33 short years Bahia de Concepcion went from being an aquarium spawning grounds to something similar to the Dead Sea.



We got aboard a shrimper to view some of the 'bycatch'.










Do I miss the sharks?...and countless other species of marine life? What do you think?

Education, education, education. Let's hope it's not too late for another Bay of Conception somewhere.

Below is a mess of stingrays caught in the Bay. Wiped out in a few brief years of overfishing.


GREAT WHITE CAUGHT IN NET



SHARK ALONGSIDE



You had to be careful and quick. Sometimes sharks would get half of our catch.




SANTA BARBARA SHARKS.

This cove was once the domain of many juvenile blue sharks. It was an easy jaunt across Coyote Bay to find them. Very easy to catch using a baited hook with a wire leader.






SNORKLING FOR BAY SCALLOPS was also a sure thing every time one went out. Simply put on a face mask and snorkle and you were good to go.











The succulent scallops were sooo good ..freshly ate with a flourish.



A quick slurp....



It was an easy thing to go ashore for a quick lunch of shellfish.



Once...there were millions and millions.



Lobster were plentiful, too...back in the day.









VHF RADIO CALLS

One of the most important arrows to have in your quiver aboard a boat is a good vhf radio.

When using the radio, I'm sure a lot of sailors can pick you up...if they are on the right channel or maybe scanning. They have radio masts that are quite high, like the one I had on my old stinkpot, Pompano. My boat's mast tip was about 25 ft above the water and when at sea or even just outside the Bay of Conception, I could clearly hear and talk with a couple of base stations in San Carlos. I believe their call names back then were Rescue 1 and Greyhound Base (don't know if they still exist today).

First time I radioed with them was when I heard a distress call when we were offshore dorado fishing maybe 15 miles east of Mulege. Somewhere near Tiburon island, a sailboat skipper had suffered a heart attack and his wife had frantically radioed for help. The San Carlos stations were asking for any nearby boats/persons that could render assistance.

My brother, a doctor, was fishing with me and we radioed back that we were underway to the location, but because of the distance involved and our diesel boat's top speed, we could not be on site for at least 4 hours. We knew we would not be there soon enough, and within an hour we received the sad news that another boat had arrived and the skipper had not survived.


It had been a very tragic event...the man had dove overboard to cool off, and had unknowingly plunged into a mess of jellyfish (man-o-wars) which were thought to have triggered the heart attack. As we turned back on our course, our hearts went out to the wife on such a tragic day.



THE MESS!


"Bad cooking is responsible for more trouble at sea than all other things put together."


Luckily, the truly great boat lunches made in the galley were something to look forward to on each trip.




Fish dinners were a sure thing. Here we try some blackened cabrilla.





Pacifico Pompano...something cold to wash it down with?




"Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk." Sir Francis Chichester





MATEO WITH TRUMPETFISH. Matt caught this trumpetfish on a trolled feather going through the straits of the bay on our way to Mulege one morning. Rarely do you catch one these days.







Fish Boil with Birds...these were very common sights back in the day.




Waves can transport you into a dream world.....




Porpoise play with our boat wake every time we head out.





Lots of other sealife out there, too - like Lobos! The wolves of the sea.




Octopus at Bean Rocks. Sometimes caught on a baited hook.


TUNA, JUREL, AND DORADO SWAM TOGETHER ...oftentimes underneath a pod of porpoise.



My old amigo, nomad aguaholic with nice bull.


Most trips were a collage of various fish.


When the water was warm enough, tuna would cover the bay. Sometimes so thick, it seemed you could walk on them.


TUNA CAUGHT IN SEINERS NET...a sight that made you realize that a waste of a natural resource was happening.




LINGUADO..halibut caught in the bay. Easy to do back in the day....not so much today.


My old fishing hat brought me lots of luck. Liberated one night from a donkey's head at El Nido's in Loreto.



POMPANO GETTING A FACE LIFT....a new coat of paint to start off next season.

"There are only two colors to paint a boat...black or white. And only a fool would paint a boat black."



TUNA BLOOD - was a good way to break in the new paint...and to provide a segway to the next tale.




[Edited on 11-22-2015 by Pompano]

those were the days for sure,, its a crime what the netters have done to the Cortez

my Dad first took me to San Felipe in 1953,, the sea was alive with life

Great pics! I can agree that everything was better "back then". Here are 2 fotos from 2 weeks ago at BdeLA that show there is still hope:



same boil 2 minutes later: