Window on Paradise : The Bahia de la Ventana on Sea of Cortez Provides Some of the Best Saltwater Fishing in the World

The Bahia de la Ventana has been good to the Lucero family, providing food and livelihood. Gildardo, in his simple 22-foot panga, has been fishing it seriously for 25 years, but he had never seen what Bob Butler hauled out of the tepid, clear waters of the Sea of Cortez last June.

Nor did he know of anyone who knew of anyone catching such a fish.

“ Su papa? “ His father had fished the Cortez for 55 years.

“No,” Gildardo said, shaking his head.

“ Su abuelo (grandfather) ? “

“No.”

“Su parientes (ancestors) ?

“No.”

“Cuantos anos pesca su familia aqui?” “Dos cien anos o mas.” His family had been fishing here for 200 years or more, Lucero said.

It was, Butler concluded, “a fish that I don’t think had ever been caught in these waters before.”

The fish looked like a cross between a sailfish and a marlin. If Butler hadn’t had three witnesses and pictures, some might have thought he had concocted a hoax by combining parts of both--like the “jackalopes” common in cowboy bars.

Butler did some research and thought he had caught a Mediterranean shortbill spearfish. Biologist Glenda Kelley of the International Game Fish Assn., keeper of all fresh- and saltwater game-fish records, said after seeing a photo that Butler’s catch “is definitely not any of the spearfish . . . possibly an odd-type striped marlin.” She added that Mediterranean shortbill spearfish are usually found only in the Mediterranean.

Nevertheless, Butler’s prize is mounted in fiberglass in his den, and whatever it is, he’s proud of it. The only spearfish listed by the IGFA is one that was caught off Portugal in 1980, weighing 90 pounds 13 ounces. Butler’s weighed 105 pounds, and he caught it on 16-pound test line. Merely another day in the Bahia de la Ventana--Window Bay in English. Since then, Butler says, four more have been caught, two of which were released.

Said Butler, who books fishing trips for small groups: “We have the largest variety of fish for the longest time of anywhere on the Sea of Cortez. For 365 days a year, there is no place like this.”

A school of big yellowfin tuna staged a three-month stand recently. Depending on the season, the area also provides a generous yield of dorado, marlin, sailfish, pargo, yellowtail, pompano, snapper, roosterfish--which can be taken off the beach--amberjack, rainbow runners, cabrilla and wahoo, along with the occasional Mediterranean shortbill spearfish.

Gene Kira backs up what Butler says. In the second edition of Kira and Neil Kelly’s guidebook “The Baja Catch”--the last word on fishing around Baja California (Apples & Oranges Inc., $19.95)--the Lower Cortez area that runs from La Paz at the top of the East Cape for about 60 miles south is described as “unsurpassed in the world as a deep-sea sport fishery.

“Most of the game fish that migrate into and out of the Cortez do so along the deep Baja side. Virtually all of these migrators swim past Isla Cerralvo.”

It’s a fish funnel. A few miles farther south last weekend, television fishing host Dan Hernandez caught marlin of 312 and 210 pounds and said there were also plenty of sailfish and small dorado.

* Twenty-five years ago, Butler quit his partnership with a business-opportunity service firm in Southern California to move to La Paz for the fishing. Why not Cabo San Lucas, around the corner?

Kira and Kelly have this to say about Cabo San Lucas: “If you have never wet a line before in your life, and if for some reason you absolutely, positively must catch a striped marlin before next Thursday, your odds are better in Cabo than any place in the world.”

“But there are so many boats it’s like a parking lot,” Hernandez says.

It’s more fun fishing with Gildardo Lucero, in his panga.

First of all, one doesn’t need a high-powered cabin cruiser to catch marlin, or any other fish. Anything they can catch in their floating condominiums at Cabo, Lucero can catch in his panga--and has. His parientes used to row their open wooden boats. Now the boats are fiberglass, with outboards on the back.

The basics haven’t changed, but the location has shifted. In the old days, when Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Zane Grey and John Steinbeck came to the East Cape to fish, one didn’t need to venture far past the mouth of Bahia de La Paz. The late Ray Cannon, who wrote about their exploits, thought so much of the area that he ordered his ashes scattered there.

Then came the seiners and the trawlers, and the sportfishing declined. Even now, Japanese longliners also are threatening the area.

Butler stayed, but 12 years ago, he decided, “La Paz isn’t what it used to be,” and started taking clients in vans 32 miles over the hills and across the peninsula to Ensenada de Los Muertos on the gulf, where Lucero and others kept their fleet of pangas. It saved half a day’s boat trip and left a lot more time for fishing.

*

The anglers’ first treat is driving into the Baja sun rising over the gulf. The last eight miles is over a graded dirt road that requires Butler to change the shock absorbers on his vans every couple of months. They pass tiny villages, including Agua Amarga, four miles from the beach, where Lucero lives with his wife and five children.

They reach the beach at 7:15. Lucero has been up since 4, netting bait. Some other pangas are waiting, but Butler has been stiffed by six guys from the Baja 1000 off-road race who told him they were going but, reportedly, drowned in a sea of margaritas the night before.

Lucero’s colleagues, some of whom are cousins, merely shrug. Que sera.

The others shove off and go in different directions, inspired by the report that two sailfish were caught here the day before. Lucero motors north past the beautiful but recently closed Las Arenas Hotel and around to the north side of Punta Arena into the shallow green channel waters between the shoreline and Isla Cerralvo. At 7:47, he stops in open water for no apparent reason and indicates this is where they will fish. As far as his passengers can tell, he has no electronic fish finder--only several generations of local knowledge.

Size 6/0 hooks are baited with six-inch mackerel--live bait is plentiful--and about a minute later, before the anglers can settle into a slow troll, the first strike yields a small but adequate bright green and gold dorado.

As soon as that one is landed, another is on the line, to be followed by others at regular intervals. Butler notes that the square-headed “bull,” or male, dorado fight harder than the round-headed females. At 8:30, with the live bait gone, Lucero stops, goes to the bow and whisks out a throw-net to catch more. In a minute he has pulled up a mess of cocineros only two or three inches long.

“Cocinero chicos, “ he says.

“I always wondered what those little things were,” Butler says. “I learn something every time I come out here.”

*

As the panga resumes pursuit of the dorado, a small school of porpoises run within reach of the boat for a few minutes, until tiring of the game. The anglers also are getting tired of pulling in dorado and suggest a change in diet.

Switching sites, bait and tactics, they go in search of cabrilla, then pargo back on the south side of Punta Arena, but have no luck. They even try trolling large Rapala lures for a time. They eat the lunch Louise, Butler’s wife of 40 years, has prepared, highlighted by her homemade apple cake salvaged from fruit that spoils rapidly in the tropics.

They troll for bigger fish in the blue waters of the deep inshore trenches off Ensenada de Los Muertos, again with no luck, but are entertained and encouraged as Lucero’s cousin Enrique, in a nearby panga, finds a blue marlin for Art Rutledge of Tucson, who is out with his wife, Melissa.

Rutledge fights the 160-pound fish--his first marlin--for about a half-hour before bringing it to gaff. It’s small, but there are larger ones here. Butler won a local tournament with a 611-pound catch last year. Who needs Cabo?

“This puts Cabo to shame,” Butler says--but he doesn’t say it too loud, lest business get too good and spoil his secret.

“I’m glad people don’t know about this. I like it that way.”