San Quintin: World Class Fishing

When anglers hear the words, " Let's go Baja fishing", our minds are quickly transported to the warm, clean, blue waters of the Pacific or the gulf of Baja California. Our visions of  tranquil fishing villages, warm, friendly people and hospitable lodgings made our selection easy. We agreed to re-visit one of our favorite places with its fortunate fishing waters... San Quintin. Being only five hours south of LA, it was an easy decision to make.
We made arrangements through El tiburon pangas, an outfitter with a good reputation, skillful captains and good service. We made reservations for two days fishing, the skiffs or pangas, were waiting for us at 5:00 am at the small dock on the only ramp in the village.

Main ramp adjacent to the Old Molino bar and restaurant

 On our first day, we met our captain "el chiflas", the whistler. He earned his moniker because he whistles when he works. And he really works and knows the waters and hot spots. The first thing we needed to do was to catch our own bait. We dropped our sabikis, bait catching rigs, and quickly filled the bait tank with small mackerels about 6 in long.

This is the perfect spot to catch your bait; the birds and the porpoises don't mind sharing with us.

We gathered plenty of live bait, small mackerel about 6 in long. We dispatched ourselves with all deliberate speed to the outer waters of the bay.

Fish on! As soon as we dropped our line, Javi hooked the first one of the day.

Manny hooks on a powerful swimmer and a good fighter, a big yellow tail. We quickly pulled our line out of the water to give him ample room to go around the boat.

Javi and Manny happily show off their first catch of the day.

Having taught these young men how to fish when they were kids... I refused to stay behind so I landed my own white sea-bass.

Just as we were thinking of returning to shore, Javi hooked a huge white sea-bass. He was most proud
of his catch because he brought on board a 69 pound fish with a twenty pound leader.

After a fruitful morning, we decided to look for some bottom fish and completed filling the coolers with a variety of reds, rocker, corvinas and others. Once full, we headed to shore where members of El Tiburon's team were ready to filet our catch while we retreated to  a good rest and dinner.

Our second day was more of the same.  Our new captain that day was Pedro.  We caught our share of sea-bass, barracudas, rock cod and smaller bass, filling our second set of coolers.

Manny and Javi with captain, "el chifles"

Manny with Captain Pedro.