That's My Story

Hopefully, by the time you’re reading this, we’ll be in our booth at the Long Beach Fred Hall Fishing and Boating Show. It’s at the Long Beach Convention Center March 5-9. We’re not in the WON booth so don’t look for us there! We’re in our own booth in our usual spot on tackle row next to the Izorline, Accurate Reels and Calstar booths. Hope to see you!

We’ve been on the road now for 2 months hitting San Mateo, Sacramento, Denver, Portland and most recently, Monroe (just outside of Seattle). This is the first time in months I’ve had an opportunity to see copies of WON and read all the e-mails.

Amigos, thanks for the support and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed reading my ramblings for almost 4 years now. This was supposed to be a temporary gig until Pat could find someone else and it turned into a pleasant several years of you allowing me to spill my Baja on these pages. It’s been an honor and a pleasure to follow such grand footsteps and Gene Kira, and Fred Hoctor and Ray Cannon.

And now, my amigo, Gary Graham graces the pages. Gary rocks. He’s an IGFA record holder, a member of the Outdoor Writer’s Hall of Fame, and has forgotten more about Baja than I’ll ever know! You’ll enjoy him and his style and he has the ability to do a lot more hardcore reporting and roaming that I’m not able to do from my operations in La Paz. I’m honored to share the space with Gary and I appreciate my amigo and editor, Pat McDonell for supporting my writing all this time.

I’m getting a lot of e-mails from readers surprised to find out that I own and run a fishing operation in La Paz. Yup. That’s what I do. . .365-days-a-year. However, other than to use it as a context for a column or story, I never wanted to pimp ourselves on these pages. I never once told you to come fishing with us and probably mentioned competitors more than our own operation. I felt if I mentioned our operation, it would ruin our journalistic credibility in the column. I didn’t even advertise in the paper.

Anyway, you haven’t heard the last of me and, I’m sure Gary will be roaming the aisles at the show so you should go up and say howdy to him if you see him. He’ll probably be with his lovely wife Yvonne who has a fishing resume a mile long herself.

I’ve been doing these outdoor fishing and hunting shows now for over 20 years and if you’ve never been to something like the Fred Hall Fishing and Boating Show, you really owe it to yourself to come down.

Old Baja veterans, you can just tune out the rest of this, but in doing these shows all over the country, I am still amazed at how many folks really don’t know Baja or even realizes what it is and that it even exists. Especially if you live in Southern California or any of the American Southwest, you just take Mexico for granted. Baja and the concept of just “running across the border” is so much a part of our consciousness that we don’t think twice about what it is and what it has meant to us and is becoming.

But, run out to Denver or Seattle or talk to some Canadian folks or even folks in the San Francisco Bay area and “the Baja” is often an alien concept. Isn’t that the place were there are banditos and dark seedy bars? Isn’t that where everyone lives in shacks or time shares? You can fish there?

More than once, I’ve drawn blank stares when talking to folks about it in my booth. More than once, I’ve been asked questions like:

“Baja California is part of Mexico? I’ve been trying to find it on map of California!”

“If is really a part of Mexico, how come it’s called ‘Baja CALIFORNIA?”

“How can that long strip of land be part of Mexico when it’s not attached to Mexico?”

“Do they speak Spanish in Baja like the people in Mexico or do they speak Californian?”

You get the idea. Remember how fun it is to take kids to Disneyland the first time and watching their eyes go wide? That’s what it’s like turning new folks onto the Baja we take for granted.

They can’t believe there is a place where you can actually see the sunrise and the sunset over the ocean…on the same day. Or that all of Mexico is not like Tijuana and that white sand beaches, blue water and rolling deserts and mountains await. It’s hard to explain to them water that’s 80 or 90 degrees and Baja “formal wear” is a t-shirt under your Hawaiian shirt.

You tell them about what a giant fish boil looks like at sunrise with tuna or dorado ripping the surface chasing every bait in the ocean or and birds diving as well; or schools of dolphin as far as the eye can see; turtles swimming on the reef and grey whales playfully bumping the pangas.

And you tell them about the evenings when the sun decorates and re-paints frescoed skies every 5 minutes with a palette of purples and orange and fuschia and the aroma of sizzling carne asada and chiles wafting over the beaches. Lights begin to dot the shoreline interrupted only by the plop and hiss of another icy cerveza being opened and poured. Laughter drifts up from the somewhere down the beach and someone’s car radio plays a barely audible rancho tune that carries across the water.

We do these shows and take it for granted that everyone already KNOWS about the Baja, but so many are still just discovering it. And for those of us who get to be on the other side of those counters or who are blessed to get to write about it, it makes the Baja all that much more special. We get to tell new friends about our special sandbox just across the border and invite them to all come play. It’s fun to watch the lights come on!

See ya this week in Long Beach!

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.