La Paz and Cabo

Spent the last week in Las Paz and Cabo with pistoleros del mar and had the time of my life. The diving was incredible and I had a great time. I went with Dan, Pete, and Skip(Dan’s father).  There is so much that happened I’ll try to write everything I can.

The first night I just basically arrived and went to sleep. Then when I woke up we had to drive from La Paz to Cabo to pick up Dan and Skip. Patrick arrived early and we were off. It was a long ride but there was a lot of interesting stuff along the way.  The mountains are incredible and after living in flat Key West for years it was great to get some better scenery.  There were cows here and there along the road, along with extreme curves and rocks that had fallen down from the cliffs along the road.

We arrived at some little town outside of Cabo where Dan and Skip were staying. I want to say the name of the town was La Playa but I can’t find it on any maps, but whatever. We figured since we already made the trip to Cabo, and since this time of year the blue water fishing was supposed to be better here we dove it for a day. Patrick contacted the Panga Boss and was told that he could send us out with someone in the afternoon. I wish had gotten some video of the boss, he definitely looked like the boss of something, squat and big with thick arms and deep guttural voice and not much patience. Apparently a lot of the sportfishers down in Cabo hate the gringo spearfisherman, and there had been friction with these guys before, and by going in the afternoon we would avoid some of that.

So after some delays we rolled out at around 1:30 in the afternoon. I have to say after the long delays on getting the boat, watching the Captain suck down a 22 oz beer on the way out, and watching salt water spray all over the battery every time we took a little wave, I kind of had my doubts about the day. Those doubts disappeared in the first 10 minutes in the water once I had speared my first wahoo. The wahoo pulled the float under and came off, not sure how Pete said he saw the slip tip toggle on the other side. Not long after I was at the end of 60 foot dive and 5 or 6 yellow fin tuna saw up, just out of range. The fish were in the 60-90# range.

Unfortunately the action did not keep up but we spent a long time looking for it. A seal would come and hang out with us on a drift sometimes. Pretty cool, definitely something different for us. After that we headed in.

The next day we decided to try blue water again before heading to La Paz.  We were back out on the Gordo Banks early the next morning. We all got shots on wahoo and we all blew it. To make something clear: although we did not get the trophy fish we were hoping for it was not for the lack of Patrick putting us on fish.

After we gave up on the banks we went to some other hump, not sure of the name of it. I jumped in and saw all kinds of life swimming around mid column. Patrick said the depth was 25 meters.  Unfortunately it was a bit deeper then that, more like 35 meters. I added more float line and tried to hit bottom.  Once I got around 60 feet I could start to see the silhouettes of the the biggest snappers I have ever seen. Massive fish ranging from probably 30-60#. I could not get a shot.  I called everyone to get in, I watched a wahoo swim by in the distance. A huge school of big eye jacks swam up and Dan and Pete both shot one and gave it to the captain to cut up.  The chum started raining down and I kept breathing up. The next dive I swam down pretty much to the end of a 110-120 foot float line with no current. I’m not sure how deep the dive was because my piece of shit Imersion Prowler flooded on the dive. Anyways , it was deep for me and the whole way I was following a huge snapper down but could not get the shot. Then Pete shot the wahoo that was swimming around, and he spined it so there wasn’t really a fight.  After that we gave everything we got to try to get one of the big snappers and failed. We dove again and again 70-80 feet hoping we could get one up a little bit within range and it didn’t happen. Eventually we had to face reality and move. We tried a shallow spot and it sucked.

After that we went back to Gordo banks to try wahoo again. When we got there, there was a big sport fisher rolling around with unfriendly looking guys in it.  Our captain said they were some of the people who hate spearfishers.  After a little bit they started shooting the water. The captain said they were shooting at the seals but I was watching and it didn’t look like the guy was aiming. Our captain gave them a wide berth.  A little later we headed in.

Then that night we drove back to La Paz which took forever.

The next day it was out to the rock islands in La Paz to shoot pargo.  Which was incredibly fun. Dan and Pete got their best fish the first day. Dan actually shot his biggest fish in like the first 30 minutes in the water. It took me a couple days to land a nice snapper, not sure what my deal was. Although I speared a couple big snapper, I lost them. Also a lot of time was spent recovering fish from the rocks. Pretty much if you don’t stone the snappers plan on spending a half hour getting them out of the caves. Bent shafts, lost shafts are probably going to happen.

Dan also went on a cabrilla killing spree one day.  In general Dan out shot me by miles which is pretty rare and probably won’t happen again.  The diving was incredible, sheer cliffs dropping into blue water. There was probably 60-90 feet of vis and almost no current, schools of 20, 30, 40# snapper darting in and out of rocks. Yellow snapper all over, the occasional seal doing a drive by.  Dan shot a hump head parrot fish and nice barred snapper, and following the apparent theme of the trip I shot them also but smaller.  I did get a nice yellow snapper off a wreck, not quite as prestigious though. Pete get a yellow cabrilla which was awesome.

Pretty much it was an awesome trip, the only real cons of the trip was the drive between Cabo and La Paz. Also the bed and breakfast we stayed in was kind of remote. There just wasn’t much close to it and accessible.  You were kind of stuck in the compound when you were there. The set up in Cabo was awesome but not sure if there was anything like that close to the islands we were diving in La Paz.

Also like to add that pretty much all the big fish that Dan shot were with my Mastropietro gun because his piece of crap andre’s trigger broke the second day.