FISHING TRIP TO HOTEL PLAYA DEL SOL AT EAST CAPE

Dec. 11-12, 2005, Louie Prieto, East Cape, Baja California, Mexico Sportfishing:

I fished at East Cape, Mexico, with Ed Shubin out of Hotel Playa Del Sol on the cruiser Suzie T.

The Hotel Playa Del Sol seemed pretty full but we were the only fisherman in the whole place. Turns out that this is the windsurfing capital of Baja during December and parts of January. Not a good first sign. Wind was blowing throughout the night at about 10 m.p.h. and we were greeted to a spectacular sunrise.

The wind was not too bad, but as we headed north and rounded Punta Pescadero, fishing conditions got bad as we had 4-6 foot swells and whitecaps. The boat was seaworthy enough and we made a sharp right turn just past the point to an area known as the "Shark Buoy" which looked like a ball of paper mache and was sitting about 10-15 miles offshore.

We had bought 20 Mackerel at 2 bucks a pop and the first ones that hit the water were instant dorado and when I say instant it is no exaggeration. This buoy was just loaded with Dodos from 8-10 pounds on up to 40 pounds:

On day 1 we managed to catch 15 fish up to about 20 pounds. We went through those 20 macks pretty quick. We also saw 3 Striped Marlin and we hooked a Mako we estimated to be in the 100 pound category. Conditions really deteriorated and we headed in at 11 a.m. with a boat load of fish.

I fished the surf between Hotels Playa Del Sol and Palmas De Cortez just before dark for a nice Sierra and one small Cortez Barracuda on a Krocodile.

Fishing on day 2 started with less wind but that was short lived as we headed in the same direction and conditions seemed worse than the day before so we trolled close to shore and had 2 missed hookups on slow trolled Macks. There were Dorado in the area as another boat fishing the day before did pretty good slow trolling around Punta Pescadero. I kept looking at the horizon and it looked like it was laying down and skipper Eduardo said let's go to the Shark Buoy. Turned out to be an excellent decision as the Dorado were even more aggressive and averaged closer to 15-20 pounds.

Ed's biggest fish went 37 pounds on a pretty accurate digital scale. I lost one at the boat at least that big due to some bad "gaffsmanship" not to mention the boat just having a bad gaff. These guys were swinging and missing more times than I could count. The Captain was pretty knowledgeable with regards to navigating and deckhand Antonio was pretty good as well but poor gaffing techniques is a pretty common occurrence in the Baja.

Also, these Dorado seemed to be supercharged and would only jump on occasion, fighting almost like Yellows. Really strong fish, and I've caught my fair share throughout my fishing lifetime, 38 years.

In addition to live bait I also hooked up skipping chrome jigs up top. It was awesome to see them jump out and fight for the lure. We also saw a couple more Marlin on the way out and again on the way in. We stayed away from them as we wanted Dorado or Wahoo which were also in the area the week before. In fact I was trolling a bright Pink Buzz Bomb and got nailed on the way back but he jumped off before I could set the hook. Great two days of fishing.

Final count for 2 days was 27 Dorado.

We had a late flight the following day and I managed another sierra and a nice Jack Crevalle on a Krocodile fishing the sand points to the north of our hotel the morning of our departure.

Wind was up in the afternoon all 4 days we were there, but the mornings are fishable. All in all we had a great time.