REEL STORIES : Finding Yellowtail South of the Border Is an Adventure

They rested under what shade they could find, weary from a week’s fishing under a blazing sun in the bountiful Midriff section of the Sea of Cortez. Partially packed, they were ready to go home.

Then came the cry: “Yellowtail on the beach!”

A large school had moved in to feed not more than 40 yards from shore. Gulls and terns dove for the small fish the yellowtail had chased to the surface. The powerful jacks crashed the surface after the bait fish and the fishermen scrambled to try to catch one.

Reels were hastily screwed onto rods. Lures were unpacked and tied carelessly. The fishermen, excited at the rare chance of landing a yellowtail from shore, waded into waters they knew were teeming with small stingrays.

Dave King, 28, a Vista resident who had been resting in his tent, was the only one to hook up.

“I was in there laying down with a splitting headache when I heard someone yell ‘yellowtail!’ So I ran out and grabbed the first rod I saw and casted out,” he said.

Waist-deep in the surf, King’s rod bent almost in half and his reel screamed as the powerful fish raced up the Baja coastline. He tried to turn its head and regain some line when it shifted direction and charged. The line slackened and the fish shook the hook from its mouth, practically at King’s feet.

Suddenly, the school was gone and no fish had been landed.

King grumbling about what went wrong, slipped back into his tent to continue his siesta .

Others, reluctant to accept the fact that the fish had moved on, casted again and again before finally returning to their shady rests. Still others went back to preparing for the next morning’s departure.

King and companions Larry Price and Dennis Blaney were among 12 groups on this otherwise deserted stretch of sandy beach, camped about 10 miles south of Bahia de Los Angeles, a town of 500. They were strangers a week before, but came here together.

Ken Stewart, 38, a one-time plumber, brought them here as part of a tour package.

“It is a slower pace,” Stewart admits to his Mexican life style. “Once you leave Ensenada there’s not even a traffic light until you reach (Ciudad) Constitucion (a few hundred miles south of here), and there’s no policeman waiting behind every bush to give you a ticket for going too slow or too fast.”

Stewart runs fishing caravans, offering trips ranging from his four-day panga trips to San Quintin to the 30-day tow-your-boat venture to Cabo San Lucas to the 40-day trek to Alaska, offered for the first time next July.

“Someone like Ken, he knows the Islands,” said Steve Justus of Ramona, Calif. “You get the optimum time (on the water).”

Stewart said people who go to Baja alone often don’t know where to go and don’t catch as many fish.

“We like to say that when they come down here with us, we speed them up 10 years,” he said. “They learn more (about the area) in one week with us than they would in 10 years coming by themselves.”

Exaggeration or not, it’s obvious from the respect he gets from local fishermen and townspeople that Stewart does know the area. At sea, skippers fishing the Midriff chain regularly page him on the VHF radio to ask his whereabouts. He knows the ledges, the currents, the weather and the nearby islands as well or better than any so-called “Baja expert.”

“He is a good fisherman,” said Raul Espinoza Perez, one of the more experienced and knowledgeable local guides.

At dawn, as the sun slowly transformed a dark sky into a luminescent orange, the fishermen were awake and eager to fish. King, Price and Blaney were backing their boats into the bay. Others sipped coffee while preparing their gear.

Stewart, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he emerged from his trailer, noticed several birds diving for bait off nearby Punta La Gringa.

He pointed and said: “They’re (the birds) working the yellowtail right off that point. . . . If you’re ready I suggest you get out there as soon as possible or they’ll be gone.”

King, Price and Blaney, in an antiquated 14-foot bucket of bolts that was so heavy it was a wonder it floated, were a 100 yards offshore fishing for mackerel to use as bait before the others were in the water. Then they motored slowly to the point and beyond to nearby Smith Island--what would become the week’s two most productive areas.

Others missed what was strictly a dawn yellowtail bite but still managed to catch cabrilla and several species of bottom fish.

Then there were the unfortunates: Those who didn’t bring their own boat but instead had to rely on the pangas ordered in town on the night of arrival. They simply watched the others disappear around the point. They grumbled and gazed out at the horizon for any sign of the pangas while the wind and heat were rapidly rising.

The pangas finally arrived, and like the other fishermen, these late-starters returned with ample catches of cabrilla, trigger fish and several species of bottom fish, but no yellowtail.

Throughout the week, the yellowtail bite got stronger and lasted longer, the caravaners returning at regular intervals to clean, package and store their fish in Stewart’s freezer before it could spoil. Then they would go out for more.

But, with the exception of Perez, who showed promptly, the panga service remained unreliable. The guides claimed confusion in the arraignment-making. But some were not so sure. Stewart argued that it was the first time that such a problem has come up. One fisherman disagreed.

“This trip is designed for people who have their own boats,” Stewart said.

Perhaps, but the tour’s advertising brochure says individual boats are not necessary. Without boats, however, fisherman cannot be assured of an early start or fishing the evening bite.

Despite the frustration in dealing with panga guides, all fishermen caught their share of yellowtail, the primary attraction. Despite the fact that the jackpot fish, caught by Robert Scott of Huntington Beach, was under 19 pounds, the freezers filled before the week’s end.

When they weren’t fishing, the caravaners gathered at the tables under the giant palapa , which seemed to provide the only substantial shade in the area.

Some would drive to town for a change of pace. Others fished from shore, catching trigger fish, bass, sand sharks and small sting rays. Still others opted for the mile-long drive to the local clam beds. The small mollusks were abundant and--once steamed and buttered--considered a delicious treat.

Sleep came easy for most, despite the coyotes’ yelps in the night. At times they would emerge from the hills to walk the beach just outside of camp.

Swirling winds at times would suddenly arise, turning a tranquil encampment into a bustling scramble for belongings. Once, a mini- chubasco howled and swirled so fiercely that one tent crumbled down upon its inhabitants.

“I was buck naked,” Bob Uzzo declared. His wife, Sue, was laughing as he emerged from the tent using two pads for cover. Flashlights combed the beach for towels and clothes.

A week before the mad-dash for yellowtail at the trip’s conclusion, the 12 groups were heading toward the Mexican border from as far away as San Jose for a trip through the Baja desert that would find them on this deserted beach roughly 400 miles south of the border.

Only the return caravaners knew what to expect. Some would become friends, others acquaintences.

There were Jim and Ray Perez, avid fishermen and second-time caravaners from Northern California.

“I come for the people,” said Jim, 28, a reserved yet amiable fellow who talked often of his fishing exploits in the Bay Area. There were Orange County’s Lowell and La Rae Romberg, traveling in a motor home with Jerry and Dorothy Ridderhof. They came from all walks to meet at 5:30 a.m. at the San Ysidro K-Mart, just north of Tijuana to begin their trek.

“An individual would be lost without someone who knows the ropes,” said Huntington Beach resident John Scott, on his first caravan.

Stewart was the one and would guide the group down Highway 1. He would deal with whatever trouble his customers might come across.

“We’ll get you down there, put you on top of the fish, and make sure you get back,” he assured the group, who paid $550 per couple for this seven-day campout on property Stewart leased and cleared a few years back.

Jimmy Stephens, a retired fireman from the Lake Tahoe area, also with extensive travel experience in Baja California, also helped guide the group.

Arriving at dawn, the group listened to Stewart’s speech about CB radio usage and the road reports he would give along the way, hand signals for passing and about giving courtesy to the Mexican citizens and travelers not involved with the caravan.

“I’ll try to stay a half-mile or so ahead of the group and warn of cattle in the road (a regular occurance) and other mishaps,” he said.

After that, Stewart listened to the Rombergs and Ridderhofs, who sought to get a jump on things by spending the previous night in the parking lot. “We figured that way we wouldn’t have to drive in the morning,” La Rae Romberg said.

What they didn’t figure on was becoming a means of escape by prospective illegal aliens, a host of which scurried under and about the couples’ motor home to hide from the border patrol.

“They were coming over in droves,” Jerry Ridderhof said.

Said Lowell Romberg: “They were hiding under our motor home and boat. One of them even tripped over our doorstep.”

He pounded on the door and turned on the motor home’s exterior lights, but the Mexicans wouldn’t leave. Instead, border patrol agents converged on the scene and arrested some. Others escaped into the darkness.

The suspects were frisked and cuffed in the group’s boat. Because of the ordeal the two couples did not get much sleep.

“We would have been better off driving from our homes (in Orange County),” one of them said.

Once across the border, the caravan, traveling through an early-morning drizzle, made its first stop just past the second toll gate. Stewart checked the rigs and people stretched and used the rest rooms.

“I do mostly lake camping (in the United States),” John Scott said. “And I have to admit that I feel out of place down here. If there should be a problem I feel Ken (Stewart) would accommodate the situation. There’s a certain insurance you feel in not hanging out down here alone.”

Stewart recounted the time a policeman would not follow his advice. “He said he wanted to speed and that he had police driving skills so it was OK,” Stewart said. “He ended up falling asleep and driving off the road, luckily in about the only place you can do that down here and not end up killing yourself.”

The policeman, however, claimed a fly flew in his face and he was trying to shoe it away when he slipped off the shoulderless road. Stewart has since named that stretch of the road Shoefly Highway.

As the caravan cruised through Ensenada, considered the last stop for the weekend tourist, townspeople were just beginning to gather on the sidewalks of Avenida Lopez Mateos, setting up seafood and taco stands or sidewalk displays.

And then it was on to Maneadero, where a host of Federales in blue uniforms and armed with semi-automatic weapons blocked the road.

Stewart explained that he was guiding a caravan and the others were waved by.

The four-lane highway ends and the shoulderless highway winds through the chaparral-covered slopes, dotted with an occasional small farm or hacienda.

The San Pedro Martir mountain range comes into view off to the east, splitting the peninsula. The caravan headed into San Quintin, the final stop for gas before the group split en route to the gulf.

At San Quintin, an agricultural town of about 15,000, Mexican children charged into the Pemex station from across the street. Armed with window washers, they swarmed and climbed aboard the caravaners’ rigs, slapped dirty water on the windows and asked not-so-politely for quarters and more quarters.

King, Price and Blaney, who neglected to bring a spare tire for their boat trailer, got a flat tire at San Quintin. Stephens was told by Stewart to stay behind to help them locate a tire, which they eventually bought from a local resident for about $15, before catching the group later.

In the trip’s only other incident, the same three broke down on the return trip and had to leave their car behind with a friend of Stewart’s. Having spent half the day trying to fix the car before giving up, they latched their boat on Stephens’ motor home. He made it to San Quintin, where the four spent the night before eventually crossing the border the next day. Stewart invited them to travel with the caravan to get the car the next week.

From San Quintin, they drove south toward El Rosario before turning sharply east and away from the Pacific. The landscape was rocky with thin and thorny cirio trees stretching to 40 feet and giant cardon cacti spreading across deep valley floors.

The group stopped at Catavina before making the final the 65-mile drive to Bahia de los Angeles.

Then, several miles after turning off the highway, Stewart said on his CB: “Get ready for one of the most beautiful sights you have ever seen.”

There it was, the sparkling Sea of Cortez, shimmering a deep blue. The Midriff islands, wind-blown and barren, home to pelicans and ospreys, was just offshore.

Stewart’s stretch of beach was a few miles down the road. The area commonly referred to as Yellowtail Alley was just a stone’s throw away.