The running of the bulls at Pamplona has
nothing on the running of the toros at Punta Arena in Baja, Mexico.
I’m on the first day of a seven-day
fly-fishing trip on the Sea of Cortez south of La Paz. We’re doing some
shore fishing at the point just north of Las Arenas Resort. The sun is
setting, firing up the clouds in the blood red color of a matador’s cape.
Perhaps that’s what sparks the toros, what the locals call jack crevalle,
fish that fight like bulls.
Sunset at Punta Arena.
Sea birds wheeling over a patch of
water are the tip-off. We run up the beach and wade out into the water.
Suddenly it erupts in froth as frenzied baitfish try to escape the toros,
who are driving their dinner toward shore. Hundreds of jack crevalle explode
out of the water as I cast. One hits my popper, a surface fly designed to
imitate the splashy struggle of a wounded fish. Just as quickly the fish
breaks off and I am left standing, shaking my head as the “blitz” subsides
as quickly as it began.
This is a good introduction to the wonder and excitement of salt-water
fly-fishing in Baja. The Sea of Cortez is brimming with marine life, and
something is always eating something else, it seems. I’m on a trip
organized by Gary Bulla, who’s instructing two fly fishers from New Jersey.
I’m partnered with Jeff Priest, an avid salt-water fly fisher from Marina
del Rey.
When I told my wife I was planning a fishing trip to Baja in July, she
questioned my sanity and ability to tolerate heat. “But that’s when the
fishing is best, when the water warms up,” I said. My wife suggested I
bring a cooler on the trip and bring back some fish. The hotel will clean
and freeze the fish so I said “no problema,” after all I was the mighty
hunter and provider.
Las Arenas is about an hour’s drive south of La Paz, the last half on a
dirt road. Despite its isolation, the resort serves up good food and
comfortable ocean front accommodations in addition to the mind-blowing
fishing.
We soon settle into a routine: Up before dawn for huevos, juice and
coffee, out in a panga, a motor skiff, for the run to where the fish are
biting. Después fishing, we siesta by the fresh water pool under the
thatched shade of a palapa, and then tie flies until dinner.
Siesta time.
Jeff Priest is on a mission to refine his JP sardina fly pattern that
imitates the local baitfish, a flat iron herring that the pangeros call
sardina. By the end of the week, I know that Jeff has succeeded. When the
fly is in the water, I can’t tell the imitation from the baitfish. And the
proof is in the number and species of fish we catch on his fly: tuna,
dorado, skipjack, a rainbow runner, cabrilla, roosterfish, and even a
sailfish.
Each morning deciding which fish to go after is like choosing from the
menu of your favorite restaurant on the day you go off a diet. We can target
big tuna, tackle-busters that can weigh well over forty pounds, or look for
dorado, the fish called “mahi-mahi” in Hawaii. Or there’s roosterfish near
shore, or the toros, or skipjack tuna that fight hard despite their smaller
size. So many fish, so little time.
Gear fishermen, who fish with bait and lures, know about the reopening of
Las Arenas. Once a getaway for politicians and Hollywood types in the
1970’s and 80’s, the resort was closed for many years until it reopened in
April 1998. Fly fishers are the new kids on the panga. Linda
Glassman-Davis, stateside representative for Las Arenas Resort says that fly
fishers represent about a third of their business, and their numbers are
growing. The resort is in the process of obtaining additional training for
their pangeros in meeting the specialized needs of fly fishers.
The resort offers twelve miles of white sandy beach and excellent
snorkeling right in front of the hotel. Cerralvo Island lies offshore and
provides structure for many of the fish. Between the 19-mile long island and
Las Arenas Resort a deep trench provides a migratory route for pelagic fish
and whales.
On our first day we visit the shark buoys south of the island. A series
of crude buoys trailing huge baited hooks are spaced a mile or so apart and
provide cover for the dorado.
Dorado, Spanish for gold, doesn’t begin to describe these fish that might
have been designed by Disney animators. Also known as dolphinfish, they’re
shaped like a hatchet, with a high forehead. When excited, the dorado lights
up like a neon sculpture, its pectoral fins and back a bright blue, its
belly its namesake yellow-gold. The dorado eagerly smack my popper and run
hundreds of yards into my backing, punctuated by a series of straight up
jumps that display the fish’s intense hues.
We each catch and release five small dorado. On the way back to Las
Arenas we stop to cast to roosterfish, another of Mother Nature’s inspired
efforts. These fish get their name from the dorsal spines that stick up out
of the water like a cock’s comb. They chase the sardina tossed out by our
pangero and gulp them in a splashy rise. Life is short and hard for
baitfish in Baja.
Jeff Priest and Efren with a rooster.
A seeming oxymoron is that fly-fishing in salt water takes a lot of bait.
Not to put on the end of a hook, but to toss out to attract game fish to the
surface where we cast our flies to them. We begin the mornings by buying
bait for ten bucks from one of the waiting pangas. The space between the
bow and first seat in the panga serves as a live well. Periodically we stop
so Efren can change the water with a bucket to keep the bait alive, though
he’s also rigged an ingenious and simple hose that forces water into the
bait well as we move.
When we run out of bait, we cruise into shore. Efren drapes a circular
weighted net over his shoulder, then tosses it at a school of sardinia. He
stamps his foot on the deck of the panga. The noise herds the baitfish
toward the net, which he hauls out and empties into the boat. The roosters
are picky. We manage to fool six of them but many chase our flies or
poppers and then wheel away at the last moment without biting, a “refusal”.
The next day we looked for tuna at the north end of Cerralvo Island. On
the run out to the island we encountered a pod of 50 or more dolphins. As
Gary Bulla and I watched, one jumped a few feet from the boat, it’s black
bulk tracing a graceful curve in the air before it smacked back into the
water, wetting me with it’s splash. We were both so surprised we just
gaped. Better than a tank side seat at Marineworld.
The tuna weren’t cooperating that day, so Efren took me to an area where
small patches of sargasso, floating seaweed, dotted the water. Most held
dorado, which seem to like to hang out under something, be it sargasso, a
dead sea lion, or even a floating plastic bag. I soon caught a number of
smaller, “schoolie” dorado and decided to hunt for bigger game. The dorado
is a sprinter, capable of speeds up to 50 miles per hour over short
distances.
Dorado jumping.
I watched as larger “bull” dorado – the males are bigger than the females
and have higher, less curved foreheads – dashed though the sardina Efren was
tossing in the water. I managed to target one of the bigger bulls and cast
to it. I was soon fastened to a fish that made a dozen leaps as it took out
several hundred yards of fly line and backing. I pumped the rod and reeled
the fish in close to the boat.
I was fishing with a 20 pound leader, the largest allowed by the
International Game Fish Association for fly fishing, and managed to put
about 21 pounds of pressure on it. It broke. No fish. I had brought the
cooler and my wife had cleared a spot in our freezer for the fish I was
supposed to bring back. I’d let all of them go so far and my reputation as a
provider was looking a little shaky. But there’s always mañana.
The next day dawned to gray skies, howling wind, rain, and a dazzling
lightning show. No fishing. I made the best of the day, learning to tie Jeff
Priest’s sardina pattern, with the improvements he’d added after studying
the local variety of bait. I also practiced the arcane art of salt water
knots, including the Bimini Twist (a shock absorbing knot, not a reggae
dance), Lefty’s non slip mono knot, the Allbright, and of course the Spider
Hitch. A properly constructed leader can have as many as seven different
knots, and the big fish test them all.
The following day was clear and cooler. We tried the southern end of the
island and soon racked up big numbers of skipjack tuna,
called bonita
or barrolette by the locals. These “tiny tuna” weighed five to seven pounds
and pulled hard, never giving up. And they loved Jeff’s fly. After releasing
one fish, our pangero tossed Jeff’s leader and fly back into the water and a
fish smacked it the instant it hit the water, before Jeff even had a chance
to cast.
It seems hard to believe, but you can get worn
out catching too many fish, so we headed over to the shark buoys to try for
dorado, but they were elsewhere. Efren pointed to a patch of reddish water
and said “Pargo”. He threw some bait and the water erupted. We couldn’t get
a pargo to take a fly. Later Gary Bulla, who’s fished the Sea of Cortez for
more than a dozen years, told us we were lucky. If we’d hooked a big pargo,
also called a dog snapper, it would have likely spooled us, taken all our
line and backing before breaking off. Bulla says, “The pargo are the
junkyard dogs of the reef. Big, mean, and strong.”
Jeff spotted a sailfish; it’s colors light up
as it chased some baitfish. He roll cast to it and the fish took the fly. I
was messing with my tackle and just caught a glimpse of the magnificent fish
as it jumped once then sounded. Efren estimated it’s weight at 80 pounds and
Jeff fought it well, but it spit the hook after about 20 minutes. We saw
some big marlin jumping as we headed back. We’d tossed the skipjack back;
they’re not so good to eat. My cooler was still empty.
The next day we still hadn’t caught a “tune-AH”. Everyone called the tuna
that, with a rising inflection on the second syllable. You could hear the
excitement in their voices. Gary in particular wanted us to experience some
of these barrels of muscle on a fly rod. We’d seen them busting bait on the
surface, but no hookups.
Gary got his client, Bill Anderson, a consultant from New Jersey, into a
tuna that weighed in at 44 pounds and took an hour and half to land. Bill
was covered in blood from lifting the big fish for photos, grinning and
exhilarated and exhausted from the fight. He jumped into the water for a
cool down and to wash the blood from his clothing.
On the way back to the resort, Gary and his clients spotted a pair blue
whales, the largest animals inhabiting the earth. There are records of
individuals over 100 feet but Gary estimates the biggest whale at about 70
feet long. The whales sound with a flick of their flukes.
Gary’s clients are ecstatic over the fishing, too. Despite their
inexperience Gary’s got them into lots of fish and they’ve fought them
well. Jeff Priest has landed two big “tune-AH”, but I hadn’t learned my
knots well enough apparently, I broke off a couple of fish. The cooler was
sitting in our room, its emptiness mocking me. One more day left to fish.
Jeff Priest with a 44 pound yellowfin tuna.
The last day we did a double header. Normally the boats go out at
daybreak, and are back by around one, when the wind picks up. But since we’d
been weathered out of one of our fishing days, we arranged to go out in the
afternoon as well, after a couple hours’ break. This turned out to be a
great decision, as we found a school of tuna busting bait with no other
boats around. Efren grinned and tossed some bait, which disappeared in a
geyser of white water as big tuna smacked the sardina.
Jeff had spent the evening refining his sardina fly once more, tying a
bigger version, adding a couple of long white hen feathers, and a bit of
shiny material along the sides. I had tied some too, and when I looked at
the fly in the water I had trouble telling it from the real thing.
Apparently the tuna did too, as we were both soon hooked up to big fish.
Again I managed to loose a couple of fish. Jeff promised to supply some fish
for my cooler but I really wanted a “keeper”.
Jeff was fighting a big fish as I cast my fly out and hooked another
tuna. This time I hit the fish hard to set the hook then eased up and let
him go. We were in shallow water, less than 60 feet, and the tuna ran
instead of sounding. I wasn’t going to break this one off.
Four times in an hour I thought I had him to the boat, only to have him
run again. Jeff and I passed our rods under and over each other in the
fisherman’s interpretation of the “pas de deux” as the tuna circled the
boat. At one point both of us were on the bow, back to back, pulling on the
big fish. Meanwhile another panga appeared and had its fishermen on tuna. I
yelled as the boat drifted toward my fly line. Pop. The boat broke my line
and I was again fishless.
Author's dodo.
After some fuming and snarling I re-rigged my fly rod for yet another
try. As I readied to cast, out of the corner of my eye I caught the flash of
a large bull dorado streaking toward the bait. I aimed my cast to lead the
dorado, like a wing shot. The big fish hit the fly as it landed and
exploded in a series of jumps. We followed the fish in the boat and I
brought it along side after about a 35-minute fight. Efren gaffed the
40-pound dorado and hoisted it aboard. The village will eat. My cooler will
not go home empty this time.
