SOLO SMALL BOAT FISHING ON BAJA'S REMOTE PACIFIC BANKS

Oct. 22, 2006, Bill Erhardt, Puerto Lopez Mateos, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

Last week on a break between visitors from the States I towed my boat Soledad from Loreto to Puerto Lopez Mateos at Magdalena Bay on the Pacific coast of Baja and took two days fishing on the Pacific banks that were not really there.

Both days I fished alone on a reef 42 to 50 miles out of Puerto Lopez Mateos due west of Magdalena Bay's Boca de Soledad.

On Tuesday it was a moderately rough, but dry, trip from the boca with 3 to 4 foot seas on the nose. On the reef there were schools of small yellowfin tuna and dorado. Five and a half hours of trolling yielded 13 yellowfin, 15 to 25 pounds, a couple of small dorado and one wahoo. The trip back to port was bumpy but fast and dry with a tailwind of 10 knots.

Fishing on Wednesday began with a northwest wind of 10 knots or so and 4 to 5 foot seas which provided some spray on a two-and-a-half hour trip to the bank. The wind picked up a little throughout the morning and allowed dry trolling only downwind or into the wind. Two hours of fishing produced only 5 small yellowfin tuna, enough. While I was on the bank the wind backed around to the north and the trip back to port was long and wet.

There were no other sportfishing boats on the bank either day, only the long range boats Shogun, Royal Polaris, and Qualifier 105. As I watched the guys standing shoulder to shoulder along the rails, jigging for bottom fish and little yellowfin and trying to keep their lines untangled I wondered how much money they were being paid to do that. I imagine that they were wondering what that fool was doing trolling alone in his little boat 50 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean off Baja California. To each his own.

I saw no marlin either day and had no marlin strikes.

The water offshore of Magdalena Bay was clear and blue and the surface temperature was 80 to 81 degrees, about 4 degrees cooler than two weeks earlier.

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from Magdalena Bay and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for Magdalena Bay may be found at Mexfish.com's main Magdalena Bay page.