Just Perched on the Beach : Offshore Fishing in Baja Is Great, but the Surf Provides Fare Aplenty

Bob Alvarez stood on a deserted stretch of beach south of this small, agricultural town and spoke fondly of his exploits in the waters nearby.

He pointed to San Martin Island, a dozen or so miles from the coast, yet easily visible on a vast and otherwise unobstructed horizon.

Alvarez told of the 12 1/2-pound kelp bass his friend caught while fishing San Martin from a skiff. The trophy bass--one of the largest ever taken on hook and line--is mounted on the wall of a large room called “the shack,” a gathering place of sorts for a small group of fishermen behind the Torrance home of Philip Friedman, 33, who brought Alvarez here to initiate him into the world of surf fishing.

“We didn’t catch any under six or seven pounds,” Alvarez boasted of the bass taken from the island’s kelp, adding, “There’s got to be a bigger one out there.”

He told of an abundance of 20- to 25-pound yellowtail, of the dorado and large halibut, the whitefish and rockfish.

“Everything’s huge,” he said. “You can catch a ton of barracuda and big giant bonitos.”

So, there was that productive island in the distance. And there was Alvarez, 27, a big-game fisherman with countless hours of experience in Baja’s deep waters, shore-bound.

But he was about to discover that small-game fishing, coupled with the Latin flavor of this part of the Baja peninsula, can be a worthwhile experience.

He would catch buckets of perch, explore the beautiful Baja coast and sample a lifestyle far different from that a couple of hundred miles north of here.

“It’s a cultural experience if nothing else,” Friedman said of his many trips here. “We really try to immerse ourselves in the culture for the weekend.”

That’s not hard to do after leaving Ensenada, because the residents south of the tourist town live much as their forebears did a century ago--one obvious exception being the occasional satellite dish.

The drive--San Quintin is about 200 miles from the border--is not particularly long. The highway, though narrow and shoulderless, provides an avenue through Baja’s diverse terrain--one best traveled during the winter.

The wind is not searing hot but rather cool and refreshing. The grass is not tinder-dry and brown, but a luscious green, flowing in fields and low-lying valleys.

Canyons are carved deep into Baja’s interior, where cloud-shrouded mountains rise to 10,000 feet and bisect the the peninsula. The rust-colored soil of fallow fields and ashen boulders add to the color.

At San Quintin, red chilies hang drying outside the many roadside shops that line the highway. Taco and clam stands are patronized, not by crowds of tourists but by the occasional Mexican breaking for a snack.

Visitors are few and far between during the winter, because most traveling south pass through without much more than a stop at the Pemex station for gas, en route to such exotic destinations as Loreto and Cabo San Lucas.

The hotels are almost empty, catering to small groups of bird hunters. And to the occasional surf fisherman, who finds these secluded beaches ideal for a getaway from the bustling Southland.

“The fishing is markedly better,” Friedman said. “You don’t catch as many (north of the border), and you don’t get them the size you do at San Quintin.”

The stretch of coast between here and Guerrero Negro, a couple of hundred miles south, is extremely productive as a fishery for a variety of species. You can work an area at your leisure, without the crowds associated with most Southland beaches or the litter associated with such crowds.

“I’ve been doing it since I was a teen-ager,” said Leucadia’s Ken Stewart, who now runs caravans down the Baja coast. “The whole Pacific coast all the way down to Guerrero Negro is just wide open.”

Stewart told of the white seabass that cruise the coast in the spring, attacking his four- to six-inch lures or hooks baited with squid.

“They were anywhere from 20 to . . . the biggest I think we caught was about 47 pounds.”

Dan Batastini of the Daniel Freeman Hospital Fishing Club has made several trips here, bringing heavy tackle and enough fresh dead anchovies to attract anything that swims.

“We chum the anchovies,” he said. “We take 50 pounds of ‘chovies down there, man. You find a hole and just stay there. There’s white seabass, halibut, everything.”

That may even include the blacktip shark, which reaches eight feet and performs acrobatics similar to the mako shark when hooked.

“They come right up on the pebbles and look at you,” Batastini said.

But during the winter, most of the fishing is done with light tackle, on which the smaller and more prevalent fish such as barred perch and spotfin croaker can still put up a fight.

“I brought my dad here last year and he just loved it,” Friedman said, while baiting his hook with a small piece of squid. “We sat on this beach and caught perch all day long.”

It didn’t take long for Alvarez to discover that this, too, would be one of those days.

The beach is called El Socorro, about 20 miles south of town. The tide was high, the water cold and clean. Alvarez, however, was reluctant to try his hand at surf fishing.

“I went with him once and we didn’t catch anything,” Alvarez said of his lone surf fishing experience with Friedman north of the border.

He chose to run the video camera instead.

Friedman soon let loose a leisurely cast, his bait plopping in the water a dozen or so yards from shore. Instantly, there was the familiar rat-a-tat-tat at the end of his rod, that created by the scrappy barred perch.

Friedman reeled the fish in and walked toward the camera. “Not a big fish, but a lot of fun,” he said. “And this baby’s going back into the water where it belongs.”

Alvarez, intrigued, left the camera and soon became engaged in competition with his longtime fishing partner.

After only 15 minutes, the two had caught 11 fish apiece. And the total mounted to several dozen before they took a break. The bigger fish--weighing about three pounds--were put in an an ice chest.

Soon, the warm breeze blowing from the desert grew steadier, sending a fine mist of spray off the crest of each incoming wave. The sun was well in the sky, its rays blocked only occasionally by clouds passing swiftly across the sky.

It was time to explore this region of wide-open spaces, of cattle ranches and vegetable fields--and perhaps find another deserted stretch of coast that would produce as this one had.

Traveling south on Highway 1, through the shallow coastal canyons, Friedman and Alvarez reached El Rosario, the last stop before the highway turns inland.

After dining on beef tacos in a small restaurant in the center of town, they chose a dirt turnoff heading west that eventually would take them to a beach below Punta Baja.

People waved and smiled as the four-wheel-drive truck bounced along, past a small cemetery, where pastel-colored headstones and colorful flowers contrasted pleasingly with the barren desert surroundings.

Commercial fishermen, returning from the beach with a truckload of lobsters, hooted and waved as they went past. Friedman and Alvarez soon stood on their beach, armed with light tackle and ready for more action. Alvarez, now an accomplished perch fisherman, looked offshore and noticed another familiar sight--San Geronimo Island. He boasted of its productivity only slightly before concentrating on what might be called prowling the surf.

The beach was unspoiled, its broken cliffs stretching for miles up and down the coast. But in 15 minutes it produced not a single fish and the decision was made to return to Socorro.

Two young children were standing beside the road and Alvarez got out to greet them, filling a box with some of the larger perch and offering it to the children, one of whom couldn’t hide his excitement.

He ran a few steps, then turned around and quickly scampered back to the truck. His companion, hands outstretched to accept what would probably serve as a tasty addition to a meager night’s fare, took the box and managed a shy smile.

By day’s end, one that produced more than 100 fish for the two South Bay anglers, all of the perch that had not been released were given away.

“They need it more then we do anyway,” Alvarez said, having forgotten all about his days at San Martin Island.

He now speaks fondly of his days onshore at San Quintin.

“That was a lot of fun,” he said. “I’ve been telling all my friends, ‘Let’s go down there and . . . just kick back and stuff.’ ”