Yeah, And Monkey's Will Fly Out of My Butt

[Zed]

East Cape, BCS, MEX: 14NOV - 21NOV07

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If I had been predicting my trip and said I would have 8 straight days of low winds and good paddling conditions, and the hotel would be almost empty, I would qualify my prediction with: "Yeah, and monkey's will fly out of my butt!"

14NOV
Arrived at Punta Colorada.
Light winds, flat and hot.

While walking to my room, I missed being puked upon by 10' and maybe 3 seconds.


The culprit.


Some yaks available for rent.


Of course, given a choice, I would take the lime green one in honor of the Con Limon back home.

15NOV
Launched by 0700 and paddled to the N, outside of Pta Colorada.

Self-portrait.


First fish were triggerfish.




Then a Bulls-eye puffer.


I apparently found a rock or high-spot as I had fast fishing and unfortunately I failed to take pix of 1 of 2 leopard groupers and 1 ribera cabrilla (panama graysby). Also, I am supplying this pic of a giant needlefish. Most I caught were 3-4 feet long and evil evil evil. I did not take any pix of them on the water.


Count:
12+ triggers
5 needlfish
2 leopard grouper
1 ribera cabrilla
1 bulls-eye puffer

7 miles covered

16NOV
Paddled to the E, out toward Punta Arena.


This may be one of the best spots on the globe for shore fishing. Blue water butts up against this point sometimes well w/in casting range. 100# yft have been caught from shore here.

I stayed w/in the green water boundary and had some fun inshore fishing. Out in the blue, I was yo-yoing a heavy jig, and from what seemed to be right under my yak, a dorado darted out and hit the jig right at the yak and just swam away lazily. I kept throwing the jig, but no dice. I switched to another rig and tack and threw a crankbait on my bass rig. 3rd cast and I'm on and it's a leaper.

I was so amazed that I hooked it, I forgot I had another rig out bouncing on the bottom. The dorado wrapped the other rig, so I cut it off and tied off the loose end, and continued fighting the dodo on light gear. Back at the yak, several minutes later, the dodo wrapped the other line again, but this time a triggerfish had taken the other jig, so I had to cut that one free. The dorado was GOING to be landed!




Green jack.

Ladyfish.


Porcupine fish.


The wind had come up and I was 5 miles from home. It was right on the verge of being too ugly to paddle. The wind was quartering from the stbd. and the waves were 2'-4' close-period wind slop, dumping buckets into my lap, over and over. Needless to say it was a brutal paddle. It hurt me.

Count:
5 triggers
2 Needlefish
3 Porcupinefish
1 Dorado
2 Green jack
1 Ladyfish

Saw sea turtles, manta rays, roosterfish, African pompano, barred pargo swimming next to me.

9 miles

17NOV
Beautiful sunrises.


Decided to not fight the wind so I went N again, off Pta Colorada. I slow trolled the inshore with plugs and tossed various lures to well N of the point for nothing more than a small bonito.


I killed it for bait and made 4 bait strips to troll out in the blue. The wind had turned over the water making the inshore cooler and soupier. I made a hard R and went out until I found clean blue water.

Once I found good water I rigged a strip, and tossed it out. I paddled, looking over my shoulder to judge the speed I needed versus the distance out the strip needed to be to make it skip. Well, I couldn't keep straight, and my seat and rocket launcher was making a creaking, groaning noise. Well I never got the strip to skip. The dorado wanted the strips. I went 3-4 on dorado using bonito strips.


Count:
1 bonito
3 dorado

6 miles

Saw a pod of 4 sperm whales.

18NOV
The resort



I hit the wall. I had a hard time motivating after the full-speed beat-down I received over the last 3 days, so I stayed in-shore and fished close. It was windier in the AM, so it was ok to stay close. No regrets at all for the easy day.

Count:
1 Green jack
3 Triggerfish
1 puffer
3 Needlefish
1 Porcupinefish

4 miles

19NOV
4 days down, 2 to go. Already I'm ahead. I booked the trip with extra days that I would concede to wind. I figured 4 out of 6 fish days would be a safe bet. But there's only 2 left, so I better make the best of it.

Out E, toward Pta Arena. Launched at 0600. On the commute out I came across a current break with some odd critters in it. I never got close enough to identify them, but I am pretty sure they were Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola).


Outside the point, I didn't have as good of fishing as when I was out before. Just a bit slower. My turnaround time came and I was well down the point, far from home. I knew the wind would build and every minute drifting down the point was maybe 5+ I would have to paddle against the current and wind. But, about another 200yds down there was some activity out in the blue. I made the call and couldn't help myself to go investigate.

Sidenote: As I launched in the morning, I saw a trawler working out deep. It eventually quit and motored S around the point to anchor up in tighter, in the lee of the point.

Back to the activity. I got closer and I saw it was a current slick, with bunches of dead fish floating in it. It hit me this was probably by-catch shoveled off the deck of that trawler and the odd splashing was still going on in the slick. As I got into the slick I saw that the lazy fish slurping up some of the dead by-catch (small blennies and gobies) were 20-40# yellowfin tuna. They just came up and slurped the dead fish w/o a care. I was 4' away from slow-motion tuna feeding. I threw everything I had, and I got no interest from the tuna. I had not caught a bonito yet that day so I had no strip bait either, so I just watched in awe.

Sierra mack.


Hawkfish.


Count:
9 needlefish (2 kinds)
3 ladyfish
2 bonito (on the commute home)
2 sierra mackerel
1 giant hawkfish
1 trigger
1 porcupinefish

10 miles

Saw free-swimming dorado, flipping manta ray, greyhounding marlin.

20NOV
Last fish day. Went out to Pta Arena again. Launched at 0600.
Trawler was working again, so I had delusions of tuna. On the way out I even got a couple bonito so I was ready.


But of course, things change. I could not find any evidence, so I just went into fishing the area for the usual inshore stuff and one dorado on a drifted strip of bonito.

A little later the wind and current came together and a click formed at the boundary between green and blue water. I paddled down to it and found it was just a slick with some bubbles; no activity. I floated around and fished for very little. Finally I investigated one of the bubbles that had a bluish tint, thinking it was a by-the-wind sailor. No, it turned out to be a Portuguese Man of War (Blue-bottles in AUS) about 2" long in total. Then I see that nearly all the bubbles in this slick were jellyfish and I'm surrounded in this slick by hundreds of PMOW. I was dumbstruck. I didn't move or paddle out, I just stared at them all around me trying to get a good shot.


That was not a good shot. (I remember Holy Mackerel has a great shot.) But it's hard to shoot a small dangerous target up close, while bobbing on my yak. Anyway I finally decided to get out of there since my ass was sitting in water thanks to the scuppers. As I paddled away 2 popped up in my footwell, thru the scupper. It took a little coaxing to get them back out since the Prowler 15 footwells don't drain very well. I would get them over the scupper using my knife point and start paddling and they would circle the hole like a floater going down the drain and disappear, and I would let up paddling and one would pop back in. It was funny if it wasn't my first experience with these things.

Back to fishing, I stayed out longer since it was my last day, but the afternoon winds were coming up so I took a more N tack before making the leg W back to the beach, to have a better angle.

Count:
5 needlefish
1 puffer
4 triggerfish
1 dorado
2 sierra
3 bonito
3 ladyfish
1 porcupinefish

12 miles

Saw dolphins, huge manta ray, jumping marlin.

Back at the beach, I was taking my seat off the yak to get it dry to pack, and I noticed a couple smashed blue jellyfish between my seat and the deck of the yak. YIKES! I developed some narrow puffy welts on my shins, but I never felt anything.

Most of my down time was spent under this palapa (Pic facing N toward Pta Colorada).


Like this, except the ice cold Pacifico was off the shot to the R (pic facing E toward Pta Arena).


Some local wildlife.





My steed for the week and up toward Pta Colorada.


Pinto is top dog, but the local pigs beat him down.


My last night there they had Thanksgiving Dinner for us but we had to catch our own turkey, first. I went hungry.




In conclusion this trip was pretty epic. I had goals, but my goals were lofty, as goals should be. I wanted a big tuna (big being relative, since 5# would be easy to beat) and I wanted a wahoo. I didn't see any 'hoo, but I saw some amazing tuna behavior. The weather was amazing. My arrival day and departure day were both flat and hot, and the 6 days in between were all nice with prohibitive winds only my second day after noon, when I was out at Pta Arena that first time. Even the afternoons were only slightly white-capped, and I have certainly launched in worse here in SoCal.


Thanks for reading. And thanks to CaboJohn for the motivational push and the inspiration for the title.

Z