Day 5, Purse Seiners and Wind

[JerryInLodi]

I was really getting into the groove of being back in Mulege and got out early, even before first light. As soon as I rounded El Sombrerito I knew I had a problem, not just me, everyone in Mulege. I could see the lit towers of four purse seiners in the bay. I hoped that they had just spent the night at anchor but once I put out my bait light and only caught one big eye in a half hour I knew they had cleaned out the bay of bait. This was going to make things very tough for the local guides who depend on live bait for their customers.

With only one fish in the tank I decided to go exploring in Bahia Concepcion since the reports were for lots of wind for the day. I started to cross the bay and came to a huge slick of mackerel and big eye scales left by the purse seiner. The slick must have covered at least an acre. And this was only one of four.

The ride into the bay was almost mystical in the pink light of early morning and helped bring me out of a dark mood. I reached Guano Rock, south of Coyote Beach and dropped the trolling motor. I circled the island without a strike.

Well, one of my explorations was now crossed out with little to show. I headed out of the bay and turned the corner to go out on the big water. When I reached the point I could see the rollers and white caps. The wind was not blowing hard but very steady and had built up quite a swell. With only one bait and the chance of finding Dorado on grass close to nil, I elected to fish for rock fish with my yet unused eight weight. If I had been here only one week on a group trip I would have gone out but since I had 45 days, why beat myself up.

I put on a #2 chartreuse clouser and it was soon chewed to pieces by the triggers, needlefish, groupers, pargos and other unnamed species I was catching. It got to the point where it was nothing more than green thread on a hook so I surrendered it and put on a 1/0 chartreuse clouser. I continued to catch fish but missed some of the takes because of the size of the fly.

I glanced down at my watch and was surprised to see it was 12:15. I had been catching fish continuously since about nine in the morning and had no idea of the numbers. I had kept four leopard groupers for my and my host's dinner.

My fly selection was getting thin. I had no #2 clousers anymore. Time to head in, tie flies, deal with e-mail, make posts and get set up for tomorrow. As Scarlet O'Hara said, "Tomorrow is another day."

Pictures of the scale scum and of what I kept for dinner.





My worn out clouser! It worked so hard!

[Katz]

I have heard of some regulations on Shark and a few other species in the Baja waters, but I guess there is no respect for the Mackerel and BigEye.

Do you ever catch giant (Humbolt, I think) Squid down there. I was in Loreto 6 years ago at this time and we were able to catch tons at first light with conventional jigs. We would drop them to the bottom, hook one and then the entire school would follow the first to the top. Crazy, fierce animals...... And the best eating (along with Ahi) of what we caught that year.

Katz