PHOTO 1: The hated ones! Pelicans lining up at the buffet!

PHOTO 2: Waiting below if you can just away from the birds! Lemons into lemonade?

PHOTO 3: Some of the crank baits and swim baits you can use to get below the surface and away from pesky birds.

BIRDS BE GONE

Originally published in Western Outdoor News the Week of April 22, 2009

We were shivering as we turned the corner and out of the cove in the early morning light. It was chilly. Brrrrrrr….I looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy with all the layers of clothing I was wearing.

My answer to not having a heavy jacket here in Mexico is to pile layer upon layer of shirts on. I had on one medium t-shirt; a large t-shirt; an XL flannel shirt and a big windbreaker over all of that. I looked like I’d raided a second hand store.

But these spring mornings before the sun comes up can get cold on the water, even down here in sunny Baja. And it was breezy too. No, I take it back, it was windy. Even in the light of dawn, I could already see dust devils and clouds of dust and haze rising as I looked back towards the land. I throttled up on the Honda outboard and hunkered forward while pulling up my collar.

I could already see that past the wind line of the point, we probably we not going to be able to cross the channel today. I guess we could, but it would be a rough wet crossing in the panga.

It looked like most of the fleet came to the same conclusion as I could see other boats opting to fish the rocky shorelines on the lee side of the point to keep out of the wind as much as possible.

The good thing was that there was a lot of bait fish in there. The bad thing was that all the birds knew that too…pelicans, frigates, gulls…the whole Mexican aviary was there on the buffet line. The fact that 30 panga captains were tossing handfuls of sardines into the air to chum fish didn’t help either. It was getting ugly.

Every boat was hooking bird after bird. Most of you have been there if you’ve spent any time on the water. Almost every bait that hit the water with a hook in it got bulls-eyed. We got a few cabrilla (Mexican seabass) but by our 5th pelican, that was it.

The last thing I had thrown into my tackle case that morning was my little plastic box of crank baits. Generically known as Rapalas, these are generally hard-bodied fish shaped lures that have a plastic or metal “lip” on them. This lip causes them to dive when cast and retrieved or slow trolled. Bigger the lip, the deeper the dive.

Many a fishing trip has been saved by having a crank bait aboard. Often, they catch the largest fish of the day. When trolling, you don’t go through as much bait and you also cover a lot more water too. This increases your hook-up odds!

Today, they saved our sanity.

By using the smaller 4-inch sized baits, and trolling them, we resolved our bird issue. I used models that had small the medium lips. I didn’t want them to dive too deep. If they dive too deep, they’d get hung up in the rocks. That surely happened several times so you have to be careful.

But, when fishing structure and slow trolling like this, you want to get as close to the structure as possible. That’s where all these Mexican rockfish like snapper, pargo, cabrilla, etc. lurk waiting to ambush a bait swimming by. The strike, even from a smaller fish, can be ferocious as it grabs and attempts to get back to its hole.

It’s a lot like jig fishing or bait fishing in the rocks. If you don’t lose the occasional rig, you’re not close enough to the bottom. It’s a given you’ll lose a few. But, whoever is driving the boat needs to keep an eye on the depths lest you wipe out a whole tackle box of lures before too long.

The patterns (and some of the are incredibly realistic these days) were generally similar to the sardine baits we were using for chum. Silver side with a darker blue, black or purple dorsal ridge. One strange pattern that seems to work tremendously, however, even when I’ve fished other parts of the Sea of Cortez is a rainbow trout pattern. Don’t ask me why. It’s just deadly!

But we got fish-after-fish and often with double hookups when others were still dodging birds. The lures run just deep enough below the surface so the birds can’t get to them. But, they run deep enough that the predatory fish can’t resist them.

Keep some in your tackle at all times. You just never know! We hit a couple of stops where were just could not stop whatever hit the lures. And I know it wasn’t rocks! Rocks don’t swim away!



That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.

PHOTO 1: The tranquil La Paz Malecon waterfront. Pretty much peaceful as ever. 1000 miles away from what's happening up north. I did see some violence last week...two people arguing over a parking space in front of a popular fish taco stand...

BETTER TO LIGHT ONE CANDLE?

Originally published the week of April 7, 2009 in Western Outdoor News


This is your friendly public service announcement.

Obviously, unless you’ve lived on another planet or been in an isolation booth the last 6 months, you’ve heard about the crime issues faced in Mexico. It’s seemingly in every newspaper. CNN runs specials. The internet carries every act of violence and zips it around the planet to more people in shorter time than it takes me to type this sentence.

However, speed does not always equate with clarity. Sensationalism often trumps good accurate reporting.

Our own modern high-tech brains are only as focused as our dwindling attention spans. We blackberry, blog and twitter now. We get our dose of news in 100-word headlines with not much content. We can barely absorb the 6 o’clock news with nothing more taxing to our busy day than 20-second sound bites. We get headlines from talking heads with only a modicum of facts used as filler between the next 20-second-soundbite/headline. I know. I spent many years as a reporter.

Even here in this column, the limits of space prevent more than a smidgen of comment about what’s going on in Mexico and the media-driven perceptions. So, I’m guilty as well. But, I could write a thesis paper on what I know and what I think about the current crime situation.

But, suffice to say, there is indeed a problem.

Yes, it is serious.

No, it’s not all over Mexico

It’s not even all over Baja.

What a lot of folks don’t realize, even frequent long-time Baja visitors, is that Baja is 2 separate states…Baja Norte (Northern Baja) and Baja Sur (Southern Baja). Ensenada is the capital of the former and La Paz is the capital of the latter.

Ninety-nine percent of the violent crime is along the border. It’s not even ALL of northern Baja. Surprise, it’s not even all of Tijuana!
However, Baja Sur wants to keep as much of the ugly stuff out of it’s turf. It’s like Oregon implementing strategies to keep tainted California fruit from coming across.

So, Baja Sur has implemented an extensive three-pronged plan to hopefully keep the bad guys out. It might be like barring the gate when the fox is already in the henhouse, but it’s like that saying “better to light one candle than curse the darkness.”

The moves are meant to keep the barbarians outside the city walls, but also to hopefully instill confidence in locals and travelers that the government is trying. It’s surely got a catchy name/motto titled “Baja California Sur, Estado Seguro.” (Baja Sur, the Safe State). Like Missouri…the “Can Do” state or something like that.

What’s involved is an extensive search and i.d. program at three major areas of entry to the state involving land, sea, and air. . One is at San Ignacio near the border with Northern Baja along the Transpeninsular Highway. The other has been implemented at the busy Cabo Airport.

The third is at the ferry terminal in La Paz to check motorists coming by boat from Sinaloa, home of the notorious Sinaloan drug cartels.

Essentially, both locals and tourists must produce extensive i.d., vehicle registration and are subject to being photographed and fingerprinted. While so far, most tourists have experienced very few problems or been detained, others have been surprised and angered by the searches that can take an hour-or-more. The process is extensive and intrusive.

I applaud the efforts. They are well-intentioned. Mexico needs to clamp down on the crime and it also needs to assure it’s citizens and it’s visitors that it’s safe to travel.

But, I’m not sure how effective this will be. Mexico is caught between a rock and a hard place.

If you’ve ever traveled in other countries, many other nations are used to seeing police presence and searches are not uncommon. Police with guns are normal.

Gringos don’t like being searched. We’re all about “personal space” and we’re really uncomfortable when it’s violated. We don’t like our bags being opened or people poking in our cars. Heck, we surely hate taking our shoes off at the airport, gringos surely aren’t going to like being photographed and fingerprinted just to come down to fish, swim and romp in margaritaville. Oh the indignity. Americans don’t like being touched.

They are also really uncomfortable seeing people…even legit police and army guys…holding automatic weapons. I’ve been searched so many times in 15 years it’s not big deal. I laugh. They laugh. They’re just doing their job. Tourists don’t like that.

So, will this really help keep the tourists coming?

On the other side, with thousands of people traveling in and out of Southern Baja daily, how effective is this? I don’t think they have the resources to detain, search, photo and fingerprint everyone. And so far, the searches have basically turned up car thieves and minor bad guys.

But, they’re trying. I like that they’ve lit a candle. I just hope I’m not in a hurry when I get stopped and I’m having a “good hair” day when I get photographed.



Many thanks to my amigo Pete Thomas of the Los Angeles Times who has written a great sports and outdoor column for years and for keeping us posted and who has a great blog about all this: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/03/many-arent-awar.html


That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.