San Quintin - Zero Staurday to Hero on Sunday

[Denis_Ruso]

Just got back last night from my first Baja fishing trip and I have to say my time down south was not wasted, this is beautiful area with the nicest people I've come across in a long time.

Saturday.
Woke up bright and early at 4:30 Am, drove out to launch (second one on the water for the San Quintin Halibut Tournament). Fished the croc, fished the swimbait. Nothing... Paddled over to the other side of the bay in windy and surgy conditions and made some bait. 2 small greenies and 2 small smelt. I tied off to a buoy for the clam cages. Dropped a greenie down to the bottom on a dropper loop and fished a swim bait. My 40 lb setup goes BENDO!! Screeming reel, tugging my kayak and dragging it over the clam cages. I reel up my swimbait and grab the rod and flip it in gear. IM FEELING headshakes and this fish feels heavy 25-30 lbs. In my mind I am preparing to gaff this Halibut! If I land this fish I won the tournament! 20 minutes later, arms tired I am seeing color... I wing hooked a 25 lb bat ray.

Conditions were getting worse so I paddled back to the middle of the channel and dropped my last greenie down. Tiny tug on my 40 lb setup yields an 8" sandbass. Time to paddle in and get lunch around 11am. Launched back out in the bay after lunch for 2 hours. Not a single bite, at least I'm going fishing on boat tomorrow. Turns out I was the only one that caught any fish in the tournament.

That night some of the other fishermen bought a giant sack of oysters and clams and treated all of us. Good eating!!

SUNDAY!!!!

Up bright and early, packed and ready to go. We show up at the dock at 5AM. We launched on a cruiser rather then a panga which was nice to keep the wind off us. We launched with Eddie from Garcias pangas. GREAT CAPTAIN!

Tried to make bait in the bay for an hour... 3 smelt and a lizard fish... :/ bad start. Then Eddie proceeded to take us from reef to reef outside of the bay. Great sandbass and Red Snapper fishing 3-4 lb range on EVERY drop with squid in 80 ft of water. Loaded up the cooler with 70-80 fish (white fish, rockfish, snapper, sandbass) and moved to deeper water. On to 120 ft of water my dads pole bends hard bottom fishing with a 16 oz leadhead and a 10 inch swimbait on the real up. After 15 minute fight, he hooked a 20# Yellooooowtail on friggin leadhead! (basically ling cod fishing). I threw the iron for a bit right after that... not a bite.

Went to about 180 ft to try out some ling cod fishing.. No luck. Just a bunch more rockfish and snapper. We headed back in since we had to get on the road for the long drive.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!
One of the regulars there JOE, also chartered a Panga that morning and fished in the bay on the same exact spot where we had kayak fished the day before. Except he landed a 60-70 lb Black seabass on a 7 in inch lizard fish! If only the tournament was a day later .