DOUBLE-DOG-DARE of STUPIDITY

Originally Published the Week of Jan. 20th in Western Outdoor Publications

In more than 30 years of guiding and chartering folks down here in Baja and other places in the country and world, I gotta say that I’ve seen some folks do some pretty stupid things.

No other way around it.

Sometimes smart intelligent folks just leave their brains home when they go on vacation.

Sometimes, it’s the alcohol…”We just stopped in for one shot of tequila.”

Sometimes, folks just forget they’re not 18 anymore…”Hold my beer for a second.  I used to do this with my eyes closed.”

Sometimes, it’s just dumb-bass pride…”I don’t want our kids to think their dad’s a weenie!”

Sometimes, we think we’re so clever and sneaky…”Well,  I’ll go if all your guys go and no one ever says anything…”

Yea…it happens.  It happens a lot.

And I’m as guilty as the next person.

Except I wasn’t on vacation.  I was working.

Some 30 years ago, I was working as a guide and deckhand in Loreto.  It’s about 5 hours north of where we live now in La Paz.

Just a beautiful place and the town.   Back then it was just a smidgen larger than a pueblo.

Very laid back.  Not so touristy.  Cows and stray dogs could still be found walking downtown…if you could call it that.

We were out working the channel on a small cruiser near Isla Carmen.  Maybe a mile off the beach.

We were having a great time.

It was one of those days when the sailfish were going crazy and every lure or bait tossed in the water got hit.  The two fishing clients were having the time of their lives.

To their credit, they were releasing all their fish.

About the 4^th sailfish someone got the brilliant idea to realease the fish by jumping off the boat and into the water.

Of course, we had purely magnanimous good-intentions.

It’s always better never to bring a hooked fish into the boat, especially large fish like a billfish.

It’s not just for safety.   Hoisting fish out’ve the water;  holding them for photos before releasing them seems like the sporting thing to do.

However, it potentially damages their internal organs because they no longer have water pressure holding supporting their bodies.  Gravity starts ripping up their insides.

It  actually defeats the whole purpose of releasing a fish to live and swim healthy another day.

Our two older anglers were busy fishing.   Being older, there was no way they were going to climb into the water.  However, to myself and the other deckhand this sounded like great fun!

Here we go…”Hold my beer…”

Slipping into that warm blue water of the Sea of Cortez is always a treat.  Waters were calm that day and visibility was excellent.  You could see down perhaps 30-40’ below the boat.

Let’s do this!

The guys would hook and fight a fish.  We were careful not to get tangled in the lines or get in the way of fighting zooming fish.  It was pretty exciting to be in the water.

Eventually, the fish would tire and get brought next to the boat.

We would gently hold the fish with gloves and remove the hook.  These sailfish were all sturdy powerful 80-100 pound fish.  But after battling, they were actually rather subdued, docile and seemingly exhausted.

Then, we got the even “more brilliant” idea!

In order to revie a tired fish, it’s customary to move them back and forth through the water to help oxygenate their gills which helps to “revive them.”

So that motion evolved into “Let’s hold their tails as long as we can as they swam away!”

So, we would grab a hold of each sailfish by the tail.

…and hold on!

They would leisurely swim down into the depths dragging a knuckleheaded deckhand with them.   We would hang on as long as we could hold our breaths, maybe 20-30 feet down then kick hard back to the surface.

By then the fishermen would probably have another sailfish hooked up!

But wow!  What a cool experience.

Not many folks could claim to have ridden a sailfish!  Oh the stories we would tell!

By the time I had ridden 3, my buddy had ridden two and we were like two giddy kids in the water!

I think we were on our 7^th or 8^th fish and a big one got brought alongside the boat.

Normally, my buddy would hold the tail.  I would hold the head and remove the hook as gently as possible. We had done a few fish by this time.

We were getting kinda cocky.

Releasing fish was a no-brainer.  We were anxious to take our rides!

So, this big fella in my hands suddenly decided to go ballistic next to the boat!   He wasn’t done yet!

And make no mistake, these are powerful apex predator fish built for speed. Sailfish have been know to hit 40-50 mph or more in the water.

This big guy suddenly and unexpectedly thrashed wildly.  I let go of it’s head and bill in the massive whitewater of bubbles and foam.

When I opened my eyes…

…the tip of the sailfish bill was about 3 inches from my right eye!

If that fish even twitched a flick of it’s tail, I would not be writing this story now.   I would’ve had my skull impaled on the end of a sailfish with a whole different story to tell.

Except I wouldn’t be the one telling it.

I like to think that the sailfish was just exercising a little forebearing restraint to the guys that were releasing it.

For whatever reason, I remain grateful.  And terrified.

In our idiotic glee we had forgotten that these were wild animals.  Not Disneyland rides.

Nature gave me a quick wake-up call…a masterclass in stupidity.

Eleven sailfish that day.

I jumped back in the boat and stayed there. I think we had caught enough fish for the day.  Let’s get back to the marina.

That’s my story!

Jonathan