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Baja lures anglers with unrivaled fishing
http://oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/sport...
At Cabo San Lucas, anglers can choose from luxury yachts to small pangas as they go in search of a wide range of species
02/23/04
BILL MONROE
CABO SAN LUCAS, Baja California Sur, Mexico -- It was just a blue plastic garbage bag, but it was our blue plastic garbage bag, and Doug Christie knew
it.
"Get ready!" he shouted above the 21-foot boat's droning engine. "Look! There's a little fish!"
A small yellow body flattened itself against the top of the slightly submerged bag . . . trying desperately to look like trash . . . or anything other
than edible.
A rod pounded and pumped as a 15-pound dorado catapulted like a high jumper from the foaming propwash and raced toward the horizon.
"Get it! Get it! Get it!" shouted Christie, gunning the engine to set the hook. He's hooked hundreds . . . and never gets tired of every strike.
The blunt-nosed fish -- Hawaiians call them mahi mahi -- shimmered pale ivory in the air, its skin glowing with irridescent blue spots.
"Look at it," Christie said in awe. "That's my favorite color."
Oregonians may head north to Alaska when the midnight sun lets them catch salmon 20 hours a day, but there's another name in their minds when sullen
clouds signal the ides of winter:
More specifically, southern Baja, or "Baja Sur" in Spanish.
The southern half of the 800-mile Baja California peninsula is bathed in sunshine nearly all year and is a winter paradise for anglers from around the
world.
Christie, who owns Anderson Roofing in Portland, has a second home and a rental in Cabo, once a sleepy fishing village at the southern tip of the
peninsula.
Today it's evolved into a tourist-oriented mecca with multimillion-dollar chalets carved from granite hillsides, a different cruise ship in the harbor
every morning and spring-break students romping through sandy beachside bars.
A new Costco just opened outside of town.
But Christie, who's had second homes there for years, retreats from Portland for just one reason.
He can fish every day.
"This is still the world's most unique sport fishery," he said, rounding mountainous rocks guarding the harbor entrance. "I can go into the Pacific
Ocean in five minutes or, if the weather is hitting, turn into the Sea of Cortez. Either way, I'm pretty sure to catch something."
Christie tows a 21-foot boat to Cabo and leaves it parked there, launching and mooring every time he's in town.
Most Americans, though, charter large cabin cruisers for $125 to $200 a day or more, or find their favorite "panga," smaller open boats piloted by
fish-savvy Mexican skippers in a more rustic fashion for $50 to $100 a person.
Many use the harbor at Cabo, but 20 miles up the Cortez coast, the San Jose fleet moors every night high on the sand in Pacific City, Oregon, dory
style.
Clients get their money's worth fishing, then an extra thrill at the end of the trip with a 30-mph frontal beachside assault that leaves the boat high
and dry well above the meager tide.
Every morning, the panga-neers pull their craft back off the beach and into the water for the next trip.
Mornings in the Cabo harbor are wilder than even the busiest Oregon salmon port.
Bait boats go back and forth, selling live green mackerel baitfish from flooded wells on the deck for a buck each.
Dozens of charters pick up customers from various docks or meeting points and join private yachts -- and a few smaller boats like Christie's -- in a
race out the harbor entrance that leaves each vessel bouncing wildly in the wake-caused surf.
Bait sellers are good about letting each skipper know where the fishing was best the day before and Mexican skippers freely share information.
Dorado are among the best and tastiest biters and are the big winter draw, along with schools of smaller yellowfin tuna, yellowtail, striped marlin
and wahoo, the greatest prizes of all.
Charters raise flags for every species they catch -- and, in the case of most striped marlin, release.
Closer to shore, though, Christie trolls Rapala plugs close to the surf line for five- to 15-pound sierra mackerel with wicked teeth or hard-fighting
(but less edible and usually released) rooster fish.
Deep on offshore banks on both sides of Cabo, panga skippers without compasses or electronic ground positioning systems still can drop lines almost
into the mouths of halibut and 50- to 80-pound and more groupers so strong they sometimes pull their pursuers into the water.
"There's no place like this anywhere," Christie said.
"I caught dorado several years ago under the floating carcass of a cow almost out of sight of land," said John Forsstrom of Scappoose, once a Cabo
regular.
Forsstrom still fishes there in an annual tuna tournament every fall but prefers Magdalena Bay, a few hours' drive up the Pacific Coast.
"Cabo just got too busy and too big," he said. "I can catch the same fish and camp at Magdalena."
The bay also shelters wintering and calving California gray whales, which makes it popular with tourists, although it's far less developed than Cabo.
Forsstrom flies to Cabo for the fishing tournaments but often drives to his vacation in Magdalena, between three and four days from Oregon through
California.
Rod Brobeck of Gresham is one of many Oregonians who find less expensive off-the-beaten-path hotels in Cabo, saving enough money to rent pangas for a
daily fishing fix.
Little things like lifejackets, fire extinguishers, extra water and new fishing gear are unnecessary luxuries for the fishing adventure of a lifetime.
And even the panga fleet doesn't often have casualties.
"It's the Mexican experience," Brobeck said. "You're out there in a beat-up boat, with an old worn-out Evinrude, rusty hooks on 80-pound test line
with a guy who doesn't speak any English.
"Does it get any better than that?"
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Anonymous
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You have never fished in Central America, obviously, or you couldn't say those things. Panama north is like the Sea of Cortez was 40 years ago.
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