The following days were absolutely spectacular. The wind never rose above 5mph for the next 4 days until Friday where we had about 3 hours of 10-20 mph in the afternoon with glassy conditions in the morning and the evening. The mornings would always consist of fishing and the afternoons would consist of cooking or eating at the restaurant with the land owner Luis.
Getting off the water on Sunday, we had a fire drill of grabbing our rods and running towards jumping mullet with a 30 lb roosterfish comb following them in 2 ft of water.
On Monday we fished and dove Punta Bufeo. We did both an early morning session followed by a sunset session. My buddy lost a hook to a 10 lb Cabrilla. I landed my first hogfish followed by a 2nd hogfish. A friend of mine who is a newbie fisherman had the best luck of us all on this day. He landed a 17 inch golden grouper. The fish was photographed and returned promptly to the water. It took some explaining to him on how special this fish actually was. We ended the day with some Cabrilla and a hogfish for dinner. The days total was around 30-40 fish with the majority of them being pesky trigger fish. I also caught my first Jack Crevalle, although very small.
The days after that kind of all blend in together but I will do my best to recap chronologically.
On Tuesday, we fished Alfonsinas and Punta Willard. My friends stayed inside the bay and I went for a lap around the island to the inside of the bay. My friend on his SUP landed a 2 lb Cabrilla and I landed one the same size on a reef I marked on my paddle out. The paddle around the island produced small cabrilla. I did however land a few decent 2 lb cabrilla on the surface iron which was very fun around the other side of the island on the inside of the bay. I met a couple of BWE members on my paddle back through the bay Steve (DoD) and I forget his friends name. They had also seen roosterfish in the area. I made my way back and had lunch and some beers at Alfonsinas. My friends excavated some large whale bones on the shore and were in awe of the skeletal structure of the huge mammals.
Wednesday we intended to rent a Panga from Alfonsinas however we were unfortunate to find out that it had to be arranged in advance and we returned back to camp. We took the kayaks back to Punta Bufeo and fished and dove the coves. We found the cove just past the point had a large number of whale bones which we later found out from Luis that him and his family had to move dead whales from their land one year and they moved 27 whale carcasses to that cove. The storm must have uncovered much of what was buried by the sand over time.
We dove the cove but the visibility was not great.
On Thursday we had arranged Luis's brother Rodrigo to drive down from San Felipe and take us out fishing on a Panga. IF YOU DO ONE THING ON THIS TRIP, ARRANGE SOME FISHING TIME WITH RODRIGO. JUST WOW! Rodrigo is a wealth of fishing knowledge and really knows what he is doing in those waters. The truck drove right past our tents and we loaded up into the panga with our fishing and freediving gear. We launched the panga right in front of camp and were on our way to the islands.
We fished many reefs and all seemed barren of life. Unfortunately, we weren't having much luck and asked Rodrigo to take us to a diving spot near the island. During our move
we saw a spectacular sight of 150 lb marlin jumping clean out of the water! This was just what we needed on a hot day. The water was 88 degrees. The visibility was spotty from 5 ft to a whopping 25 ft in spots. This was my favorite part of the trip. We saw triggerfish, hogfish, parrotfish, angelfish, cabrilla, damselfish, and many more. The island was full of life. We even got to shoot a nice 5 lb cabrilla.
Getting out of the water and moving farther we spotted a large area of baitfish. The baitfish were jumping out of the water but nothing was chasing them. We fished a football field long baitschool but the bite was very slow.... until it wasn't. A friend of mine landed a nice 8 lb Pargo, and that's when the sierra rolled in. We kept working the bait school and started hooking a few sierra. I got bit clean off on 50 lb fluorocarbon leader. Those sierra teeth are no joke. I couldn't believe it. We landed a few sierra and the bite slowed. We moved a little shallower as it seemed the bait moved and picked through small cabrilla and triggerfish. That's when Rodrigo hooked and handed off a 30 lb Roosterfish. The Rooster headed right for the prop but with a quick hand off and move of the panga we were able to land the rooster and take some quick photos. The fish was put back in the water and swam off on its own.
We fished a while longer and headed back to shore. Rodrigo fillet our catch of cabrilla, pargo and sierra right on the shore and we took out Sierra to the restaurant for dinner.
Friday we were exhausted from going non-stop since we got there and took our time in the morning. We got our scuba gear ready and dove Punta Bufeo from out kayaks. The diving was really amazing. We saw a few big Hogfish and Pargo hiding out in the rocks along with a lot of other life. It was so easy to dive without a wetsuit and it made for long and comfortable dive. I dove my longest dive at 84 minutes that's almost an hour and half exploring boulders and the micro life. Followed by another dive at about an hour.
Friday night was for packing and Saturday morning was for leaving.
Friday night we slept outside and enjoyed the view of a lightning storm over a glassy Sea of Cortez with nearly a full moon to illuminate the landscape and a silhouette of the island.
Heres a short video my buddy edited.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=...&v=hy10huNEU20