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almost-chilly wind funnels down the big drainage from the mountains to
the west, carrying with it the distant crow of a rooster, the rumble of
a diesel downshifting for the tope just south of the old mission town
of Mulegé. It ruffles the water and pushes the bow off to
starboard as you idle back toward the beach just north of the
rivermouth for one more drift and hopefully three or four more pieces
of bait. An hour later, the February sun now hot on your shoulders and the morning breeze gone, you throttle back at the waypoint and check the sounder. There they are, almost instantly — a couple of heavy, red horizontal marks 20 or 30 feet off the rocks 220 feet below. A few other boats have beaten you here, and in two of them anglers are already leaning and grunting against doubled rods. This is no time to mess with light gear. Pull the 50-lb. stuff down from the T-top and tie a spider-hitch loop with four ounces of lead on the bottom and a 5/0 Gorilla on the loop. Button down the drag, hook a 10-inch caballito through the nostrils, send it down, and get ready. Those fish are just a few tail-beats from the rocks, and you've got line stretch to deal with too. These battles are won or lost in the first 20 seconds, and you're doing well if you get half your hookups to the boat. The Best in Baja? This is springtime yellowtail fishing in the incredibly productive waters off the stretch of coast between the old copper-smelting town of Santa Rosalía in the north and Mulegé (pronounced moo-luh-HAY) in the south. Is it the best in Baja? It certainly has a legitimate claim to that title. Loreto and Bahía de Los Angeles (aka L.A. Bay) get more attention, but that's because Loreto has a commercial airport and a big sportfishing fleet, while L.A. Bay is four hours closer to the border by land. The Santa Rosalía-Mulegé area gets not only a lot less press, but also a lot less pressure. To get here, you either fly into Loreto and rent a car for the one-and-half to two-hour drive north, or drive the 600 miles and 12 hours down from the border. You can bet that keeps the crowds down, but it also makes this a prime destination for trailer-boaters with a sense of adventure and a do-it-yourself attitude. Logistically speaking, it's perfect for a Saturday-through-Sunday trip from Southern California — cross the border early Saturday morning, stay the night in Cataviña or Guerrero Negro, pull into Santa Rosalía, San Lucas Cove or Mulegé mid-day Sunday, spend the afternoon getting yourself oriented, fish Monday through Friday, head out early Saturday, and get home Sunday afternoon. The Dope on 'Tails If you're after yellowtail, you'll want to go between mid-January and late April. During the early part of the season, they're down deep, skulking around the seamounts and dropoffs in 150 to 300 feet of water. You'll definitely get a few yo-yoing heavy jigs like Salas 6Xs and 6X Jrs. in the old standby colors like blue-white and scrambled egg, but live bait is the way to go. Mackerel and caballitos (bigeye scad) are easy to catch with sabikis near all the launch spots — Santa Rosalía, San Lucas Cove and Mulegé — but get on the water early as the bait bite usually ends a few minutes after sunrise. Rig baits either on a dropper-loop (tied with a spider hitch) or with a three- or four-ounce egg sinker right against the hook. Again, don't bother with less than 40-lb. tackle for fishing deep. Most of the fish are between 20 and 30 lbs., but they eat 30-lb. gear for breakfast. There's just something about these mid-Cortez yellowtail, especially when they're hanging down deep; they're noticeably stronger than Southern California fish. To really get fish to the boat, go with 50- or 60-lb. gear and a six-foot leader of 80-lb. fluorocarbon. Surprisingly, they do get line shy sometimes. Out of Santa Rosalía or San Lucas Cove, take a look at the 110 Bajo (27º16.73' N, 112º06.27' W) and the Panga Reef (27º17.41' N, 112º06.91' W), both of which lie off the north end of Isla San Marcos and within 10 miles of either launch spot. The Ranch (27º10.32' N, 111º59.87' W) and a line of dropoffs a few miles east of Punta Chivato (centered around 27º06.50' N, 111º56.94' W) are closer to Mulegé. Also worth trying are the dropoffs just outside the Islas Santa Inés, the reefs off the east side of Punta Concepción, and the area off the lighthouse on the backside of Isla Tortuga, about 24 miles off Santa Rosalía. The surface bite typically starts sometime in March. Work the same spots but with flylined or slow-trolled live baits or surface iron. Again, crowds are nonexistent here, so you don't have to contend with an armada of boats charging full-throttle toward every boil — or that one clod who invariably drives right through the fish. If you like to run-n-gun with surface iron — or even fly tackle — this is as good as it gets. The Residents Springtime yellowtail fishing is by no means the only attraction here. In their classic Baja fishing guide The Baja Catch, Neil Kelly and Gene Kira wrote that San Lucas Cove "has such good year-round fishing, it is always thought of as our ace-in-the-hole backup spot in case we run into bad luck somewhere else." Pretty high praise ... If there is an off-season, it's November and December, after the dorado and billfish have headed south for the winter and before the yellowtail arrive en masse. Some years, May and June are slow too, with the yellowtail bite tapering off and only a few big, solitary bull dorado around. But even during those transitional times, there's plenty of fishing to be done for resident species — especially leopard grouper, yellow snapper, barred pargo and the omnipresent triggerfish inshore, and true red snapper and goldspotted sand bass (aka taco bass) in deeper water. You can't wrong with the time-honored Baja Catch technique of slow-trolling small diving plugs — Rebel-brand freshwater bass lures, Rapala Magnums and similar lures in 4-1/2- to 5-1/2-inch sizes — over rocky structure in 5 to 50 feet of water. Natural-looking patterns like blue-silver, black-silver, green mackerel and blue mackerel are always a good bet, but orange-gold and "firetiger" can be even better at times. For bigger leopard grouper and the occasional tackle-shredding gulf grouper, bump the speed up to 5 mph and drag some bigger plugs in the 7- to 9-inch range. The deep-diving MirrOLure 111MR is a proven local favorite, but the Mann's Jointed Stretch 25+ is a killer too. You won't catch as many fish, but you'll definitely remember the ones you do get. Run at least 40-lb. gear and keep those drags tight. For a really unusual — and fun — experience, try getting up in the dark and getting out to a rocky piece of island shoreline right at first light. During spring and early summer, the grouper and snapper leave their rocky lairs and feed voraciously on the surface during gray light. Throwing 5- to 7-inch swimbaits or twintail grubs on 15- or 20-lb. baitcasting gear is an absolute blast. You'll get mostly 2- to 4-lb. fish, but there are enough 5- to 15-pounders mixed in to keep it more than interesting. Offshore Headliners The offshore season typically gets rolling sometime between mid-June and mid-July. Dorado are the headliners, but since about 2001 their numbers have fluctuated wildly from year to year. In some years, like 2006, they're so thick it almost takes the fun out of it, while in others, like 2007, a good day is a half-dozen strikes. Regardless of how many fish are around, they're virtually never finicky the way they often are off Southern California. It certainly doesn't hurt to make some bait in case you run across a tailing marlin, but the dorado will readily bite trolling jigs and strip bait. Just troll a couple of feathers as you head out in the morning for a skipjack or two, slice the fillets into 4-inch strips and dice-sized chunks, and keep them in a bucket or small cooler. After a jig strike, start chumming with the small chunks and then get strip baits in the water. Remember, though, that the Mexican bag limit for dorado is two fish per person, so you'll likely be doing a lot of catch-and-release. As for jigs, a home-made hoochie setup like Kira and Kelly describe — a 5-3/8-inch hoochie with a 3/4-ounce egg sinker in the head and, inside that, a 4-1/4-inch hoochie with a 1/2-ounce egg sinker in the head — actually seems to outfish store-bought albacore jigs. Year in and year out, blue-silver on the outside and hot pink on the inside is the most productive combination in this area. If you're getting a lot of small fish on the jigs, as is frequently the case, try running one or two marlin-sized jigs — the 9-1/2-inch Moldcraft Wide Range seems especially effective — just one boat-length back to attracts the larger models. Go with chartreuse-green patterns to mimic baby dorado. Sailfish are a fairly common incidental catch while trolling for dorado, and in some years striped marlin show in big numbers, especially early and late in the summer. Yellowfin tuna, likewise, show up about every other year, but when they do, the little 5- to 20-lb. schoolies are thick as flies. Occasionally, they're accompanied by fish in the 30- to 60-lb. class. For some reason, the offshore waters between Punta Concepción in the south and the southern tip of Isla San Marcos in the north rarely hold a lot of fish. From Mulegé, your best bet is to aim straight for Punta Concepcíon, leave it to starboard, and continue in the same direction out to the 100-fathom curve. Then drop the jigs and start working south. From Punta Chivato, San Lucas Cove or Santa Rosalía, head for the 100-fathom curve off the eastern shore of Isla San Marcos and work north or northeast. Logistics for Trailer-Boaters It's about 590 miles from the San Ysidro border crossing to Santa Rosalía and another 40 to Mulegé. That may sound do-able in one long day, but it's much better to do it one moderate day and one short day. Driving through Tijuana at night isn't too safe these days, so cross the border about sunrise and shoot for Guerrero Negro — 450 miles and usually about nine hours down — that night. The Malarrimo Motel in Guerrero Negro (011-52-615-157-0100 from the U.S.; www.malarrimo.com) has clean, comfortable rooms, secure parking and an on-site restaurant. Be sure to make reservations, though, as it often fills up, especially during whale-watching season in the spring. From there, it's another 2-1/2 hours to Santa Roslía and 3-1/2 to Mulegé. Santa Rosalía has a decent cement ramp suitable for deep-vee boats up to about 23 feet on mid- and high tides. You can launch and retrieve every day, but it's much easier to tie up at the funky old Marina Santa Rosalía for $10 to $15 a night. There's a freshwater hose for washing down at the docks, and fuel deliveries can be arranged. Water, soft, drinks, beer and ice are available at the "office" on an honor system — just keep track of what you take and pay when you leave — and there's a freezer for your fish. Stay at the somewhat cramped but air-conditioned, friendly and cheap Hotel Paris (011-52-625-152-1857) virtually across the street from the marina, or at the more luxurious and more expensive Hotel El Morro (011-52-615-152-0414) or Hotel Casitas (011-52-615-152-3023; www.santarosaliacositas.com), both of which offer gorgeous views over the Cortez. Smaller boats — up to perhaps 20 feet — can be launched at high tide over the beach at San Lucas Cove, about 10 miles south of Santa Rosalía. Set up shop on the beach at the San Lucas RV Park or Camacho RV Park for around $8 a night with bathrooms, hot showers, washdown water and dump station (no water or electrical hookups), and leave your boat on the hook in the shallow protected water in front of camp. Restaurants, ice and groceries are five minutes away in the village of San Lucas; drive to Santa Rosalía for fuel. In Mulegé, stay at the somewhat pricey but very nice Hotel Serenidad (011-52-615-153-0530; www.serenidad.com) with pool, swim-up bar, on-site restaurant, secure parking and washdown water, literally steps from the launch ramp, which is suitable for boats to 23 feet at most tides. Alternatively, go with a full-hookup RV site at the Orchard Vacation Village (011-52-615-153-0300; www.bajalife.com/orchard/index.htm) or Villa María Isabel (011-52-615-153-0246) for $16 to $22 a night, or a self-contained riverfront campsite for $5 to $7 a night. The Orchard also offers picturesque rental houses starting at $120 a night. Both have freshwater hoses for washing down. Lots of people fish these waters in 12- to 15-foot aluminum boats, even during yellowtail season, when strong northerlies can blow for up to a week at a time. But most of them are retired "snowbirds" spending a month or more in the area, and they can afford to pick their fishing days. If you've only got a few days, a seaworthy 18- to 23-footer will dramatically increase your odds of getting fish in springtime. You might still get blown off the water, but at least you won't have to run for shore at the first whitecap. Then again, you might well catch a week of glass-calm. From June through December, wind is rarely an issue. Finally, make a point to get in touch before and/or during your trip with Capt. Mike Kanzler (kidjurel@gmail.com; www.islasanmarcos.com) who lives on Isla San Marcos. He truly loves these waters and knows them more intimately than probably any other norteamericano who's ever lived, and he's incredibly generous with that knowledge. Spend your first day down on his boat, and you'll catch fish the rest of the trip. |