Well back to the land of internet connections again. We headed north into the Sea of Cortez for a few day of fishing. Before we left we did one day fishing the islands close to La Paz, the winds died as soon as Cat left, or course. It took a day or so to get used to the deeper diving here but by the end of the day I was easily hitting 75 feet no problem.
The rocks close to La Paz were not as popping as last year, the bigger fish were scarce and deep. Last year the big snapper were all over the water column and in the shallows. This year I think the shallowest one I saw was 50 feet. The first day I lost two big snapper, it was pretty disappointing. After that I took some of the mono off the gun, and now I am shooting a slip tip. The worst one was towards the end of the first day. Bernard who is this french guy who is diving with us, had shot one on this deep rock and wanted to return there because he saw more. So he and I went back. I did a dive and saw like 6 or 7 big cuberas run into a big cave at about 75 feet. After a long breathe up I dove to the sand to the right of the cave entrance and then crawled to the mouth of the cave. The snappers came out in a group curious to see what I was. I shot the biggest of the group and then tried to horse him from the cave. I kept him out for a second but then I had to release him to get air. I hit the surface and grabbed my float line and it was stuck fast. Bernard did a dive and said it did not look good. Then I went down and found the fish only a little inside the cave. The shaft had gone through and the fish was on the mono, laying inside a cave, I poked at him and it did not move. I thought it was dead. On the next dive it was gone, apparently not dead. I should have shot him again, stupid mistake, always shoot something twice if you really care about landing it.
The next day we took a 70 mile ride into the Sea of Cortez. The water got a bit cooler and dirtier but not too bad, at least for me. The first spot we hit was there was 20 feet of vis. Brian, Danny, and Garett got dropped off in the shallows and Bernard, Flippe and I in the deeper water. The water cleared up a bit once you got down like 25 feet or so. I saw a cubera around 30# but did not take the shot because after losing the fish the day before, I wanted to get kill shots. The current was strong all day and dragging around a float line kind of sucked. All and all the first day was kind of wash. We ended up back at the fish camp kind of tired and disappointed.
We were staying at some fisherman’s house and his wife cooked us meals which primarily consisted of parrot fish we had shot. We slept out on cots outside and it was nice, no bugs or anything. There was a small dog there that would get excited and pee if you pet it.
The next morning we headed to some more remote islands. We got there and the vis was better and the current less than the day before. We went on two boats this time Antonio (the fisherman) driving our boat and Patrick taking a second boat with Flippe and Bernard. We found one area that was covered with cuberas. I would go down to 50 feet and lay on the rocks and watch them swim by. I shot two and Garret shot two and Dan shot one. After that the fish went deeper and Brian and Dan went shallower to get barred pargo and cabrilla. Garrett and I spent all day trying to get one of the really big snapper we saw, to no avail. You would have to dive down 65-75 and lay there forever. You would see the big fish in the distance but no dice. I did shoot two groupers, cabrilla or leopard groupers that were both close to 30 pounds. One rocked up at 79 feet but it came out easily enough. It was the best day of the trip so far and everyone was pretty happy, at least on our boat. On the other boat only Patrick landed a big fish. The fisherman were impressed with my groupers, which I looked up and might have been world records but I did not bring a scale to verify.
The next day we went and I spent all day trying to get a trophy snapper but could not make it happen. After a while I was so tired I felt like if I shot a big one it would be a nightmare to get it out of a cave. We headed back early and everyone was beat. Bernard got the biggest snapper of the trip in the end and Patrick said he lost a shaft to one of the biggest snapper he said he had ever seen.
