Roughly a year ago, maybe 14 months, I documented our search for albondigas de marlin for the official start of the fishing year. This year the adventure continued. I have done some fishing this year so far, with some success, but let's look at that as preseason, getting the hardware working, remembering how to do it, exploring. Chris and I decided to join some first timers yesterday, not wanting Andres to drive all the way over the mountain for just one panga, yeah that's it. We kinda had our sights set on some yellow tail, but knowing how it goes we were willing to settle for whatever our Captain thought was best. Upon arrival at the beach Enrique informed us that some of his buds had seen some marlin the last couple of days, and reminded us that his far better half, Marcela, was hankerin' for some albondigas, again the first of the year. When we expressed some skepticism at the concept of marlin in March, he went to far as to offer a "garantia" of a marlin. My heart sank like a politician opening The Enquirer. Rushing back like the kiss on the end of a wet fist were memories of the last time this very Captain had given me a "garantia" of marlin. It was in January, 9 years ago, and I was fortunate enough to be fishing with El Zedillo, foremost citizen of a city at the extreme northern end of the AlCan highway. Zedillo is a bud, and on that day we trolled, baited, waited and exasperated all day, without a single bite, while the echos of our "garantia" faded into the mild northern wind. As soon as Enrique uttered that damning word again, I shuddered. While optimism and hope are good attributes in any fisherman, guarantee is a digital word, and crosses over the line of such conceptual themes as optimism and hope. Well, I am not beyond overlooking an opportunity to grind a little on an old friend like Enrique, and so I saw this as a win win type of day. So far this year the biggest limitation to our fishing has been the bait supply. There are some sardines, but they've been small and are at the extreme north end of Cerralvo. This is a long trip, and with the prevailing northerlies has not often been advisable. So, we have been using ballyhoo, both fresh and frozen, caballito, concinero, and when we can find them mackerel. The scattered nature of the bait has led to a scattering of our prey as well. There are yellow tail, mullet snapper, and cabrilla around, but without a centralized school of bait we've had to move from place to place to locate them. Yesterday we loaded up easily on cocineros, getting 10 in pretty quick order with Sabiki rigs. Trolling around the buoys not far offshore, maybe 3-4 miles, we got a couple of dorado. One of them was small enough (6 lbs.) that we released it, but as part of the nature study that is fishing here we couldn't help but notice that on the lower half of this fish, towards the tail there were matching wounds on either side, about the size of a silver dollar (no kids, not the Susan B. Anthony dollar, but the real one). These wounds were clearly fresh, and were obviously signs of predators with pointy faces in the neighborhood. The fact that even after such a disturbing experience as this, of being made into a cocktail frank by a marlin, this dorado was still feeding led us to believe that he would continue to function if we released him. Chris then got another dorado, 12 lbs. or so, and we saw other dorado chasing schools of greyhounding ballyhoo. The question of "el garantia" began to come up amongst the 3 of us. Enrique tried to drag branches behind his steed, telling us that the tide change would bring the marlin, but it was almost too much fun poking the nerve that has been exposed for nearly 10 years. The day was already far from boring, we saw a pod of humpback whales breaching and tailing, a pretty large sea turtle doing his imitation of a member of family flora, and then Enrique spotted a large dorsal fin and tail cleaving the water. Big Mako? No a smallish whale shark, 10 ft. maybe, cruising the surface. I splashed with my hand next to the panga, and he turned towards us, approaching to zero distance away, lightly bonking the panga with his face. We drifted together, Chris taking some great underwater footage with his GoPro and petting the whale shark with his free hand. After 10 minutes of this we went our separate ways, he after his tiny prey, us after something somewhat bigger. A few more exchanges upon the real meaning of "garantia", along with really enjoying the fine day that it had turned into. Chris had gotten the dorado on a double hooked ballyhoo. I was using a live cocinero which had been too large for the dorado to swallow, but that hadn't kept them from playing with it. My rod tip began dancing again, but this time Enrique had seen a different commotion in the water and said, "garantia". I picked the rod from the holder and retracted the clicker button. Using thumb pressure I let whatever it was start to take line. Using a circle hook demands some patience, but I have great faith in them. After 25 yards had been taken, the fish went into 2nd gear and I put the reel into gear. He was hooked. I still hadn't seen the fish, but Enrique was chuckling to himself. 75 yards behind the boat a good sized striped marlin began to cavort in the aerial dimension. During the fight he exhibited some movements that in my experience are not typical of striped marlin and I surmised that he might be tail wrapped, or maybe snag hooked, fairly rare with "ensuelos automatico". After 20 minutes or so I had him to the boat. It was a nice one, particularly for March, around 120 lbs. Upon further examination the line was around the base of his bill, and the hook was around the line, so the hook was in no way implanted in the fish, he was lassoed like a steer. Well, any landing that you can walk away from. After making good on his "garantia" Enrique took us trolling with XRaps, and doing that Chris retrieved a 12 pound amberjack. Back on the beach we learned that our Canadian customers had headed out to the buoys and caught enough dorado there to make them happy. In the van, back to town, case closed. A very satisfying day, with my son, lots of animal planet moments,and albondigas.
Take Care and Hope to See You Here,
David
