Going back about a year Wesley Brough guided me to this very nice 50+lb Roosterfish from the surf.

The fish ate a SEBILE Stick Shadd 155 Fast Sinking that hangs from the desk lamp in my office…

  We were awarded 2 Telly Awards for the Episode of Fish the Baja that featured this fish!

Wes and I also had a fantastic day from the rocks near his home landing 17 Snappers and missing a MONSTER Cubera even larger than the one below.  Wesley Brough holding NOT a puny Cubera especially when you keep in mind that Wes is 6′-7″ tall!!! Many of these fish were on the SEBILE Stick Shadd 155 and 182 Floating models! (see the trashed Gold Stick Shadd below the white one above!)

Next fish was one that Gary Wagner from Rancho de Costa near La Paz sent me.  This fish was speared by a diver off the coast of Cerralvo Island and would weigh in the 300-400lb range.   I wish this had NOT been killed as most of these amazing fish are being removed from the Sea of Cortez. This is where angling has a much superior advantage to spear fishing.  We can keep fish that fit on the grill and let the large breeding fish go. (pic soon!!!)

While we are talking about Rancho de Costa and Bahia de los Suenos let’s see another foto Gary sent me of a recent Wahoo catch near Cerralvo as well. WOW what a ‘Hoooooooo!

This past December I returned to Mag Bay to catch Marli on the fly with Success Sports Fishing and Jeff DeBrown of the Reel Baja.  Just one year ago a new IGFA Yellowfin Tuna record was caught in the same waters weighing 405.2lbs!!!

On up the Baja Peninsula at Rancho Leonero I landed this nice Roosterfish while filming with my brother Paul.

We also landed some other MONSTERS of the deep …the Humbolt Squid!!! Creepy! Can you imagine a half a dozen of these on you with their parrot type beaks taking out plumb size bites  …OUCH!!!

Then back to Cabo San Lucas where right before the Bizbees Black & Blue Tournament this truly gigantic Blue Marlin is caught after a 13 hour fight!  This Blue went 1,213lbs!  Too bad this fish was not released as well but nice to be able to see it to get some perspective!

Lastly was a fish that we all have nightmare about as boater and anglers …the Great White shark.  Picante Sportsfishing reported landing one in April of 990lbs and then this King of the Seas caught in a net near Guaymas in the upper Sea of Cortez estimated at 2,000lbs.  Makes me think twice about hanging my legs over the side of my Hobie Pro angler when offshore!

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Check out this 12 minute video of Baja WAY before there were any roads or airstrips or way to get down there save by boat. The film is circa 1949 or so and is quite amazing! Hang on until the very end to see Cabo San Lucas and the rocks at the end of the beach where the Grand SolMar sits today …AMAZING!!!

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For more than twenty years now I have been fishing Baja and am always amazed at how diverse and abundant the waters are that surround the Magnificent Peninsula. The fishing continues to bring in record size fish each year despite some unbelievable pressure from commercial fishing interests. Don’t get me wrong I am NOT against commercial fishing per se but would like to see the enforcement of the rule of Law concerning sportfish in Mexican waters. There is, as is many times the case, a “loophole” in the Law concerning fish reserved for sportfishing. BTW those fish reserved for sportfishing are all the Billfish (Marlin, Sailfish and Swordfish), Wahoo, Tuna, Roosterfish and of course Dorado (also known to many of you as Mahi Mahi or Dolphin fish). The loophole, called NOM 029 or “Shark Norma”  allows commercial fisherman to keep one Dorado for every 10 sharks they catch as “by catch” or an incidental catch and sell them commercially.  The problem is this, there are only 5 inspectors for all of Baja, a two day notice of inspection must be given to examine a vessel and no records of the shark catches are routinely kept!!! The Dorado “by catch” is sold from Pangeros to larger commercial interests and is exported to the USA as “unspecified” species.  I’ve heard that if you are eating Mahi Mahi at a restaurant in the US it has an 80% chance of having come illegally from the Sea of Cortez!  This fish is worth 10X the amount sold as food as a sportfish in Baja but a few are making themselves rich with what will be a devastating blow to the economy of Baja.  The Billfish Foundation equates sportfishing to have a $1.15 billion annual impact on Southern Baja alone.  That is NOT a misprint …Billion with a “B”!  Please watch the video below to see an excellent documentary from Vince Radice and Thalassa France TV3 who graciously  made the film possible!  Thank you!

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Two commercial fishermen in Mexico received the surprise of a lifetime Sunday when they hauled up a great white shark measuring nearly 20 feet and weighing about 2,000 pounds, according to local news reports. The rare catch of such a large white shark — at 20 feet it’d be among the longest ever recorded — was made in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez near Guaymas, by fishermen who thought they had merely scored a large haul of much smaller fish as they hoisted up their net.

“We were amazed and immediately realized that we had a huge, dead, great white shark, and then we thought what are we going to do?,” Guadalupe, one of the fishermen, said in an interview with Pisces Sportfishing, which is located in the Baja California resort city of Cabo San Lucas. The other fisherman was named Baltazar.

The shark was dead when it was brought to the surface. The fishermen, whose skiff measures 22 feet and is powered by a 75-horsepower outboard, required an hour to tow the carcass two miles to the coast. About 50 people helped drag the behemoth onto dry sand. Milenio News reported the length of the fish to be six meters, or 19.8 feet.

“Guadalupe and Baltazar swore they had never seen a fish this big before in their lives,” the Pisces blog stated. “Even though on March 13 of this year, some of their fellow fishermen had also caught a great white, which had weighed 990 pounds.”

It remains unclear what the fishermen did with the shark, but scientists were hoping to obtain tissue samples for study.

Adult white sharks were once believed to be infrequent visitors to the Sea of Cortez, or Gulf of California. But it’s now believed that parts of the gulf serve as a nursery for the species.

“While it’s unusual that fishermen will land sharks that large, the occurrence of large adult white sharks is not uncommon for Gulf waters,” said Christopher Lowe, a Southern California white shark expert who has conducted extensive tagging studies involving the species. “In fact, several satellite tagged sharks from California and Guadalupe Island [west of Baja California] have traveled into the gulf. So we know they are there.”

While in gulf waters, adult white sharks are believed to prey largely on Humboldt squid and sea lions.

– Images are courtesy of Sancarlosmexico.com

Check Out These Cool Underwater Videos Shot with a GoPro and TrollPro

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Just got word that we won a Silver People’s Telly Award for Season 1 of Fish the Baja! This is a cool award to win as it is voted on by you, the viewers, thru a YouTube contest.  Winning a Silver People’s Telly lets us know that we were in the top 10% of the videos submitted and in fact I think we were #8 out of 153 videos in that round of voting!  I want to give a big thanks to Wesley Brough who Co-Hosted the Episode with me and guided me to landing the 50+lb Roosterfish that was the highlight of the show! Wesley is a fantastic guide that you can fish with yourself in Baja! You can check out his Facebook Page CaboSurfCaster and hook up with Wes! Thank you also to Sterling Johnson of Edit Denver for making it all look great and making a story in only 22:30!!! Thanks to everyone who logged on and gave us a thumbs up!  I’ll post a few pictures when I get my statue!  By the way they are made by the same company that does the Oscars…COOL!!!

Here’s the “Official” Press release for your viewing pleasure!!! hahaha

Official Silver Release

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For the past two years or so I have been fly fishing for Carp as most of you know. The Carp has proved to be a very formidable adversary when I am away from Baja and really need my line stretched by something BIG!

 Stalking Carp on the flats I’ve discovered in Colorado is great except for one aspect that was always tough …landing the fish unharmed.  If you are by yourself or wading and casting, while trying to cover a lot of ground, having a net large enough to land even a small Golden Ghost is unwieldily. The nets that are portable and large enough are for guiding and are really too big to carry on your back like a typical fly fishing net. What I was looking for was a compact design with large capacity …sounds like an impossibility, a small large net!  With that as background an idea began forming in my head about how to accomplish this small/ large net but I didn’t think I could actually make the thing.  Finally the idea drove me to force myself to learn about steaming and bending wood, making forms and what woods would bend and yet be strong enough to pull off this radical net design.  Last fall the first HammerHedd came off the form, was glued, sanded and finished …then I found a net bag that would fit the frame, although it is  not the final design.

This was November of 2011, well past the typical Ghost hunting time for me and the water was very cold but I needed to test my design to see if it met the criteria.  Well the HammerHedd passed the test with flying colors and even brought an aspect of the net more clearly into focus …a locking feature!  Was I excited or what???

 We are now patent applied for and I am able to introduce the net to you here.  One redesign so far and also still trying to source the correct PVC net bag in the proper shape that will make the HammerHedd perform even better.

What do you think of this, a net with a hoop of 25″ X 7″ that will easily hold a fish more that 48″ and 25 pounds? The first few nets are made of Hickory and some wild Red African wood that a good buddy gave to me but a carbon model is being sourced which should be lighter AND stronger!

A harbinger of good things to come …a Mirrored Carp eats and is one of the first to be bagged in the HammerHedd!!!

HammerHedd Update … Flip Pallot lands first saltwater fish in the HH-Net!

Good friend Flip Pallot graciously agreed to test the HammerHedd for me and has the  honor (or disgrace) of landing the first saltwater fish with the net!  He also sent along a few foots to  show something other than a Carp WILL fit in the net!!! Flip did have a few suggestions for improvements which we will incorporate soon but over all loves the net and concept!  Thanks Flip!!!

Flip Pallot lands first saltwater fish with the HammerHedd …a nice Redfish!!!

Flip lands a NICE Speckled Trout in the HammerHedd!!!

Possible logo for the HammerHedd!!!???

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Now with the Troll Pro/ GoPro camera set up you can see what’s really there!  This amazing little device really open ups the underwater world and is a BIG hit with the fans of Fish the Baja!  I’ve gotten SO may letters regarding the images from the Troll Pro & personally I can’t wait to get back down and troll some more.  My good friends at Troll Pro just put up a video about how to rig your Troll Pro/ GoPro set up so you can start getting you own “totally cool” images next time you’re out on the water!!!

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