Longtime friends Tim Korby and Gary Elfering traveled from Minnesota to join me for 3 days of fishing in the Sea of Cortez on my 23' Wellcraft "Murphy Girl". With the new moon the first day of fishing (Sunday), we expected the strong currents would give us problems fishing the deep reefs. We had to make the decision on whether to fish Penasco or trailer the boat south to Puerto Lobos. The weather forecast called for calm seas on Sunday and Monday, followed by strong winds on Tuesday and Wednesday. I decided to fish Penasco first with hopes of catching a mixed bag of white sea bass and leopard grouper. We launched from Safe Marina a bit after 7 am on Sunday and traveled 12 miles south to make bait. We managed to catch 8 sardines and a good number of small 6 to 8 inch pacific mackerel, sometimes referred to as "candy macs". Tim drove the boat while I got our lines ready. Once we reached the mark, each of us tried a different bait. One line had a 16 oz chrome diamond jig, one had a live mackerel, and the last had a dead sardine. I expected that we would get bites right away and was disappointed when we only had a red snapper in the box after an hour of fishing. We could see nothing on the sonar and it was obvious that the large white sea bass we had caught here since February had left. We decided to travel a few miles east to another mark. At that stop, we managed to catch a few large gold spots, but that was it. With high tide approaching in about an hour, I decided to return to the first location. As soon as we arrived, we could see fish on the sonar. Both Gary and Tim were quickly hooked up with nice fish. Tim landed a nice 30 pound Pinto and Gary caught a 20 pound Leopard Grouper. The fast bite continued for about an hour with 4 more Leopard Grouper before turning cold again. Throughout the day we were bothered by pesky, bait-stealing fish. I thought these must by small goldspots, but that changed when we caught the first of two large Cutlassfish and sliced it up for bait. The Cutlassfish had half of a small mackerel in its stomach. These long skinny fish have long fangs that can slice a mackerel in two, but they have narrow mouths that are very hard to hook. We managed to catch a dozen or so more gold spots before calling it a day. The white sea bass were no where to be found.
On Monday, we trailered the boat to Puerto Lobos to try our luck at Yellowtail and Grouper. Arturo Junior launched as at about 9 am and we traveled about 4 miles straight out from the lighthouse. Right away we could see bunches of fish suspended off the bottom in about 170 feet of water. We rigged up 3 different 4 to 8 ounce chrome jigs and started catching yellowtail even before our jigs reached the bottom. Gary started out with the hot lure, so both Tim and I switched to 8 oz diamond jigs too. Pretty soon we were hooked up with the first of many triples. The fishing was hot and heavy for a couple hours. As I've heard others say, "the yellowtail were pretty much jumping in the boat". Each time we had one on the line, another 2 or 3 would follow it right up to the boat. We watched in amazement as other yellowtail would swim under and around the boat looking for our next offering. These were some of the most aggressive fish I have ever encountered. Most were about 10 pounds, but we each caught a few larger ones at 20 pounds or more. At noon we had caught about 40 yellowtail and decided it was time to try other locations for grouper. We tried both live bait and jigs, but found no takers other than a few gold spots.
The forecast for Thursday looked promising. It showed that the northwest wind and rolling swells would die down in the afternoon. I decided to spend our last day at the Caballo looking for the elusive white sea bass and grouper. The drift was perfect and we had a bunch of candy macs and sand bass. We fished hard all day long and only managed to catch one 25 pound Pinto, a 30 pound White Sea Bass, and about a dozen gold spots. The forecast was very wrong; however, as the wind kept building all day. When we decided to leave at 3 pm, we had to travel 25 miles headlong into stiff 4 to 6 footers. The 3 of us took our licking and were very happy to arrive ashore about 1.5 hours later.
My friends and their wives really enjoyed their time in Rocky Point. It was our third trip together since 2005. These are the only photos I have so far. I will post more if my friends ever send me theirs. I am not sure when I'll be fishing again, most likely May 3rd (weather permitting).
