I headed down to Rosarito for a week with my family, and made it down south of Ensenada to La Bufadora on Monday to fish with Tony (who I believe is known here as LingLifter).
Crossing the border with one of my daughters in the car and two yaks on the rack, we got sent to "high-tech scanning" so they could x-ray my yaks and make sure I wasn't smuggling anything nasty into Mexico. They also wanted me to open the trunk and I had to explain what my bait tank was. But after a less than 15 minutes delay, we were on our way south.
On Monday, I drove down and met Tony at his place in Punta Banda, put his Outback on my rack, and we drove down the road to La Bufadora. We paid $10 (total for the car, not each) to launch there, which was a safer call than trying to drive my corolla offroad to Arbolitos.
My bait tank's wiring/switch/pump was acting up, but Tony had a fully functional tank. We made a bunch of green macs on the outside edge of the kelp as we headed out from the ramp. (I should say Tony made macs, as it soon proved silly for me to try to fish the sabiki close enough to hand off my fish while he was also pulling them in easily. I would have just gotten in his way).
Tony got the first big hit of the day right near where we were making bait, but it came unpinned. We trolled north, but we didn't end up going far. As I dragged my mac right next to a big rock, my clicker started to sing. I pulled the rod out of the holder, stuck the butt in my waist, and was kind of shocked by how much weight pounded into my gut when I put it into gear. There was a big fish on there.
I was trying to keep from moving too close to the rock, and I am pretty sure the fish got into some kelp, but with the braid I was able to bring it up and then to get a good gaff shot near the collar.
It was my first yellowtail, measuring 36" fork length, and pretty wide, too. Tony proceeded to put one on his yak that measured 35" fork length (but wasn't quite as fat).
I proceeded to hook up with at least four Bonito in the 24" range which also put up great fights. I kept the first one and shook the others.
We were back at Tony's house by 4pm, where I had to fillet my fish to fit it into the cooler I had brought.
It's some mighty tasty fish.
