moore_rb
Stay Thirsty My Friends
Rolled outa Phx about 11:30 last Saturday- iced, spooled, and gassed- the drive was mellow until about 10 miles out of Ajo when one of the trailer tires went off like a fragmentation grenade. Having dual spares is nice- 20 minutes later and we were back on the road.
Arrived in Penasco about 4:00- dropped the boat at Safe Marina, hit the Malecon for some shrimp for dinner and some Squid for bait, and then out to Las Palmas to check into the condo...
In town for 4 hours, truck hasn't been stolen, nobody has tried to acost us about the Az immigration law, and we haven't been caught in any narco-war cross-fire. Life is good so far-
we turned in early Saturday night.
Sunday morning we arrived at the Marina at 5:30, launched and headed into a 12 inch ground swell with little 6 inch wind bobbers on top of it- kinda bumpy, but not too terrible.
Parked on the 12 and 14 mile reefs and made bait for about 45 minutes- lots of small bass and spot tail grunts on the sabikis. My buddy even pulled up a 12 inch Panama Graysby on cut squid.
From the 14 mile- we ran out to the 18 mile where we found one of Santiago's charter boats already anchored. we made about 10 drifts over the 18 mile reef, and another 5 drifts over the 20 mile with no real action- lots of bass, and lots of wasted bait as the triggers chewed them up.
The drifts were tough with the south wind combined with the new-moon tidal action- keeping the boat below 2 knots on the drift was a chore, and it took a lot of lead to hold bottom.
With all the other boats out there, we decided to look for some open real estate, so we ran to a drop off I charted about a mile and a half north of the 22 where the water goes from 80 feet up to 60 on top... we arrived there as the tide was going slack and we got in several good slow drifts and were finally rewarded when a 25 pound Pinto ate one of the small Calicos we were dangling behind us.
With the memory of going Oh-fer on our last trip still etched in my brain, I set the hook into that fish like I was trying to rip his lips off. A minute later he was brought to gaff and I had him...
After another hour with no more large fish, we decided to run for the sand dunes and try some deeper water. Boy, The bottom structure on that reef looks so awesome on the graph that we thought for sure we'd pick up some fish, but the tide was moving again, and the wind was picking up , and the drift speed was completely unmanageable, so we just let the wind push us to the north end of the reef until we were over 100 feet of water where we filled the rest of the cooler with Calicos and Corvina that we picked up on light tackle and squid.
All in all, not a steller day fishing, but still one to celebrate as I landed my first ever 20+ lb fish from the Sea of Cortez
Monday was a complete blow-out. We ended up putting the boat back on the trailer at 7am, paid our marina fees and spent the rest of the day as touristas. Naturally, when we woke up this morning to head home, the seas were flat calm, but alas- work priorities this afternoon prevented us from blowing off the world and heading back out... there's always next time I guess.
Arrived in Penasco about 4:00- dropped the boat at Safe Marina, hit the Malecon for some shrimp for dinner and some Squid for bait, and then out to Las Palmas to check into the condo...
In town for 4 hours, truck hasn't been stolen, nobody has tried to acost us about the Az immigration law, and we haven't been caught in any narco-war cross-fire. Life is good so far-
we turned in early Saturday night.Sunday morning we arrived at the Marina at 5:30, launched and headed into a 12 inch ground swell with little 6 inch wind bobbers on top of it- kinda bumpy, but not too terrible.
Parked on the 12 and 14 mile reefs and made bait for about 45 minutes- lots of small bass and spot tail grunts on the sabikis. My buddy even pulled up a 12 inch Panama Graysby on cut squid.
From the 14 mile- we ran out to the 18 mile where we found one of Santiago's charter boats already anchored. we made about 10 drifts over the 18 mile reef, and another 5 drifts over the 20 mile with no real action- lots of bass, and lots of wasted bait as the triggers chewed them up.
The drifts were tough with the south wind combined with the new-moon tidal action- keeping the boat below 2 knots on the drift was a chore, and it took a lot of lead to hold bottom.
With all the other boats out there, we decided to look for some open real estate, so we ran to a drop off I charted about a mile and a half north of the 22 where the water goes from 80 feet up to 60 on top... we arrived there as the tide was going slack and we got in several good slow drifts and were finally rewarded when a 25 pound Pinto ate one of the small Calicos we were dangling behind us.
With the memory of going Oh-fer on our last trip still etched in my brain, I set the hook into that fish like I was trying to rip his lips off. A minute later he was brought to gaff and I had him...
After another hour with no more large fish, we decided to run for the sand dunes and try some deeper water. Boy, The bottom structure on that reef looks so awesome on the graph that we thought for sure we'd pick up some fish, but the tide was moving again, and the wind was picking up , and the drift speed was completely unmanageable, so we just let the wind push us to the north end of the reef until we were over 100 feet of water where we filled the rest of the cooler with Calicos and Corvina that we picked up on light tackle and squid.
All in all, not a steller day fishing, but still one to celebrate as I landed my first ever 20+ lb fish from the Sea of Cortez
Monday was a complete blow-out. We ended up putting the boat back on the trailer at 7am, paid our marina fees and spent the rest of the day as touristas. Naturally, when we woke up this morning to head home, the seas were flat calm, but alas- work priorities this afternoon prevented us from blowing off the world and heading back out... there's always next time I guess.
