Yakin Isla San Marcos

[aguachico]

Brad(madscientist) and I packed up and hit the road on 3/16. Our plan was to go to San Lucas Cove to fish the yakas off a panga.



The problem was the iritis I'm suffering in my left eye, but a needle in the eye ball and an okey dokey from the doc had us heading south. We left that evening to go to El Rosario, then the next morning into SLC. The highlight of the trip south is always tacos at El Recreo in Maneadero.

I had originally talking Mike Kanzler to haul the yaks out, but it became obvious the a whaler is too small for us.

I then contacted Jim Anderson and he hooked me up with Francisco Meza. Francisco has a whaler for charter, but he also has a large panga for our two yaks. Jim and Francisco were great in staying connected with me on the wind and fish condiditons at SLC. Even better is Francisco's english which makes a world of difference.

Francisco's information is francisco_meza_c@hotmail.com, You can PM me for more information. I don't get permission to release his phone # publically

Anyway; Brad and I arrived in SLC Sunday afternoon. The wind reports were bad for Monday, great for Tuesday and Wednesday. We unloaded the yaks dirctly onto the panga in Francisco's secure, locked gated yard. He has a beautiful home as well as wife and kids.

Here's Francisco and I at the ramp

Francisco The MAN:


2/18;
We were the first to launch and we started motoring out of the lagoon. Francisco says; "Hear that" there was a roar in the distance,
he says "waves". My heart starts pumping because I start thinking san Quintin. It wasn't too bad, the swell was 2-3 at 6 seconds, there was no wind. The plan was to find bait and wait for the sun to come up and see if the wind comes or not. Well we found bait and the wind allowed us to fish. We motored off to SAn Marcos Island.




We launched the yaks, filled the bait tanks and off. It didn't take long and I was on. Good YT at 180 feet. Mac near the bottom.
26#

There was a group of boats- names witheld to protect their privacy - working the channel a little west of us.

They were hammering the YT. I thought about getting in their drift, but gave then their spot and space. They ended up with limits for the day.
I then got my next YT 24#

Francisco got two YT from the panga:
Notice Cisco's spiral wrapped rod. It's a pretty cool gift from a friend.

So we totalled 4 yt 22-26#'s. The wind kicked up and we bailed early. We knew the fishing was better for other boats, but we still had more than some that had none - bait was the key. Brad was in a funk and was skunked - but that wouldn't laast long.

2/19
My eye was getting worse. The sun, heat and inability to put the meds in had made me alomost blind in the one eye. The sun made it tooo bright for me and the eye patch sucked.

"That's a lot of rods" Some local yocal looks at our panga while we were making bait. I guess he didn't notice the yaks they were sticking out of. He says"that's a lot of rods on that boat" like it's too many for or something. Hell we left the 20# and 603 outifts in the hotel!


We had trouble making bait, for 3 hours we made 12 pieces. We finally got to the spot and the bite was ending as the commercial guys were pulling in fish on the jigs. We launched the yaks and I buried my eye from the sun. Brad proceeded to put on a show in the middle of the boats. His yells of "fish on" didn't help situation as he proceeded to boat 3YT from 22-25#'s in one hour.


I was glad that Brad kicked our ass that morning, because I knew we had to leave a day early. I needed to see the doc for another needle and get out of the Baja sun. We packed up and Cecilia, Francisco's wife, made us pizza. We ate and left. For the first time in my short Baja career, I didn't drive my truck at all on the way back. We stopped at GN for the night and hit the Border in the afternoon. Both Brad and I have Sentri Passes so the was 5 minutes.

Eating tips
Tacos - El Recreo Maneadero. West side middle of town south of the Red Pollo sign.
Breakfast - Baja's Best El Rosario. Ed the owner is an old stick boat captian from Long beach.
Tortas. - Jesus Maria Pemex. Torta Especial.

We found one taco place in the boat of Santa Rosalia that was good, but my eye was too messed up to remember chit.

There large YT to be found at this spot. Summer dod and Marlin are available. Yaking from land to the island is not adviseable. Probably 5 miles at it's shortest point.

The panga cost is $150. Francisco will bring bait poles with sabiki's.

AC