Cabo San Lucas. Baja Mexico

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20

CABO SAN LUCAS

Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico

It is dark as it always is when you begin the journey. Rubber thronged slippers klip klop as you walk down the marina to where the boats lie moored. You have stopped in front of the hotel and eaten eggs and washed them down with rich coffee. Another time they would have had some taste, but too much tequila and cigarettes have made this impossible today.

The Mexican Captain and the mate are there at the boat which is idling with the lights on inside of the cockpit. They smile with a little trepidation, looking you over, wondering if you are up to the task ahead. You jump aboard with your gear, looking over the boat. The rods and reels are first class. Shimano two speed reels, 30-pound class. A box on the cooler contains the lures each drenched in color. J hooks sharpened like razors. The air is filled with the smells of diesel and the sea. The boat owner’s wife comes down the dock laden with sack lunches. She jokes and laughs then turns to the crew giving them last minute information, or is it instructions from her husband? You settle in. It is time to fish. You have come a long way to get here and nothing else matters this morning.

The cap

You know he will take you nowhere near the mainland. It is the temperature break he searches for and the great structures that rise thousands of feet from the ocean bottom nearly a half-mile deep just out of port. These are islands amid giant underwater canyons. They do not reach the surface but lie just under the surface in, perhaps, 40 fathom deep water. This is where all of the captain’s experience tells him that the great marlin will be today. Currents from the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez wash nutrients up from the deep canyons along the walls of the underwater mountains providing ere. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20,

CABO SAN LUCAS

Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico

The captain, Manuel Gonzales, pulls the 31 foot Bertram alongside of the harbormasters boat and gives him the paperwork that the government requires. No money changes hands and you wonder about the 11,000 pesos you each paid for the so-called required fishing license. Another Mexican con?

The sky in the East is turning gray and the Sea of Cortez lies before you like a pool of mercury. One more stop for bait. The radio cracks with Spanish you can’t understand except for a few words. You don’t savvy, but you understand none-the-less. This is the language of the Pescados.

Many boats are milling around and the harbor is coming to life. Your bait is aboard. The Mexicans call them sardinis or cabarillos. You would have preferred mullet or big sardines, but these big eyed scaup will have to do. Two dollars a bait. The mate buys ten.

The twin diesels come to life as you approach the fabled arch at lands’ end. El Arco. On one side is the Pacific and on the other is the Sea of Cortez. You have to wait to see if the boat will turn into the Pacific or stay in the calmer Sea of Cortez. Unless you specify, it is the captain’s decision. He has fished here all his life and the radio feeds him information every day, all day long. He has made up his mind this morning in the dark. Now he races out into the Sea of Cortez. Bearing dead East towards Mazatlán on the mainland. You know he will take you nowhere near the mainland. It is the temperature break he searches for and the great structures that rise thousands of feet from the ocean bottom nearly a half-mile deep just out of port. These are islands amid giant underwater canyons. They do not reach the surface but lie just under the surface in, perhaps, 40 fathom deep water. This is where all of the captain’s experience tells him that the great marlin will be today.

It is nearly full day light. The motors slow down and the mate, Juan, jumps down from the tower and prepares the gear. Five lures, each a tapered cylinder with a flat face. Most are made of clear resin with eyes and colors imbedded in the body. The skirt is plastic able to take the punishment that a marlins bill can inflict on them. Each has a hole molded or drilled through the center or off-center depending on how the expensive lure is designed and what it is designed to do. A single strand of heavy monofilament line is through the lure. At the terminal end is a large stainless hook, rapier sharp. The long leader is attached to a swivel and will be placed directly on the thirty-pound line. at the swivel

One by one Juan lets out the lures. Two on outriggers attached with heavy bands of rubber. When a fish hits the lure the band will snap and the lure will fall back. Three others are straight back from the boat. One is attached to the tower. It will lie back up to 100 yards.The flat line lures are kept in the prop wash. The boat is trolling much faster than the inland fisherman could ever imagine. Marlin and sailfish are sight feeders and the tens of thousands of bubbles from the props and the dish faced lures appear to them as a fast moving school of bait. The mate returns to the tower to search the sea with eyes that can spot a surface feeding billfish a half mile away. You remain optimistic, but cautious. You have been disappointed before, but not here. Not in Cabo, the greatest fishing hole on earth. But, still, el marlin alimentará quizá, quizá no! (Maybe the marlin will feed, maybe not!)