PALEEEESE TELL US MORE ABOUT THE ITEMS I HIGHLIGHTED IN THE PICTURE
AND HERE IS THE STORY FROM THE ATTACHEMENT ABOVE:
Mag Bay – A Voyage of Two Parts
We’ve been talkin’ about Mag Bay for the last few months. I’ve been hearing about it for years. The stack up of fish that happens there in the winter months, locations like "The Thetis Bank", "Double 23", "Petral Bank", and "Punta Tosca", and the possibility of checkin’ it out have been roamin’ around my brain for years. Like many of you I didn’t really know how best to access this legendary fishing spot. With the addition of the Viviana to our business the resolution to this conundrum began to come into focus. A couple of months ago we started to advertise our intentions to take the boat to Mag Bay this winter, and several of you were insightful enough to get on board. We were supposed to move the boat 2 weeks ago, but the convergence of hurricane Kiko to the south, and the massive Santa Annas that fanned Los Angeles caused us to postpone. Herein lies the genesis of our first hero on this trip. My brother in law Bruce, hereafter known as Sgt. Rock, had organized a couple of friends to accompany us on the move of the Viviana from La Paz to Mag Bay, and then to fish for a couple of days. When the weather threw us a spitter, Sgt. Rock reacted and regrouped his group to the new days. We could have made the trip without them, but it would have been much harder, and not nearly as much fun. Thanks Sarge. We left La Paz about 5pm on Wednesday, October 31. That night we made it down to Cabo, runnin’ all night with a slight tail wind and spirits high. That all changed when we rounded Cabo Falso about 6am on the 1st. Northwest wind, blowin’ 14-16, had stacked up some pretty good swells and was choppin’ the tops right off, providing a less than glowing prospect. We slogged 4 hours north, and gave up. Turned around and headed back to Cabo. While most might revel in anchoring up at one of the most beautiful harbors in the world and taking in one of the worlds most famous vistas, it was not our plan. I spent the night on the fly bridge, my favorite bunk, listening to "Black Magic Woman" played over and over by a man who may have had the spirit of Carlos Santana in him, but at that point the resemblance faded rapidly.
The next day dawned optimistically and we began to stick our nose out into the Pacific. Half as much wind as the day before greeted us and we pulled the trigger. I’ve heard stories from my friends that have moved boats up and down the Baja for years about how much more difficult it is to go north (uphill) than south (downhill). Those guys were all correct, and not exaggerating. It wasn’t a pounding, more of a consistent surging, like riding a drunken horse in slow motion, for 18 hours straight. This is where Sgt. Rock’s men began to show their true metal. DT Jim, (duct tape, this man can fix or make anything with merely duct tape, sort of a sticky McGiver) was a talented and helpful crewman. Always ready to dig in and do what was needed to be done, and with a great sense of humor (gauged by the fact that he would occasionally laugh at even my jokes). His compatriot, The Good Doctor Holmes, was a little more speculative. An engineer by training and temperament, Holmesy is prone to examining a situation, processing briefly, and then taking incisive action to head off pending doom. All that and a sort of dry, infectious humor that belies a mischievous side that I found delightful. These boys all buckled down and helped at the helm, took their watches, and maintained high spirits throughout a long and grinding day. I was nodded off when the slowing of the engines woke me up. Ahead was land, a good thing because it meant that we couldn’t go any further. We anchored up in the lee of Isle Santa Margarita, just east of Punta Tosca, out of the wind. After a decently long sleep we woke up to find that the lights we had seen the night before were other sportfishers, some of which were already heading out for the days’ hunt. We coagulated our fecal matter and started out towards the Pinnacle at Punta Tosca, a 7 mile journey. This trip was not just experimental in terms of location, but I had a bag of tricks with me. New lures, old lures, things that didn’t look like lures, and herein lie the next heroes of the adventure. As you know, I have been dealing with Capt. Fred Archer, and Capt. Bob Melville the last year or so. I have been using some of their spreader bars, upriggers, and other items that at first glance might have little to do with fishing, but like the elephant seal, which at first might seem awkward on land then becomes a thing of beauty in it’s native surroundings, the sea these things work. I have experience and confidence in their spreaders and upriggers, but the xbar 3d underwater spreaders and such I have had little experience with, but wanted to gain more. This hardware, and some very critical advice from Archer’s Trolling Secrets book, were instrumental in the success of this trip. More later. I let out a couple of small spreader bars and medium chase baits, and a Marauder. Within 1 ½ miles of our departure we had a double hook up. A 15 pound yellowfin on the spreader, 30 pound wahoo on the Marauder. We lost the wahoo at the boat, and boated the tuna, all this within 10 minutes of leaving the anchorage. I haven’t had this sense of anticipation very many times since being a teenager. As we came within a mile of the pinnacle all hell started to break loose, and I’m not sure that I can cover the next 5 hours chronologically so I will try to just sum it up. We hooked and lost 4 striped marlin, 3 of them on Fred’s xbar. We hooked 9 wahoo that we know of, and got 6 of them in boat. (I would like to give away one of Fred’s trade secrets at this point. In his Secret’s of Trolling books, books which I studied hard before embarking, he talks a lot about wahoo. I was very concerned about the safety of our crew and friends when boating wahoo. 4 large guys and a thrashing wahoo in the cockpit is not something that I was looking forward to. Fred suggested that this is not one of his favorite situations either, and his method is to open the transom door while proceeding forward at a good clip, and when the wahoo is at the swim step grab the line and just slide him into the cockpit, close the door, voila. His claim is that the wahoo will just lie there, waiting to be dispatched into the box. While I had my doubts, we had lost the first wahoo of the day and I didn’t want to lose anymore at the boat. I discussed the procedure with Capt. Dan and we decided to try it out. Wahoo came up, 5 knots in the direction of the pointy end, slid him in, slick as pig shit. The 50 pound wahoo just lay there, contemplating his sudden change of environs, and into the box he went. Dan and I looked at each other, and started to laugh. How simple. Even we could do it! Sorry to give away the stuff Fred, but it had to happen. Too bitchin’.) Back into the fray. We hooked two nice dorado and boated them. The scene was spectacular. 5 of the long range boats from San Diego were anchored up, and the bait they were chumming helped to keep the excitement going. I was changing chase baits, reattaching skirts, helping the guys with fish, it was a whirlwind of pleasant tasks. This was still going on when we had filled the kill box and decided that to abuse the privilege any further wouldn’t be right. Just to top it off, while trolling home Holmesy caught the largest sierra I’ve ever seen, 11-12 pounds, on a wired up spreader bar. One of the things that Fred preaches is that if you are in the area of wahoo you MUST wire everything. I was using 240lb. Single strand wire on everything by days’ end, and once again I am a believer. None of my haywire twists let loose (I guess that I’m getting that down finally), and the only sore point of the day was 0 for 4 on marlin. All of them had hit a purple x bar with a FF jig made by Ken Matney at HI 5 lures in Cabo as a chase bait, proving the efficacy of the lure system, but for some reason we weren’t staying buttoned. We anchored up for the evening in roughly the same spot as befor and took to dismantling wahoo. Filling up one ice chest after another, this was a happy time, with the whole crew, Sgt. Rock, DT, Holmesy, Capt. Dan and myself recounting some of the best fishing, and best fun that any of us could remember.
After a good nights sleep we got up to do it again. I was repairing lures in the cockpit, rewiring and trying to rework the cursed marlin lure. I decided that the wire leader on the chase bait was too short and lengthened it. Holmesy was chompin’ at the bit to get goin’ while Dan tried to make him understand that preparation is important, and to get me goin’ faster. Once done we headed towards the pinnacle with a vague plan to fish 3-4 hours, and avoid the area directly on the pinnacle in an effort to emphasize nonwahoo victims. One more time the bounty that is Mag Bay came to our rescue making our half assed plan look like that of experts. In the next 4 hours we caught and released 3 striped marlin in the 130-160 pound class, all on the x bars, or "Christmas Trees" as DT had named them. His original skepticism about these thoroughly busy looking contraptions had melted away over the last few hours, and he was a convert. Two came on a pink squid x bar with 12" pink chase bait, and the other on the formerly jinxed purple x with Hi 5 plug, recently reworked. One of these marlin was Sgt. Rocks first, and he did a very good job as a rookie. Maybe it was the 4 supervisors, maybe he’s a natural, time will tell. We also took two nice dorado in this time period, one on a caballito. We had a three hour run to the anchorage, and needed to get to the dock early the next day to return to La Paz, so we begrudgingly headed north away from the pinnacle, and the fish. Herein lies the next hero of our trip. Capt. Dan had grown and learned in front of our faces. While none of us had experienced a piscatorial onslaught like this before, Dan was in charge of handling the boat during all or it. A not inconsiderable task when trying to watch other boats, the hooked fish, and listen to 5 sets of cryptic but emphatic instructions from the crankers below. By the second day Dan had gotten ahead of me. Several times, just as I was about to open my mouth to say "spin right" or "take up the slack", I would feel the boat kick into gear and the required action being taken. We were on the same wavelength, and it was working. Dan is a happy and pleasant man to deal with, but this should not mask the fact that he is a careful and very skilled Captain with 55+ years of experience on all of the oceans of the world. Having a man like that at the helm is a real asset, and I am grateful.
As we basked in the late afternoon sun, qued up some steaks and looked around us it was plain that there were 5 very contented and tired men aboard. This was a trip that started out a little on the shaky side but had come to a thrilling end. New stuff, new friends, great weather while fishing, a time that will be hard to beat. I would like to thank our heroes, Sgt. Rock, Captain Fred, Captain Bob, Captain Dan and our no less heroic crew, Duct Tape Jim and the every vigilant Dr. Holmes.
What’s next? On Thursday we’re back at it. Kenny and Ollie the Auctioneer are comin’ in, and we’re gonna fill up with Kalin and Enrique Lucero who will be our deckhands for the rest of the season and head back out. Our intention is to explore the northern banks of the area, Thetis, Petrill, etc. and see if we can have anywhere near as good a time as we just had. The only negative variable to fishing the Mag Bay area appears to be the weather, it can get windy. Our intentions are to sharpen the crew’s skills and teamwork to a point where we can offer you the fishing trip of a lifetime. Look for a report about the 14th or so.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
