Over the past five years, I have been lucky enough to spend a good bit of time working as a spearfishing guide down in Baja, Mexico. Southern Baja is a special place where the cactus-filled desert meets both the warm, blue waters of the Sea of Cortez and the mighty Pacific Ocean on the western coast of the peninsula. Baja is a spearo’s paradise, with a wide range of different game fish in abundance throughout the different seasons. From Grouper to Wahoo, the list of plentiful fisheries is quite long.
Each year, I typically spend part of my summer and fall months south of the border. This ensures that I am in Baja during the best dates, which I can then offer to my clients who are in search of their trophy fish. With that said, even during peak season, it is still a roll of the dice to find yourself in the right place at the right time, with optimal weather and fish conditions coinciding. This is especially true for people who cannot leave for a trip on short notice. Every season seems to be a little different, with some inconsistencies through the years, but 2017 was definitely one for the books.
We started our fall season off with a mid-October trip on the Sea of Cortez. Our first day in the water, we were greeted with prime weather conditions and plenty of pelagic fish. Besides the occasional windy or slow day, the pattern of great conditions continued as we got into the second half of November. At this time, I typically make the journey over to the Pacific side to run a live-aboard trip. During this trip, we continued our search of large Broom Tail and Gulf Groupers, and we also ventured to our offshore spots looking for pelagics. Our luck continued during the live-aboard trip, with a week of great weather and full coolers. At the beginning of the trip, we visited a recently found spot holding some big groupers, and although the water was dirty, we were able to put a couple of nice, sixty-pound class fish on the boat. We also enjoyed a few sightings of hundred-pound toads. From there, we went on to score epic Yellow Tail conditions at the offshore spots, but Wahoo and Marlin seemed to be few and far between.
With Thanksgiving approaching, I decided to head back over to our home base on the Sea of Cortez to enjoy the holidays. I was also waiting for an opportunity to venture back over to the Pacific side when weather conditions improved. After diving the grouper spot on the live-aboard trip, I decided that I would set up a trip to return and try and break the Broom Tail grouper world record with a pole spear. While enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with my good friend, Tim Hatler, and his family, we received report from one of our fishing contacts over on the Pacific of insane Striped Marlin action. He informed us that he had been offshore for the last couple of days taking a film crew to freedive on schools of bait that were being chased by big schools of Striped Marlin. I had always heard of the famous Striped Marlin migration down the Pacific Coast of Southern Baja, but I had never seen it in person. With my already existing plan to head over that way to hunt our grouper spot and a perfect weather window on the forecast for the next four days, I knew it was an opportunity I could not miss! I made a call the next morning to my buddy and dive/business partner, Chris Gates. I told him to drop everything and book a flight immediately to join me in a quick, three-day strike mission in hopes of finding the Striped Marlin we were hearing about, as well as getting into some big Groupers, Yellowtail and possibly Wahoo. Chris had his flight booked in less than an hour, and the logistics of the trip were set into motion. By lunchtime on Saturday, Chris had touched down in Cabo, and we had one of our drivers pick him up in La Paz. Then, we drove another four hours north to a small port town. From there, we crossed over to a fish camp on a small island that we would call home for the next three days.
We spent Saturday night at a small hotel on the mainland rigging up our pole spears in anticipation of what would be an epic three-day trip. We awoke before the sunrise the next morning, loaded our gear into the small panga, and made our way offshore to the coordinates our local connection had given us, showing where we would find our Marlin. The weather forecast held, leaving us with clear skies and very minimal sea state. Before we knew it, Frigatebirds were spotted circling above our bow. We raced towards the action and came upon the sight of our dreams. There were schools of Striped Marlin all around us, as far as the eye could see! The fish moved in groups, slashing their bills at the small bait balls, filling the blue water with millions of shimmering scales. We hurried to put on our wetsuits and rig up our gear. We made a plan to put Chris on a fish first, while I jumped in with my camera. Up until this point, Chris had not had a shot on a Marlin during any of his trips, so this would be a big moment for him. As soon as we were ready, we had our pangero run us up onto the closest body of fish. We jumped in as a school of about fifteen Marlin swam under us. The fish moved at a steady pace while feeding on the bait in an organized fashion. We kicked hard towards the action, but the fish were moving faster then we had anticipated, so we flagged our panga down so that we could set up for another drop. It took a couple of tries, but we finally timed it right and Chris was able to put a solid shot in a nice fish with his new hybrid speargun. Chris battled his fish to the surface and was able to subdue it without a second shot. It was now only a couple of hours into the first day, and we already had a nice fish on the boat and a lot of awesome video footage.
It was now time for me to try and fulfill the goal of shooting one with a pole spear. This would prove to be more difficult than I first thought. We found it very challenging to perform the drops at a time which would permit us to get close enough for a connecting shot with the short range of the pole spear. By mid-afternoon, I was starting to gas out from all of the repetitive drops, but I was not willing to give up! With each dive, I seemed to get closer to the fish, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before luck and timing would come together. We chased down another small bait ball, and as we pulled up on the action, I slid into the blue water. Just as the bubbles started to clear away from my mask, a good sized Stripey turned his trajectory to head straight towards me in pursuit of one of the small bait fish that had strayed from the group. I barely had time to think about the shot, but luckily I had pulled up on my pole spear before entering the water. I connected with a mid-body shot, and with the very close distance and the additional force of the fish swimming at me, the entire injector rod of the spear went all the way through the Marlin. The fish became stuck on the pole spear for a few seconds before making a hard run and then sounding. I had a 100-foot static line with a short bungee clipped off to the back of my Neritic pole spear, and a three atmos float at the end of the line. I fought the fish gingerly, as I did not want to risk bending or breaking anything on the pole spear and losing my potential world record. Chris jumped in with the camera to film the action, and I was able to pull and clip the fish up to within about twenty feet from the surface. From there, I made a dive to recover my catch without the use of a second shot. Landing a Stripe Marlin on a pole spear was a very exciting moment for me, and it was something that I was not sure I would ever be able to do. However, the conditions and timing all came together, and our preparation paid off!
The next day, we decided to switch things up and run further offshore to one of my favorite banks in the area. On our first drift, we were greeted by a nice school of Wahoo in the forty to fifty-pound range. I made my first dive of the day and was able to sink my spear into one of the Striped Torpedoes. Chris was up next and decided to pursue another one of his goals for the trip: shooting his first Yellowtail. I knew there were some big ones down deep on the rock, and with only a slow trickle of tide and clear water, it was a perfect scenario for Chris to attempt a deep dive while I spotted him. On his first try, Chris stoned a beautiful Yellowtail at almost one hundred feet. I watched from the surface as he took a wrap on his shooting line and dragged his capture all the way up his ascent. With another box checked on our list, we made some more drifts and put another nice Wahoo and a couple more Yellowtails on the boat. With our fish bag full, we decided to call it early and head back to the fish camp for some fresh sashimi.
We woke up the next morning to another perfect day, with calm winds and a flat sea state. Our plan was to dive into the afternoon and then run back over to the mainland, where we would spend the night before bringing Chris to catch his flight the next morning. We saved our grouper spot for this day, seeing as it was closest to the beach. This would give us plenty of time to search the area for a Broom Tail Grouper pole spear world record. As we pulled up on our first set of numbers, I was blown away by the clarity of the water. It was the clearest I had ever seen it that far inshore, and you could see the bottom from the boat in seventy-five feet of water. We set a marker buoy, hooked up our belt reels, grabbed our pole spears, and slid into the clear water. There was no tide running, so we were able to work a very large area of hard bottom and spot fish from the surface. We spent the day working a couple of really productive ledges that had both Broom Tail and Gulf Groupers stacked up everywhere. I was lucky enough to take another pending world record: a Broom Tail Grouper with my Neritic Blue Bantam pole spear. Chris also took his first Broom Tail, so another species was checked off his list. Around mid-afternoon, the wind started to come up and the skies went overcast, and we took the cue to call it a day and head back to the mainland. Chris made it to his flight the next morning and headed home with a cooler full of fillets. I made my way back to the Sea of Cortez, eager to see what conditions were in store for the next week on that side of the peninsula. It’s always great when a plan comes together!
