Just Another Fish Tail

A threesome's adventure to Baja California Sur to go yellow tail tuna fishing in May.

Just Another Fish Tail

Loreto, Baja California Sur. Late May, near the end of yellow tail tuna season. Predawn darkness. Three fishermen ambled through uneven sand and small rocks down to the edge of the water, carrying two stout "Tuna Takers" with the well-stocked tackle box, a gallon of water, some tortillas and avocados, and a jacket for the occasional afternoon of white caps. Perfectly calm, flat water, no wind. Yet. The fishermen were Jim (my husband) and Alex (Jim's long-time ocean swimming buddy), athletically built middle-aged men; and me, Rickie, a skinny, 56-year-old female; not weak, just skinny. Wow, but what American names. Dead giveaway.

We had arrived from Los Angeles International Airport Thursday afternoon, yesterday, on one of the few weekly runs by the only carrier flying into Loreto these days, Alaska Airlines. Not great for the economy of old Loreto, but that's another story. Being working stiffs still, it was necessary for us to leave for home on Sunday. Thus, first order of the itinerary when we arrived was to fire up the slowly rusting O.J. Simpson white Bronco parked outside by the house door and go to the grocery market in town. We needed staples: beer, wine. Then limes, Mexican papayas, avocados, chips -- like I said, staples.

"House," in this case, is a sweetly rustic little casita called a palapa, complete with high palm frond roof structure, brick and stucco siding, and large plate glass slider windows. So, second order was to open every window in the place as wide as possible and encourage the afternoon breezes, plus the tiniest bit of ambient dust, to blow through and liven up and cool the inside air. No one had been there for almost a year, and it was good to breathe life back into the "little shop on the corner," as some people called it. Why would people call it that? Because the palapa wraps around a corner in an enclosed, private homeowners' park where the always-familiar faces of U.S. expatriots, or full-time residents, would stop and lean in over the open glass, hoping to find someone home and start up a conversation. It was always a big deal when one of these homeowners who was only a sometime visitor would return to the family fold, such as Jim and I, who own the little casita. But with all of the passersby peering in or just walking around this prominent corner of the park, it sometimes felt like Professor Marvel checking in on the extremely dusty Kansas farm of the Wizard of Oz to see how Dorothy was doing. Many times I sensed we were an open-air exhibit in a zoo. Be that as it may, we were almost right on the beach, so it was easy to walk down with our equipment and go fishing.

The sky was turning a very, almost imperceptible range of oranges and pinks on the horizon. We watched and waited. And waited. And waited. This is Mexico. So we waited. Patiently. Wow, maybe he forgot? Not unlikely, everyone was thinking. But, no, just as the sun peaked its eye over the craggy, low-lying and expansive Isle Carmen, the largest island off of this part of Baja on the Sea of Cortez side, a slowly rushing panga rounded the ancient jetty and made its way toward us, right toward us, in fact, right up and onto the beach. Ramon Murillo Romero, the non-English-speaking local "Capitan Deportiva," turned off the motor, muttered something incomprehensible, then quietly messed with the ropes and anything else out of place on his clean family boat, the pride and lifeline of his family and his father's legacy, while we climbed aboard, quietly, matching his own countenance -- just like that of the early morning calm. Key in, motor on, and a clean and definite whirring noise seemed to say, "We're off! It's time to go fishin'!" We left the beach, out into the vast depths of the Sea of Cortez.

In this dark, deep water where at this time of day all you can see is your shadow on the surface, just about everything, save perhaps for the small guys that hide just under the saragosa seaweed grass during the summer, grows big; and what doesn't, including the little guys under the saragosa grass, gets eaten by whatever it was that did grow big. Below that, something else that grew even bigger somewhere "down there" eats the ones that grew merely "big," and the fabled circle of life goes on and on and on in the life of the wild seas. This does scare some people away, without a doubt. "I can't see anything, I'm not going out there, no way." Well, it's not like the black Ganges, it's just deep, for Chrissake. But I suppose it's not for everyone. Anyway, we wanted to play together in that eternal game of life.

The sunrise was just so beautiful. As we sat in the boat, all were mesmerized by the flashing bow waves creating an alluvial fan behind the 20-foot-long, 8-foot-wide fiberglass structure, open hulled with an outboard motor and used by fishermen and others who depend on this type of simple but efficient vehicle for getting through the water. It glided with a rhythmic bounce over the slightly wavy water surface. In this thought-free state, I noted that the low angle of the sun shimmered all the way from the far horizon up to my very feet. Doubtless, it was creating the same line directly up to the feet of each individual in the boat. Like the eyes on the Mona Lisa, everywhere I looked or moved, the sun followed to my feet. No wonder that in yoga, there is a "salutation to the sun" exercise usually performed in a meditative state at the beginning of class.

As we headed out for about an hour and some to get to wherever Ramon sensed was the proper place to start setting our poles, Jim remembered a warning issued yesterday by a local individual about unseasonably hot weather and the "fact" that no one, no one, was catching any fish. He had said, "The problem is too much food for the fish already in the deep water, and so nobody needs your bait. They don't come up," he said with frustration and some remorse. Understandably, as Loreto is in fact primarily a fishing town, a very small one at that with 4,000 residents, and the people and their families need the fruit from out there. It is possible that this has something to do with an imbalance in the food chain. But we still had our hopes. Indeed, we had the famous Ramon Romero, son of Goyo Romero, the great Loreto fishing captain of days gone by.

As a child, Ramon was not allowed to go onto the boat with his father when Goyo took tourists out to troll for the seasonal catch. He was required to earn his stripes by going out alone with his father over a period of years, to privately learn how to be the best. A bit like the European guild systems. And he is the best. Not a single individual in the small town does not know of Ramon -- a very tall, extremely broad-shouldered and long-legged man of about 40 years, with dusty black hair under a fisherman's cap, dark, Mexican skin and black eyes, which were usually hidden behind sunglasses. When he once took off the glasses, I noted his eyes were rather small and slitty, as though they had sustained some sun damage; probably over many years of reflection off the water. Ramon was a treasure. He possessed almost mythical abilities to navigate and to sense, with a keen, silent eye, where, simply, to make contact. He just flowed, looking straight ahead into the distance, saying nothing, seeing everything, his strong and erect sea legs in perfect stance. I noticed this presence the very second he pulled up in the boat near sunrise.

So, even though we flew out into the middle of nowhere perhaps 10 miles offshore with not a single other boat around, we felt zero trepidation just through his confident gaze into our fishing future. At long last, about 9:00 a.m., we came to a halt, where suddenly appeared about six or more other pangas in our midst, all with single or grouped locals, no tourists here, reaping in the morning catch during its feeding frenzy. Warning, my foot, I thought with vindication. We were out by Coronado Island in San Bruno, a large rocky reef where the yellow tail hung out near the bottom between the months of January and around the end of May each year. The water was becoming warmer, so they were about to move on, but they had certainly gained some size during their months in the Cortez. Most being brought overboard in the other boats were about 25 lbs. Suddenly, my gut said to me, Don't do this. You'll break your back. Last time I fished here, it was dorado season and they were perhaps 10 lbs. Even with that relatively low weight, the torque on the rod and the cramped forward arch in my back, knees hugging the side of the boat for balance, was just about killing me.

Of course, not so for "the guys"! Ramon looked like he lifted weights, and I could definitely see why. I'm sure he'd done his time out with marlin and sailfish and every other behemoth in the area that would keep a hardy individual holding on for a long, long fight, perhaps three or four hours of chasing. And Jim and Alex, both also tall, strong-shouldered lifetime swimmers, as well as accomplished fishermen, would have no problem, that was clear.

I figured I might go ahead and be the happy little waitress (problem: not my kind), running around strapping on the one fighting belt we had among us to whomever had something on the hook at any given time, as well as feeding out tortillas and avocados when necessary after the supremely aerobic

workout of bringing in a 25 lb. fish with a bad attitude from very deep, heavy water. But hey, I'd much rather have performed these rather, honestly in my mind, menial duties than be in traction in a Mexican hospital.

We had about 45 mackerel in the recirculating tank when we arrived. For four hours, until the sun sent everyone, including seemingly the fish, into a kind of midday stupor, we worked the reef with the others, bringing in six large yellow tail -- but that's only six mackerel. In fact, we had lost 20 mackerel to these tenacious and clever fish, who either took just the bait and disappeared; took the bait and the hook and disappeared; or took the bait, the hook, and several feet of line, sometimes including the weight, along with them and disappeared. There were a lot of puta Madres (no translation, thank you) issuing from the locals' exhausted airways after these little ploys. So, that's 26 mackerel gone. Then, after trolling for a while, sometimes a bite to the gills or perhaps pure shock on the poor mackerel's part would leave it too cansado to swim into the depths, opening the line up and heading for the rocks far below; so Ramon would unhook it and throw it out, I guess to die. That's always tough. So that took care of another 15 or so bait fish. 

When we'd been sitting in one position for more than about 10 minutes or so, Ramon would motion to bring up bait so we could move. He might have moved us 20 feet away from the previous area, or maybe we'd drifted, or no one really knew why, he just sensed that we needed to leave that spot. It always worked. Jim, Alex, or even Ramon himself would hook on a mackerel and in moments have a bite...not necessarily a fish, but definitely a bite.

At one point, Ramon noticed that the lines on Jim and Alex's poles kept breaking. He checked it all out and announced linea vieja (old line). With no hook and no weight on the 40-lb. test that comprised the main line on the reel -- as opposed to the lead, which was 80-lb. test -- he grabbed handfuls and circled his wrists, taking off the first 100 feet from each reel to expose fresh line. He admonished us in Spanish that line should only be used for one year, not five, as my two fisherman compadres had admitted. Then he proceeded to start yelling to all of his vecinos, or neighbors (figuratively and literally), in surrounding boats how these idiot gringos were using old line, aaahaahaaaa! I didn't understand a lot because Mexicans speak very fast, but I did hear plenty of "estupidos" and deriding gesticulations. Jim whispered to me as we sat watching from a spot on the bow that the captain's reasoning was not sound. Ramon was assuming we fished all year and had been using this same line for five years going. Fact is, if we made it to Loreto one time per year, we'd be lucky, and that comes to about five times total of using the line. Simple misunderstanding, but a lot of flack. Furthermore, the line may have actually been seen by Ramon, the true expert in the bunch, to be somewhat brittle. Additionally, we had indeed already caught four yellow tail on that mala linea vieja.... Out at sea, you just let a lot of things go.

I was getting disgusted and bored. The sun was so high, it was no longer following my feet around, the guys were having all the fun, and so what was I doing? Nothing. I said to Jim impulsively,

"Okay, let me do this for a minute, eh?" There wasn't much happening, so I risked the assumption that I'd just be holding the pole and pretending; or maybe feel the ecstatic wheeeez of the line as some invisible creature grabbed my mackerel and ripped it away, just to disappear and leave me excited, arched forward and exhausted from my one minute of fame.

"Oh sure, of course." Jim carefully handed me the short pole with a nice, lively new mackerel on it, watching me carefully. I took the pole and held it awhile, easily. Even the mackerel pulled a little and it seemed somewhat heavy as the little bait fish traveled deeper and deeper. Eventually Jim, knowing I am very much my own person, decided all was well and turned his midday attention elsewhere. I wasn't falling asleep or anything, but my lax expectations left me without that edge of adrenaline sitting by the entrance to my veins just, you know, just in case. Big mistake.

Without warning, the pole, in a clean second, almost slipped from my hands and slammed into the side of a metal rod holding up the overhead shade awning and knocked one end over. I came alive and grabbed on harder. The pole was okay, but my body and mind were reeling in cortisol-filled shock. Suddenly, there was no movement anymore. Something had bit and then gone a -- whoaaaa, back on, "he's back on the line," I yelled, a little frightened yet exhilarated. The line was flying off of the rod and

pulling to the left. Ramon silently watched. I really felt he was laughing at me -- or maybe just with me. Jim and Alex fell over each other to come hold my small body back and strap on a cup (the fighting belt), but before they could get to me even to help out, I was already losing my grip on the rod, back arching forward again, the capless butt of the pole sticking into my groin area painfully, and anxiety building with every pulling motion, when the creature would lead me in a different direction. I realized I had no idea what I was doing. Finally, the boys reached me, even though it was only a few seconds. But I was done, now, and screamed out,

"Take this thing, take it, take it...!"

Jim grabbed the pole and I fell back onto the bow, breathing heavily and checking my body for any odd or injurious pulls. The mackerel was most definitely in somebody's stomach right now. After a short, but as always intense, fight, we had our sixth fish of the day. I was proud. That's really silly, but I was actually proud. I'd made my stand.

Now it was high noon, many of the boats had left, and some tourist fishing boats or local Americans started showing up, having gone to other waters on Isle Carmen where the fish really were not biting. What a waste of a wonderful morning, I mused. Ramon motioned us to head back. Being hot and tired, and satisfied with 150 lbs. of yellow tail, along with a couple of small cabrilla, we were quite ready to go home. In addition, the wind was rising and agitating the earlier calm waters.

As the motor and boat picked up speed and headed back into the small town, past all of the big islands and their clear water bays, where the water was still too cold to swim in May, I watched Ramon. Whispering for whatever reason, since Ramon speaks no English, I said to Jim, 

"Look at him. He could be blind up there. He is absolutely motionless." It was a sight to see.

"Yeah, he's taking it all in, sure. The currents, the swells, the navigation, the wind waves coming from the south that he's cutting a diagonal through, see that?... Pretty amazing, huh."

I thought, look at that man, he is truly one with the elements. Clearly, thought was an extraneous, unnecessary burden that he did not indulge in. And he had not even the slightest bit of additional radar or sonar equipment on his old boat to help. Didn't need anything. It was truly extraordinary.

Back at the bay, we watched Ramon cut, gut and fillet the 150 lbs. of fish. Now, with one serving of dense yellow tail being around perhaps 6 to 8 ounces, and we were to be in Loreto for only two more days, obviously most of the catch went, lovingly, to the locals: Ramon, his cousin, a friend, the manager of the homeowners' park, all to feed large families in town. And we still had more protein sitting in Ziplock bags than I'd eaten in months. The great restaurants in town, such as Domingos and La Palapa, would take fish and cook it several different ways for us if we merely brought it to them at dinnertime. But the second night, by candlelight and tequila, we made the lightest preparation -- sashimi -- with the wasabi and soy sauce always stashed away in the house. The whole little private palapa party was an otherworldly affair for the three of us.

***

At the airport, a few American passengers we'd flown with on our way down who must have fished every single day, were wrapping duct tape over huge coolers with hundreds of pounds of fish in them. We chose, rather, to come to Loreto, experience Loreto, and leave Loreto, Baja California Sur, to its own timeless devices for another year.

Author's Note

feel free to review at will. I put in three images: one of the boat captain with fish fish on the cutting table; one of me with the pole arching over; and one of the pre-sunrise. Don't know which one(s) made it through, but they're all great.