That's My Story

BILLFISH OF THE FALL – published Nov. 2004 – Western Outdoor News

I guess I’ve caught more than a few marlin in my day. I once worked at a place where part of my job description required two marlin a week for the kitchen. Some weeks you hit and some weeks you scratched, but on the average, we did a lot of billfish. This was years and years ago.

The East Cape and Cabo region are famous for billfish and for good reason, Cabo has dubbed itself the “Marlin Capital of the World” for good reason. I once read that more than 30,000 billfish are hooked there annually. But let me tell you about a spot that I think is even better and the best marlin trip I ever had where I wasn’t even supposed to be fishing.

A couple of years ago, I was hired by a camera crew from Tennessee who had a fishing show. They wanted marlin and they wanted underwater shots. Apparently, they were getting away from bass fishing and had now decided to go saltwater so what better place than Baja! Anyway, I wasn’t hired to guide or deckhand or even work the galley. They wanted my perceived SCUBA diving skills. I was officially the “shark protector.” Younger and dumber and indestructible, that sounded fine to me. I had been diving with sharks quite often, but I’ve never had to protect myself from them let alone anyone else, but it sounded like a great adventure.

What I found out this entailed was getting a marlin hooked; slipping the cameraman off the swimstep into the water so he could film; then me getting in the water somewhere under the boat and below the cameraman to watch for sharks. Obviously, the cameraman would have his eyeball in the eyepiece so his view of the blue would be limited so I was the hired “protector.” Now, let me tell you, I’ve had a lot of diving experience, but there’s something different about bluewater diving in open ocean. There’s no structure or bottom to orient yourself. There’s no cute reef fish. There is only blue…shimmering eerie blue in all directions. Blue vertigo. If I saw a shark, I was somehow supposed to notify the cameraman so he could get out QUICK with the expensive gear! That left me still in the water with bait and chum all around and a hooked (and maybe bloody marlin) swimming through it all. I learned to swivel my head in all directions like Regan in the “Exorcist” real well because the place we were headed were the banks off Bahia Magdalena, notorious for “grinners” and the “men in the grey suits.” They always say you’ll never see the one that gets you and you can feel ridiculously exposed in all that blue with only a wet suite and a little 4-inch dive knife that doubles as a screw driver!

“Mag Bay” on the Pacific side of lower Baja might well be one of the most incredible marlin spots on the planet. During the fall and early winter, schools of marlin ball up on places like the Thetis Bank and feed. Then, as the season progresses, they begin moving south towards Cabo and around and up the East Cape and into the Sea of Cortez.

Imagine pulling up and seeing not one, but several different bird schools working. Pick a spot and drag the lures and bait and 1, 2, 3, 4 rods would go off with screaming reels and pure deck pandemonium. Getting into the water while hooked-up anglers stepped over and under you while trying to get divers and camera gear safely over the side was a proverbial clown fire drill. Once in the water, I kept my eyes and head swiveling, but in 4 days never saw a single shark. On the contrary, the biggest hazard were the hooked marlin as well as free-swimmers under the boat. With lines attached and those big long pointy things on their faces, I sometimes felt like a matador doing an “Ole!” as one then another marlin would stream or twist by sometimes close enough for me to touch the fish. At one point in the prop wash while coming to the surface, I was momentarily blinded by all the bubbles only to have it clear and finding I was staring straight into the spike of one striper. With a flick of it’s tail, I’d have been missing an eyeball! I should have asked for combat pay. One cool trick was releasing the fish underwater and swimming them down until they were well under their own power.

Over the course of several days, we hooked and released dozens of marlin a day taking them on bait, lures, flyrod, spinning rod and light tackle. Mag Bay is not an easy place to get to or be at. At best, it’s a 3-4 hour drive from where we are in La Paz. There’s no fancy hotels. No gift shopping. No sparkling fleet, although several small charter ops are popping up. Those anglers who hit it the most are coming down the coast or charter boats from Cabo as we did or sometimes the San Diego long rangers will bump it. I never saw a single shark but did encounter some incredible fishing and underwater footage. It’s where I’d go again to fish the incredible billfish of the fall.

That’s my story…
Jonathan