san-carlos-mexico

Mothership Kayak Fishing in the Sea
of Cortez
By Team OEX Pro Staff Member Adi "Lamb" Ljubovic

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On Our Way There…

We loaded our kayaks and gear on the trailer the night before. I know I wasn’t the
only one having difficulties falling asleep... I was way too hyped up. You wonder if
that childish excitement the night before is ever going to die off. Fishing won’t kill
me, but the lack of sleep the night before fishing may.

We got together and headed East around 6:00AM. The drive to Arizona flew by
rather quickly. We met the crew in Tucson and jumped in their van for the ride
down to Mexico. I was surprised how nice the road to San Carlos is. Nothing like
Baja – we were cruising a highway with 2 lanes going in each direction, physically
separated and in very good condition. The van was rather new – it had an AC,
DVD player… First class.

During the drive, we were told what to expect in San Carlos…warm water, warm
weather and a warm welcome from dorado, marlin, sailfish and a variety of bottom
critters. Running into some tuna was a possibility. We learned that the local
fishermen were not big on live bait. They were getting the most of their fish trolling
feathers and rigging dead ballyhoo… Bally who, what hoo?!?

We figured 7 knots trolling speed would be quite a problem for our kayaks. We
were really hoping to have live bait. Our local skipper Alex was trying to get some
for us. Besides, we brought our Sabikis.

Arrival

We got to San Carlos around 8:00 PM… Tasty carne asada tacos for dinner at
the local stand - the 1st ones out of many we will have during the trip. We then
started loading all our stuff on the mothership.

We ventured out to find shelter and anchor in one of many small coves that exist
in this natural harbor. Brian did great job quickly putting their bait tank in
business. Smelt and other small bait started swarming under the boat lights. We
dropped our sabikis down, but they found very little interest. Andy, Mr. hot bait
stick (and marlin stick, we would learn later on) managed the first caballito. Great
bait – we started howling and hollering in excitement. I remember thinking – gee,
wonder how are we going to behave tomorrow…

Since it was slow pick on bait, we convinced the skipper to move us to another
spot. We found more action not far away and managed to load our bait tank with
maybe 6-7 cabalitto, a handful of small croakers and a whole bunch of “mexican
lookdown”. We had some nicer/bigger fish on the sabiki. Andy’s sierra would be
the most notable.

The plan for the first day was to head out West in search of exotics and big game
fish. We were to come back to spend the night at San Pedro Island, some 14
miles out. We were going to fish the Island hard during the second day. Pretty
good plan, we all agreed.

Day 1

The feathers we trolled from the boat started getting hit only a couple of miles
out. Dodos would hit and start their remarkable dance, proving it to be quite an
efficient survival technique. I’d say we landed only 1 in 4 fish that hit the trolling
rods.

In order to launch our kayaks, we knew we had to find some “target” – a bunch of
floating debris we’ve been reading about, lots of birds revealing the presence of a
big school of dorado, something. We would see a piece of bamboo floating not
longer than 6”; we would troll by it and pick up a dorado. We saw some birds
working the surface – we would get a dodo or just miss one… Fish or strike here
and there, but we found nothing promising and inviting enough to make us
commit to launching our kayaks. We worried if we launched and ended up in non-
productive area, we would loose a lot of time loading our kayaks back on the boat
to move someplace else. We wanted to be certain we found the “real battlefield”,
where we would just knock them dead.

At one point we saw the birds working. Porpoise feeding on real small bonito (or
were those small skippies??) were under them. We started catching these small
fish on sabikis 5 at a time. They looked great for bait, but we learned quickly they
just couldn’t survive in the bait tank.

The skipper got word from some buddies on a panga about 10-ish more miles out
that they had the “net” put in the area, and supposedly – the fish were there too.
Sounded like what we were looking for – a specific target likely to hold the fish, a
point of reference that we can work up and down…

Few minutes into the troll we see two marlin chillin’ on the surface. Just as we
passed them, Brent’s hand made marlin jig gets slammed… Mike gets to enjoy a
couple of wild jumps then hands the rod off to Andy who made made a quick work
out of that ~100# striper, bringing it to the boat in about 10 minutes.

Brent, the most experienced of all of us with marlins, grabbed it by the beak to get
the hook out. The crew wanted to filet the fish. We explained we’re not about
killing beautiful fish (yeah right, like dodos are ugly). So, the striped beauty swam
away unharmed. High fives all over… Our local crew all bummed out… We
promised we would go for the kill if we happen to hook a lil’ one… I asked them
which ones are better to keep, thinking maybe smaller marlin tastes better?!?
Their reply was “biiiig one… more meat”.

We jumped in the water to cool down and celebrate. Brent and Seamous grabbed
their snorkeling masks to work on a tank intake hose - we were getting the air in
when boat was moving, stopping the water flow.

Seamous came up on the surface… He was all excited, telling us there were 3
dorado under the boat. My flyline rod was close by… I pinned one caballito on
and tossed it overboard. Dodo inhaled it instantly… I counted – I’m getting picked
up… I’m getting picked up… Long baaaaaaaaah twice and 3 short baaahs…
BAMMM, Jumping Jack Flash was on. That fish had a privilege to be landed by
Andy’s dad John. He proved that it just runs in the Allens family…

We picked up maybe one or 2 more on the troll and lost as many or more by the
time we arrived at our destination. The panga was there, so were the canisters
along hundreds of yards long “net”. Definitely something to work around.

It was 2:00 PM and dead calm. No swell, no wind what so ever. It was one of the
most memorable moments in my fishing career – you see the Baja waaaaay out in
the distance West; Mexico’s mainland as far out in the East. We launched our
kayaks in the middle of Sea of Cortez in to the 90.5 degree water. We had more
than a descent shot to hang some lamb. Does it get any better than that?!?

Mike got picked up first. He had a nice weight on for a couple of seconds, than
the fish bit off his 30# leader.

Hoping for a shot at Marlin or Sailfish, I fly-lined caballito on my stocky 6.5’ rod
with Avet 2 speed, 400 yards of 50# spectra and a few feet of 40# fluorocarbon
leader. I paddled along the side of the “net”, hoping for dodos hanging out under
those colorful floating canisters. As Brent announced on VHF that he just got
picked up by a dorado that shook the hook while jumping, I got hit… I set the
hook and I was on for a nice fight. Those dorado are pretty cool fish to catch, and
they really make you work for it. It jumped many times, while my heart was
pumping… I watched the school of 7-8 of them following my fish, right under my
kayak.

I paddled back to our mothership to put the fish in the cooler. I kept bleating and
yelling “sheeba”, which is what the captain told me is how you say “lamb” in
Spanish. I don’t think that’s the case – I could not find any reference on the net….

Whatever - I got to see that 37#-er that Seamous speared. He later said he saw
the fish under our boat right as we all got in the water. He waited for the plastic
fleet to split so he can shoot it. It could have easily been caught by one of us.
Seeing his fish got me all pumped up.

As far as bait, at that point we only had a few of those “mexican lookdowns” left in
the tank. I took some dead whole squid I got at Ranch 99 with me. I flylined this
“foreheady” bait, and rigged 2 oz sliding sinker to flyline dead ballyhoo. The big
dead bait was too much for my clicker, so I slightly engaged the lever to stop the
line from coming out. That turned to be a bad idea. Ballyhoo soon got picked up;
as the fish started running, the drag got engaged more and more. By the time I
reached for the rod to put the reel in free spool, the fish spit the bait.

We kept seeing big fish breaking the surface not too far away from us… Marlin
and sails… It was quite tense out there. We started getting hit on pompano, or I
should say that “Mexican lookdowns”. It turns out that ridiculously shaped, almost
squared fish, was just too much for those dodos. It was hard for them to swallow
it. It was even harder for us to set the dang hook.

As I lost my last bait, I pinned the whole dead squid on…. I trolled it suspended
with 1.5 oz led with only my clicker on. 10 minutes later, zzzzzzzzzz…. Poor thing
didn’t jump at all. I let it run with that squid for too long - the hook was deep in her
throat. Andy got the whole fight on tape – another smaller hen in my lap.

Despite me crying, the crew insisted that we all get back on the boat. The panga
was picking up their “net” (bringing a ton of dorado on board, btw) and leaving…
the Sun was about to slip behind Baja. We had a couple of hours to go to make it
to the island.

Masta Mike showed up with a hefty bull, I think 23 or 24 lbs… He picked it up on
dead ballyhoo.

We loaded our yaks back on the mothership and jumped in the water to wash off
and have fun. We started trolling back towards the Island. 10 minutes later the
clicker goes off. Déjà Vu - Andy catches another marlin. This model was some 30-
40 pounds bigger than the 1st one. It made an impressive first run quickly
shaving off almost all the line from that spool… Alex started backing the boat, and
Andy quickly put the things under control.

Another 10-15 minutes goes by and we have the fish by the swim step. It was still
green when Brent grabbed it, and quickly managed to break off with the hook in
its mouth. We were all happy. Our Mexican crew was bummed out again. Despite
that, they set us up with another awesome dinner. Carne Asada tacos (at that
point we were already addicted), and they cooked some fresh dorado. Very, very
tasty.

We arrived at San Pedro Island in the dark. The crew dropped the anchor; Andy
and I dropped sabiki. Everyone else dropped unconscious, including big Mike
who kept BS-ing how he was going to fish the whole night. We tried hard for about
½ hour, but just couldn’t get anything to go. We went to sleep.

Day 2

We woke up to find Mike snagging some bait size fish… Brent went down for a
dive. A steady 7-8 knots South-ish wind was blowing. It wasn’t as nice as the day
before, but not too bad. The boat pulled up tight to SW corner of the Island. We
launched our kayaks to work the West side, while drifting North. San Pedro Island
is awesome.

Uninhabited, untouched natural beauty. Every ridge, every cove was something
to see. The drop off in front side of the island was pretty steep, but there was no
waves crashing. I was paddling a few feet from the rocks. I kept casting swim bait
tight to the rocks, retrieving while letting it sink following the bottom.

All sorts of intriguing structure on the fishfinder, with marks on it. That place is just
loaded with fish. They were hitting squid strips, swimbaits, grubs… pretty much
anything you dropped down. We almost had non-stop action. We caught nothing
too big, but I’m sure there were some big’ns lurking down on the bottom We
released majority of the fish we caught. We kept a couple of bigger models that
Alex later turned into the best ceviche I ever had.

At one point, the birds started working maybe ½ miles out. Andy was closer and
paddled towards them. Having caught my dosage of bottom fish, I was eager to
venture out. Another pile of birds formed up closer to me, so I charged their way.
With no protection from the island, the wind chop was nasty. The birds kept
moving; I never really caught up to them. I kept working the area where I thought
they hang out first, dragging rapala and the dead squid. The clicker where I had
the squid soon went off. I set the hook and lil’ dorado started jumping. Sweet,
there were some at the Island as well!

As I brought him under the kayak, I saw another follower. I popped my camera
out and tried to get the lil’ guy on my line to go airborne for a Kodak picture
moment. He was worn out. He finally charged behind me and almost jumped in my
kayak, hitting the side and falling back in the water. I cut him out of his misery and
put him on the stringer.

I went back in tighter to the Island. I skipped breakfast; I was starving. El Duque
was anchored at the NW corner - time for me to get back in. I borrowed
snorkeling mask to check out how it looked underneath. I saw big schools of fish
of all sorts of shapes and colors… Amazing.

We started heading back to San Carlos in the PMs. We were going to spend the
night on the boat anchored in the slip, and head back home early in the morning.
We slow trolled, drifted, made stops to jump in the water. We even had a casting
contest going on! Like kids - having pure fun and loving every minute of it.

I will definitely go back, there is no doubt about that. Fishing is just great down
there; the exotic stuff that we crave so much around here seems very much
available this time of the year. Going there with a group of friends will etch it in
your mind forever.

For more information about mothership kayak fishing trips in San Carlos, Mexico
check here or contact OEX at (619) 758-9531

For additional information,
prices, and availability for
Spring 2007 Sea of Cortez
dates, please check here.

Images courtesy of Andy Allen. Click to enlarge.