Slice of Heaven for Fishermen : La Rivera Isn’t as Glitzy as Los Cabos, It’s Just a Place for Serious Anglers

Little has changed here since Bob Van Wormer arrived in the late 1950s. It is still sun-baked, dry and desolate.

But he is responsible for one significant change--the establishment of a hidden paradise for fishermen, one closer to the prolific fishing grounds of Baja’s East Cape than any other.

After working for two hotels a dozen or so miles north in the Buena Vista area, Van Wormer began construction on Hotel Punta Colorada, near the point of the same name, on a bluff overlooking the Sea of Cortez.

“I had to build all the roads in, the airstrip, the whole thing, to tie this place in,” he recalls. “It was just cattle-grazing country. There were no roads in at all.”

In the 24 years since Van Wormer opened for business, his 29-room hotel has become the place for the angler who wants to get away from it all--and experience some of the best fishing the world has to offer.

“It’s the fishing,” Van Wormer, 65, says of the reason people come here, rather than the heavily promoted resorts to the south and north. “And the relaxation is tremendous. If you want a lot of night life, you better not come here. You better go to Los Cabos and go to the discos.”

Things are different here, all right, about 60 miles north of Cabo San Lucas. You can’t go dancing, or watch movies on HBO in your room, or even call to check on things back home. There are no televisions, no telephones.

But you can sit in comfort on the bluff, sipping an ice-cold margarita while watching roosterfish slashing schools of mullet in the water below. Or spot larger fish leaping from the water out on the big horizon.

You can wander along a deserted coastline, casting your ultra-light spinning rod and marveling at the colorful variety of fish willing to strike your small spinner. Pompano, trumpetfish, hawkfish, small jacks and croakers . . . the list goes on.

You can cool off by donning mask and snorkel, taking the plunge and discovering an underwater world of peace and tranquility.

But a different world lies farther off the coast, one that attracts the real fisherman. It can be reached after a short ride by cruiser and panga boat.

A day aboard El Tomas, the hotel’s top sportfisher, might transpire something like this:

Two passengers board after breakfast at dawn. Skipper Guillermo (Memo) Sandez heads south and out to sea, the hotel disappearing as he rounds the point. An occasional hacienda dots an otherwise deserted stretch of sandy coast.

Daniel Agundez prepares the tackle, whistling as he works. The passengers gaze back over a tranquil sea until the cry, “Marlin, look!” breaks the silence. Agundez is pointing to an area in the distance.

A striped marlin, several hundred yards away, is jumping high out of the water as if to broadcast its presence. Sandez spins the wheel and the boat turns. It roars, at full throttle, in the direction of the marlin, which quickly disappears.

Within minutes, there is another sighting, four stripers sunning side by side just beneath the surface. Sandez turns the boat while Agundez and a passenger bait their rigs with live mackerel and cast just in front of the billfish.

They all submerge as soon as the mackerel hit the water and the angler’s line begins to sing from the reel.

Agundez yells, “Now!,” the reel is clicked into gear and Sandez hits the throttle. The hook is set and the passenger sweats out a 30-minute stand-up fight that results in the catch of a 135-pound marlin.

It is released, tired but apparently unharmed.

Soon, the other passenger catches his marlin, one that attacked a feather trolled off the port stern. It, too, is released. Sandez logs the marlin, two of more than 75 logged on the boat since mid-April.

He asks, “You want more marlin or would you like to go after something else?”

The passengers look at one another before requesting an attempt for tuna or dorado, and an eventual try for the mighty roosterfish, a species the East Cape is famous for.

“No problem,” Sandez says.

It doesn’t take long to locate a large school of porpoise, beneath which generally lie schools of yellowfin tuna. Trolling feathers are let out and two are attacked immediately.

Two small yellowfin are landed, and several more--in the eight- to 15-pound range--hit the deck before dorado begin feeding. A half-dozen are taken before Sandez indicates time is running out if an attempt is to be made on the roosterfish.

The 32-foot Luhrs cruises to an area two hundred yards from the beach just south of the lighthouse on Punta Arena, a few miles south of Van Wormer’s hotel.

Two rigs are baited with live mullet and trolled slowly off the stern. A school of large roosterfish is seen roaming the clear, green water beneath the boat.

One is spotted following one of the trolled mullet, its rooster-like comb of a dorsal fin slashing the surface. It takes the bait and the line spins slowly from the reel. Agundez instructs the angler to wait a few more seconds, then yells, “Now!” The reel is clicked into gear and the fish is hooked.

Stubborn and extremely powerful for its size, the roosterfish refuses to give in. The angler, using 20-pound test, pumps and reels, huffs and puffs, for almost 30 minutes before finally winning the battle. The fish, estimated at 45 pounds, is photographed and released.

Another 45-pounder is caught shortly afterward by the other angler. Both are worn out, but content.

Back on the beach by 3 p.m., where San Diego’s Dan Franger and his father-in-law have just unloaded their catch--several dorado and a marlin, taken from a panga. Another was released at sea, they say.

Another group here on a bachelor party from Joliet, Ill., is winding up its small tournament, comparing catches on the sand.

And the beach crew prepares for the other boats rounding the point and heading home.

Most are flying flags, indicating similar success.

Van Wormer fell in love with this part of the world long before he decided to build a haven for the discriminating fisherman.

“I came down 33 years ago, for a two-week vacation at Rancho Buena Vista,” he said. “I had never caught marlin but had done a lot of diving. The beautiful beaches and crystal-clear water . . . I completely went apey.”

It didn’t take long for him to catch his first marlin, which he released, or to decide to stick around. He fixed motors and did other handyman work at Hotel Rancho Buena Vista, then the only hotel in the area.

“I stayed on 3 1/2 months and got to like it,” he said of the lifestyle.

He eventually returned to Chula Vista, where he was a supervisor at Rohr Aircraft, and gave notice.

“My supervisor, Bill Matthews, looks at me and says, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said I’m going to go back to Baja to live. He says, ‘You’re out of your mind. You’re crazy.’

“I said, I may be crazy, but I know where paradise is.”

Van Wormer put in another handyman stint at Hotel Bahia Palmas, now Palmas de Cortes, and eventually met his future wife, Cha Cha. He was hooked on Baja.

He bought some land just south of Punta Colorada with a Mexican partner and, using mostly local material, started construction on the hotel.

“It’s an exceptional area, an ideal spot,” he says. “There is so little wind compared to other nearby areas. It’s such a nice hideaway, really close to everything, but it still feels like you’re away from it all.”

Jobs were created, fishing opportunities enhanced.

Tom and Pat Snyder, residents of Tarzana, were two of the first to discover Van Wormer’s hideaway, and the benefits associated with staying here.

“We discovered this little place with three little bungalows,” Pat Snyder says. “We were fishing in front of it all of the time. We went in there and met (Van Wormer) and decided, ‘That’s where we’re going next time,’ and we’ve been going there ever since. It was a piece of paradise.”

The Snyders are so fond of the hotel that they have made themselves at home here. Tom and Van Wormer are co-owners of El Tomas, which is available for charter as part of the fleet, and the Snyders have put home-style touches on the rooms they regularly stay in.

“They were my first guests 25 years ago and they’ve been our biggest boosters ever since,” Van Wormer says.

Pat Snyder, a light-tackle specialist, has two line-class world records in the book: a 43-pound 8-ounce roosterfish taken on six-pound test, good for the eight-pound test category, and a 63-pound roosterfish caught on 16-pound line.

Tom has taken a 75-pound roosterfish and 400-pound blue marlin from the local waters, and says fishing here is the best in the world.

“I have fished Mexico, Venezuela, the East Coast, New Zealand, Fiji, Australia, Nicaragua. . . . I fished many, many different places and there’s no better place than right here,” he says. “I have caught three times more fish here than I have in any other place.”

He recalls the time he had a partner with a heart problem, who turned white while fighting a marlin.

“I had to take the rod away from him,” Snyder said. “He goes down inside, he pops some of these pills that he’s got, he lays down a little while, and comes back out. I hand him the pole and he finally finishes landing the marlin. But he wouldn’t go out with us again.”

Another time, his party caught five roosterfish before noticing a school of porpoise jumping offshore.

“We followed it for hours,” he says. “We brought back 20 tuna. The biggest was 150 pounds and the smallest was about 75 pounds. The boat wouldn’t even go, it was so weighted down.”

That’s the way it is here. Stories originate at sea, then are recounted nightly at the dinner table or bar. Sometimes, they even get better in the telling.