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Around 8am, Bob Kim and I met up with the rest of the group (Dante Valdez, Mike Berger, Henri Migala, and Dante's friend Anthony) in Chula Vista to get our Mex auto insurance sorted out. With all the paperwork in order, we headed south. After crossing the border, we had to find out where to get our tourist permits validated. Through a number of stops, we finally learned that the Immigration office in Ensenada would do it. After finding a bank, getting pesos, and paying the $21 tourist visa fee, we made it to the Immigration office. Inside the immigration office, we each give the worker there our tourist visas. He then asks for a passport or ID and birth certificate which we had to show to obtain the visa at the consulate in San Diego. Well, the consulate didn't tell us we would need it there and of course it didn't say that anywhere on the visa, so only one of the guys happened to have a passport with him. The immigration worker decided that a 5 dollar bill looked something like a birth certificate and offered to validate our visas for that price. That's Mexico for ya. I guess we should be glad he didn't ask for $10 or $20. Finally we were on the road again. By this time it was after noon and we were still in Ensendad with 350+ miles to go to our intended first stop. We plodded on, figuring we'd decide where to stop as we traveled further south. At a Pemex stop in San Quintin, Henri, who had just gotten back from an overseas business trip, was not feeling well and decided he'd catch a bus back to the US instead of getting really sick way down in Mexico. We were sad to see him go, having to miss this trip which we'd been thinking about for so long. He was also the only fluent spanish speaker in the group so I knew I'd have to jar my brain to remember all the spanish I could.
As it started to get dark, we decided we'd stop and get some food from our supplies before pushing on. The highway so far had been in excellent condition and minus the cows in the road and blinding headlights of the semis, much of the night driving would be easy. The driving that night was relatively uneventful. The only cows spotted were off the road and traffic was light. We arrived at a Pemex in Guerrero Negro around 9pm and decided to stop there after filling the tanks. Tired from the long drive, we decided to just sleep in the trucks that night. The wind howled the whole night. |
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Day 2: We woke up around 6 the next morning and got back on the road. Around 9am we passed the turnoff to Abreojos on our way to San Ignacio to fill up on gas and ice, then headed back to the turnoff. We stopped again there and checked the kayak straps one more time before the 52 miles of dirt road to the town of Abreojos.
The road was in surprisingly good shape. Sections of washboard rattled us around a bit, but in general the road was very smooth. Work crews were laying gravel along the first 15 miles or so, but we couldn't tell if they were going to eventually pave it or turn it to a gravel road. It took only an hour and a half to cross the desert to Abreojos. On some sections of the road that were as smooth (or better) than the paved highway, the speedometer comfortably hit 60 mph. The first water we saw was one of the locations we planned on fishing, the Estero de Coyote, and the location we would eventually camp that night.
We passed throught the town and drove out to the beach near the lighthouse on the point. The 'afternoon' winds were already blowing at at steady 20+ kts and it wasn't even noon yet. We tried fishing the rocks at the point from shore, but to no avail. After an hour or two of that, we decided we'd drive to the Estero and camp there.
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Day 3: The camp there was nice. The wind finally died off some time that night and it was calm in the morning. After looking around at the coyote footprints that passed only a few feet from my head some time that night, we packed up and headed for the Point.
Just outside of town, we pulled up to a house that was under construction on the inside and figured we'd unload our gear there. As we were unloading, a mexican guy walks over to say hello. His name is Luis and he's a commercial abalone diver. He has a house in town, but is building this one for himself and his family. He let us camp in front of his house for the next two days and even offered to let use sleep inside one night that it was really windy. I doubt you'd ever find such hospitality in California. The fishing on that day was pathetic. I managed a dinky sand bass on a kroc and a smelt on a big rapala. I did manage to find one of the reefs though. About 1.5 miles SW of the point, the ocean floor rose from 40' to just shy of the surface. I figured that was where the big grouper would be, but I couldn't seem to find anything willing to bite, even the small fish. By 11:30, the wind started to pick up again, so I worked my way back to shore to find the rest of the guys hiding in the lee of the point. Their results for the day were similar. |
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There I found a couple of nice sand bass - about 2 and 4 pounds respectively and kept them for fish tacos for lunch. After lunch, we were talking about where we should fish the next day and eventually decided that we'd be better off just heading to the Cortez side and hoping for better fishing. Mulege was only a 3 hour run once we got back to the highway, so it was well within range. We packed up quick so we could make it back to the highway under the dwindling daylight. The sunset was awesome that evening.
Around 10pm we arrived in Mulege and found a nice spot to camp on the beach a few miles south of town. As we were walking around and stretching, Anthony notices some writing on a rock and calls us over. Someone had written in english on a big rock 'BEWARE OF THIEVES'. Great. So we got back in the trucks and drove back to Mulege to camp at one of the resorts there for the night. |
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Another 15 miles of dirt road led us to the destination after traveling back up the highway about 10 miles, and once again the road conditions were great. We arrived at the camp site to find only a few mexican and american campers there. It was a great little campsite right on the water and only two miles from a couple of islands that we figured would hold some good fish. By 9am we had our stuff unloaded and were paddling out
Mike was the first out out and headed straight for the pangas drifting about half a mile off the beach. By the time I made it out there, he was stroking fish right and left on krocadiles. 3 out of 4 fish were triggerfish, but they pulled hard and we hadn't been catching much in previous days so we were stoked. Mixed in with the triggerfish were porgies, snappers, baby pargo, and miscellaneous other bottomfish we couldn't identify. Nothing too big - the triggers were really the biggest ones. After catching and releasing 20 or 30 fish each, we figured we'd move on in hopes of some yellowtail or other bigger game fish. We paddled straight out from there toward a few boats working the deeper waters just outside the islands. From talking to them we gathered that nobody had found the yellowtail that morning. A little discouraged at that, we headed for the islands for more bottom fish.
Nearing the northern-most island, Dante saw some fish boiling about 100yds away. We paddled over and found schools of these big 3-10# fish attacking meatballs of anchovies like packs of wolves. You would see the schools of anchovies all balled up, then suddenly they'd scatter and start jumping out of the water. Moments later, the big brown grouper would cartwheel out of the water after them. We threw krocadiles at them for about 20 minutes before Dante finally hooked up with a nice one. I eventually tied on a yo-zuri crankbait which finally elicited a few bites. 3 grouper came to the boat, as well as a funky looking relative of the sheephead, the Mexican Hogfish. What a strange looking beast.
We continued working the islands (Islas Santa Ines) and eventually Bob motored over to show off his catch. He found a honey hole full of grouper, triggers, and some other misc. bottom fish. As Dante, Anthony, and I trolled the reefs, we found more grouper, barracuda, and triggers. Soon after, Dante and Anthony started paddling back as I headed back to the first island to look for more grouper. Dante and Anthony worked their way back to the beach, trolling and fishing along the way. Somewhere along the way, Dante nailed the big fish of the trip, a 12# pargo, on a rapala. He released the fish after taking a few pictures.
Meanwhile,
I trolled over to the reef behind the first island we fished, trolling
along the way. I couldn't paddle more than ten strokes before I was
hooked up on either a barracuda, triggerfish, or grouper. Fish were
everywhere. I eventualy had to just stop trolling so I could paddle
over to a spot of boiling grouper I noticed in the disance.
This boil was bigger than any I had seen all morning. The others came up and were gone, but this one stayed in the same spot for 20 minutes or so. I fired off a couple of pictures before tossing a lure into the frenzy for an immediate hookup on a scrappy grouper. Eventually the frenzy faded and I figured I should paddle on in to the beach. Along the way, I would stop every half mile or so and drop to the bottom. Each time I would get bit almost immediately from more triggers, snappers, and porgies. It would have been hard not to find fish out there. Dinner that night was awesome. Leopard grouper fish tacos to go with the 'mexican water' (tecate) and trigger fish ceviche. Excellent! |
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Day 6: This would be our last fishing day so we knew we had to make it a good one. The sunrise alone that morning was enough to make it an awesome day. The fishing sure didn't hurt either.
We opted to paddle north that day instead of south to the islands. I worked close to the beach, trolling along the way, but only found trigger fish and barracuda. Working back south, I saw Dante about 1/2 mile offshore and paddled out to where he was fishing. As I got closer, I noticed he already had his hands full trying to get a big grouper into his fish bag. We took a few pics before sliding the big fish into the sack and getting back to fishing.
That spot turned out to be very productive. I landed 4 nice pargo, all 4-6#, cabrilla, grouper, creolefish, triggers, and other misc. bottom fish. For a while I couldn't get my megabait jig to the bottom without getting bit. I think that's the first time I've gotten a blister from cranking in so many fish. All of us except Bob were back on shore by 3pm and we were starting to wonder where he was. Eventually we saw his inflatable on the horizon, slowly coming in. We figured he was just having a good time fishing out there and was just taking his time. But as he got closer, we noticed he was rowing, rowing just as he had been for the past 7 hours. His boat had been working so well that trip, he decided to run north to an island about 8 miles up the coast to try his luck on the yellowtail. About 1/2 mile from the island, the motor quit and wouldn't start back up. So instead of fishing, Bob spent the last day rowing back to the beach. Back on shore, he was just happy to be alive. That evening we packed up and drove back to our favorite camping spot of the trip - the Pemex in Guerrero Negro. The workers there must have really wondered what the heck was up with us, camping there twice in one week. What can I say, it's cheap. Along the way, cows standing in the middle of the road stopped us a few times. Luckily we escaped each incident without harming ourselves or any livestock. |
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At one Mex checkpoint along the way, the federales asked to look inside the camper shell of the truck. I opened it up for them and immediately one of them saw the old army jacket one of the guys at work had given me. It was one of the old, solid green jackets in great shape. As soon as the federale saw it, he picked it up and asked 'Cuanto? Cuanto?' I told him in spanish that it was a gift and I didn't know what it was worth, then figured he'd get more use out of it than me. So I told him 20 dollars - 180 pesos. Plus I figured it's never a bad thing to make a guy carrying an assault rifle happy. He pulled 200 pesos out of his pocket and called it a deal. He said to me in spanish, 'It gets cold here at night' and put the jacket on, liking the feel of it. His buddies were jealous as they asked me a couple times if we had any more jackets in the truck. Other than that, the drive home was an uneventful time to reflect on the trip, talk fish stories, and plan for our next trip down. I'm sure it will be some time soon. Adam |
