Fishing Sucks

I wasn’t thrilled to find out that we’d be leaving my Honda dirtbike at home. This trip we would be carrying John and Dakotah’s Hobie kayaks. Usually, one of us (admittedly, I got to ride more than John) would get to ride the twenty miles or so of unpaved road while the truck slowly followed me on the wash-board gravel, dirt road.  The ride on a motorcycle is so serene-- riding through untouched, pristine Baja surrounded by beautiful desert-scape. Once the paved roads are connected, I’m sure this scene will look different. Also, it beat riding in CON KSO, slow as a snail (as it seemed) with everything bumping and shaking around.  Anyway, I wouldn’t get to do this ride this year.

Baja breaks things.
Notice the fender on our trailer?  At least it matches the other side now.

Dakotah and John have become avid fishermen.  At home, they enjoy getting up at the butt-crack of dawn to go fishing, or in John’s case fly-fishing.  I tried fishing with them at Coronado Bay, sitting on the back of Dakotah’s kayak.  Fishing sucks—I just don’t have the patience for it.  In a couple of hours I caught only two spotted bay bass, we call them "spotties".  I realized that there truly is a skill to fishing but I'm not patient enough to learn. 

Grouper #25

This year we stayed at a new campsite on the west coast of Baja.  Spot X (John won’t let me give the name) is not an easy place to get to.  John went there when he was a kid but he really discovered its fishing potential during his Thanksgiving week fishing trip.  The small, remote campsite is nestled among the northernmost mangroves of the Baja peninsula.  The afternoon when we arrived, John and Dakotah immediately trekked out to go fishing.  They returned so excited, apparently having caught so many fish that they lost count (the estuary is catch and release - you can keep a corvina or two to eat but being a meat harvesting, fish-glutton is frowned upon by the locals).  They invited me the next day but I was hesitant to have to cross over the wet-marshland to get to the fishing destination.  With much reluctance I went.  John said we had to cross over two streams of water that only went knee-deep…

At high tide this is covered with water. 

The deepest part was a little over waist deep.

We got to the “hot spot” and everyone found a place to start casting.  I went to the very end away from everyone.  Being a beginner, I was afraid of snagging someone with my lure.  I threw my first cast and within minutes I caught a Corvina, which is good for ceviche, so we kept it.  Amazingly, I felt a sense of accomplishment.  Corvina was the fish to catch.  Then I caught another fish (Spottie), and another, AND another.  It was just ridiculous the amount of fish we were all catching.  Lucky for me it didn’t take much skill to catch fish at this fishing hole.  Fishing sucks only when I’m not catching fish but on this day I had the best fishing day of my life! 

Of course John and Dakotah caught triple the number that I did, not that I'm competitive or anything.