EASY BAJA FISHING RUN TO CASTRO'S CAMP

March 11, 2007, Mike Steele, Castro's Camp fishing trip, Erendira, Baja California, Mexico:

I took a group of 5 guys from the Outcasts Fishing Club in San Diego down to Castro's Camp at Erendira this past weekend. I called in our reservations ahead of time and scheduled an easy Saturday-Sunday trip.

We ran down Saturday afternoon for the one-day Baja fishing event in Erendira. Traffic was a bit of a challenge going down since the Baja 250 race was wrapping up. Did not expect to see that much traffic, but it ended in Todos Santos. The toll road was uneventful and the military checkpoint did not check, as usual, any vehicles heading south in Baja. We hit the turnoff point at the 78 Kilometer mark, right turn at the Coyote Cal's Hostel sign, and west we drove to get to Castro's Camp. For those of you new to this Baja area, the fish camp is just outside of town along the one, main dirt road.

Our cabin at Castro's Camp was clean and ready for us. Keep in mind these cabins have 6 beds, stoves, bath and shower, and running refrigerators. We had enough time to find some mesquite wood and start up a fire to grill the steaks later that night.

Our 5:30 a.m. wake-up came fast enough to prep for the launching of the boats. By 6:30 a.m. we were already a mile offshore en route to the fishing spots which are usually 3 to 7 miles offshore.

About 45 minutes later we started checking out the fishing spots. We noticed an unusually large amount of giant Humboldt squid in that area for this time of year, but aren't they everywhere now?

The squid became a pest to the point that we had to move a couple of times to deeper water. The squid tore up quite a few or our plastics and gutted a couple of fish. We fished from 150 to 300 feet of water and caught most of our fish in the 200 foot range. We fished with Capt. "Euwaldo" for solid limits of Red Rock Cod, Salmon Grouper, Lingcod, and various other bottom fish all in the 12 inch to 18 inch range. There are also schools of raging Bonito in the 10 to 15 pound class with some surface thrashing spread over 50 feet in width. We picked up a few of those along the way as well.

All in all, this Baja fishing trip was great. We had a light swell, no wind, and fished in fog for most of the day. The captain used his GPS and Fish Finder to locate the spots and was right on most of the time. If we had no bites, we moved right away.

We had enough fish by 1 p.m. and headed back to the barn. The trailer was waiting for us when we hit shore. By the time we had our truck packed the fish were all filleted and cleaned and ready for ice.

The ride home was uneventful, inspection very professional, tacos in Maneadero tasty, and the border line was a respectable 1 hour long for a Sunday night.

Now I remember why I keep going back there.