part 2

this is off our local board. it's not my story, but it's a classic. i'll post the rest when it's up


As we run north to the fishing grounds, which will be crashing with Atun, I lather myself with a bottled concoction that promises to keep me safe from the searing Baja sun. As we arrive and slide up next to the 50 other miscellaneous boats, pangas, cruisers, and other hydro conveyances that arrived before us, I notice one thing. There are bent rods everywhere. The deck hand throws a handful of bait and pins a sardine to the hook I had carefully tied the night before and flips it over the side. I let the bait free spool out in the area where the other bait was thrown and carefully thumb the spool leaving just enough tension to prevent a backlash. I can feel the action of the bait and just as I am getting used to the electric pulsing of the sardine, I feel it. Frantic action of the bait, followed by the absence of electric bait pulse, the line starts to peel from the reel. I am compelled to jerk the rod, but know with the circle hook at the end that this will result in immediate disappointment. So I wait. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Slide the drag forward to the stop and lift the rod. Hook up. The line starts to peel from the reel and I know that I am on as the fish makes the first run. This comes with the realization that it is not a big yellow fin and something smaller. As I bring the fish closer to the boat I realize that it is only a 10 pound Bonita with the heart of a 40 pound yellow fin. He is quickly released and I drop down for another try. Same story, POW, immediate hook up and another Bonita. This is followed by several others, and the realization comes that we are on a wide open cat food bite. Having lost all my cats in the road in years past, I decide to outsmart them. I will put on some weight and get below the Bonita to the large yellow fin that I know are lurking below. 3 ounces ought to get this bait down there below the Boneheads. I send it down and miraculously get through the assault of Boneheads breaking around the boat. As I wait for the big yellow fin to pick up the bait on the way down I watch the line roll off of my favorite Avet 2 speed reel. The blue anodized frame seems to fit nicely with the color of the surrounding sea. Then all of the sudden the line stops. What is this? Maybe the World record yellow fin has just taken my bait and getting ready to make his first run. I wait and there is nothing. What is this, a bottom to a sea where there are tuna biting? Not possible? Back home in the Albacore bite we never hit the bottom with bait. Hmmm. Just as I realize that there is actually a bottom in the Sea of Cortez, where the giant tuna live and the billfish are a nuisance, I feel a little something messing with my friend the sardine. Okay, my lucky day, I’m sure one of those huge black sea bass that I have seen plastered all over the walls of the fishing stores and heard stories of epic battles with 300 pounders, has picked up the bait. So I wait, knowing that a quick jerk of the circle hook will snatch the bait from the monsters’ mouth, I wait. I do bring the action to the attention of the fools who jeered me for running back to the room to retrieve this rod. I then proceed to getting ready to shame these fools with setting the hook on the world record black sea bass and as I tension the rod I forget one thing. The special concoction that is protecting me from the sun has also reduced the friction on the forearm where I wedge this fish killer that some call a rod. As I pull and watch the rod bend with the weight of the monster of the deep, I feel the slipping of the rod from under my forearm. I watch in amazement as the rod takes flight into the morning air. I realize that no part of my body is touching my favorite rod as it vaults through the air with my new Avet 2 speed reel attached. I am also aware that the fish on the other end is a world record fish. I, with much less grace than the rod, launch myself into the air in pursuit of the rod and the world record fish. At 0930 hours on 16August, 2007, I successfully achieved weightlessness over the Sea of Cortez. Not so much can be said for my trusty rod with the Avet 2 speed reel, which is laden with 300 pounds of black sea bass and approaching terminal velocity as it splashes down into the deep blue water.
To be continued…