About the time you’re reading this, it should be “yellow fever” time up inside the Sea of Cortez. If you’re into catching yellowtail, these bruising members of the jack family will probably be bending rods at a number of places up and down the inside coastal areas.
Arguably, some of the meanest sluggers on rod and reel, some anglers might tell you that tuna are tougher pound for pound as they can rip line awfully fast, but for short powerful runs to cover and sheer doggedness, it’s hard to beat yellowtail, especially in the spring.
You won’t usually find these jacks where the waters get too warm, but areas around the middle of the Baja with more temperate waters such as Loreto, Bahia Concepcion, Mulege, Santa Rosalia, and Bahia Los Angeles are legendary for this type of fishing. Mothership trips to the Midriff Islands are also mecca for this type of fishing.
Often, you’ll see the “forktails” boiling on the surface pushing up baits into a foam. The key is often finding the birds working the waters, but so often, they’re hunkered down in the “bad neighborhoods” where they favor deep rocks, jagged reefs and other structure where the schools will hang out. This makes it doubly troubling for anglers as even the smallest jack will make it’s first move right back into the cover from where it came and shredded lines are just one more aspect of the sport.
While deep looping bait is often preferred, one of the most fun ways to take these fish is with “yo-yo iron.” If you’re not already an “iron thrower,” it has nothing to do with kids’ toys on string or throwing a household appliance at the fish!
Rather, “iron” refers to the heavy candy-bar style lures favored by many lure and jig fishermen. Famous brands include those made over the years by Tady, UFO, Candy Bar, Salas, Ranger, Fire and others as well as some of the newer jigs like the Butterfly style lures recently developed by Shimano and several other companies.
If you’re a party-boat fisherman on the West Coast, you may have seen the guys with the long rods up at the bow of the boat amazingly zinging these deadly missiles great distances then jigging them back to the boats. Very often with killer results it’s no surprise that often the jackpot fish is caught by some strong-armed jig fisherman. Like cats that ignore a stationery ball, but will pounce if the ball is rolled by their nose, big fish often cannot help themselves in slashing at a lure skipped tantalizingly by their faces.
“Yo-yo” refers to a technique used in fishing the “iron.” It actually has to do with the “pumping motion” used when retrieving the lure and, when done right, can result in bites severe enough to almost yank your arms out’ve their sockets!
Personally, before I learned how to throw iron myself, I always envied the guys who could cast these great distances. These “iron men” often seemed to have a bit more swagger as they stood apart from the “bait fishermen” in the stern. Like a kid wishing he were a kung fu martial artist or a great gunfighter, I wanted to be like them and wished someone would show me how to “throw iron.”
Eventually, that happened, but one of the neatest things about using iron on these yellowtail is that you didn’t need to cast a zillion yards away from the boat to get bit. Often the yellowtail are straight up and down… vertically below the boat. So, even an underhand cast or simply putting the reel into freespool and letting the lure wobble down to the depths is just as deadly as casting halfway to China!
The “yo-yo” retrieve is the trick! Let your lure drop down to the desired depths. Don’t be surprised if sometimes the fish are several hundred feet down. If you hit bottom, reel up a few cranks. Sometimes the fish will hit on the fall, but that has not usually been my experience. As mentioned, like cats, they like it when something runs by their faces.
The idea is basically to wind as fast as you can. Wind like your arms will fall off! They will feel like it you’re doing it right. If your arms aren’t tired, you’re probably not winding fast enough! The faster you crank, the better the chance to get bit and this is one time you’ll wish you had a fast retrieve reel that’s in the 5:1 or 6:1 gear ratios.
If you’re able to cast out, crank like the devil! Then stop before it gets back to the boat. Throw the reel into freespool and let the lure flutter down again. Then wind back like crazy again. Stop and let the lure flutter back down. In effect, you’re fishing a “Z” pattern zig-zagging the lure back to the boat. Some anglers like to “sweep” the lure back as they retrieve so that the lure jerks it’s way back to the boat erratically like a fast-swimming wounded baitfish.
If you’re fishing more or less straight up and down, do something similar. Again, the idea is to wind that reel like a madman. Sweep the rod bringing it up quickly, then dropping it back as you wind so that you’re making your lure swim back to the boat in vertical “Z” patterns. Before you get the lure back to the boat, put it in freespool and let it flutter back down. Often a trailing fish will take that opportunity to pounce on the seemingly injured baitfish that simply ran out’ve gas!
When you get a bite, hang on! Often, your rod won’t go bendo. On the contrary, you’ll be cranking furiously and the lure will just stop. It will just stop right in it’s watery tracks like it got hung up on something. This is where anglers make the biggest mistake. They get excited and simply stop winding and try to set the hook by swinging their rods. This is how so many fish are lost.
The fish may have the lure in it’s mouth and simply drop it. Unkown to you, the the fish might have the lure in it’s mouth and be swimming towards the boat and you never get the hook set because the line isn’t tight.
The trick is to keep cranking even when you get bit. Do not stop. Cranking effectively tightens the line and buries the hooks into those tough jaws! Fish on! Now you can set the hook a second time and battle your fish up from the depths.
Just get ready for those first few searing runs and keep that rod tip up to exert as much pressure on the yellowtail since it’s first move will often be to head back to cover. Those jagged volcanic rocks and reefs in the Sea of Cortez will separate you from your fish and your expensive lure like you’d touched your line with a sharp scalpel.
If you’ve never tried this style of fishing, give it a whirl. Yellowtail and their cousin the larger amberjacks are two Baja species that will often bite the iron when no other species will bite and bait can’t seem to produce even a nibble.
Everyone has their favorite lure colors, but I prefer combinations of blue/white; yellow/green; all white; “scrambled egg” (mix of white, yellow, red and brown) in the heavier styles. Most of these come with treble hooks. I will often remove the trebles in favor of a single larger hook which I believe gets a better and deeper hookset and prevents the fish from being able to torque itself off. But, you’ll hear plenty of veteran yo-yo anglers who will say it doesn’t matter.
Fast retrieve reels are a plus to save your arms, but remember, often the higher the retrieve ratio, the lower the torque ability of the reel to pull in a fish. For instance, a reel with 3:1 ratio generally has better pulling power than a 6:1 ratio. It’s much like the lower gears on a bicycle allowing you to pedal up a hill. Same idea. That’s the trade off: higher gear ratio saves your arms. Lower gear ratio helps you once the fight is on! However, many of the newer high-end reels mechanically compensate for the higher ratio with better gearing to diminish the loss of torque.
Rods don’t need to be too long. Remember in fishing the Baja, you’re not usually on an immovable party boat. Often, anglers are on pangas or cruisers. If you can’t cast far enough to a spot, simply move the boat. Or, as explained earlier, simply drop the lure straight down! It’s more important to have a shorter rod with plenty of backbone to stop the power of these hard chargers!
That's My Story 
