My wife Tina and I took our 3 dogs fishing with us on our 23’ Wellcraft “Murphy Girl” on Saturday. The forecast called for smooth seas in the morning, but showed strong winds developing after noon. We launched from Safe Marina a little past 7 am and headed out 12 miles south to search for bait. We spent over an hour searching for bait and only managed to catch 6 sardines and 5 mackerel. The macs were huge, probably a couple pounds each and close to 17” long. At 9:30 am we left the bait reefs and made our way out to deeper water. Tina drove the boat while I rigged up the lines and baits. Before long we were at the mark and ready to fish. There were no other boats in sight. I hooked a dead sardine on Tina’s rod and tried a 16 ounce chrome diamond jig on mine. Tina’s rod quickly double over with a nice grouper bite, but we lost the fish in the rocks. I was immediately hooked up with a nice 20 pound yellowtail. Yellowtail are very hard fighters and a lot of fun. As I slowly worked mine towards the boat, two sea lions came into sight. Some sea lions will steal fish or bait from the line, but these two were very well behaved. They swam under and around our boat, but left the fish alone. Nice sea lions.
After getting a photo, I hooked up another sardine for Tina and dropped back down. We were both hooked up as soon as we hit bottom. I could tell by the way my fish was fighting that it was another yellowtail, and by the looks of Tina’s pole, her fish was a really big one. She had one heck of a battle with line stripping and both hands on the rod to keep her and the rod from being pulled overboard. The pole was arched all the way to the water line and I wasn’t sure if she could get it in by herself. After a long battle, a huge white sea bass came into view. It was one of the largest I have ever seen. We measured it at 50” long and about 40 pounds. It was the largest fish Tina has ever caught.
We hooked up another sardine, dropped our lines, and were both hooked up again instantly. Tina caught another huge white sea bass and I caught a leopard grouper. It was the same on the next drop, except this time we both caught leopard groupers. Soon we were out of sardines and made the switch to the extra-large macs. We managed to catch a white sea bass and a leopard grouper on macs before all of the bait was gone. I continued to catch a few more leopard grouper, a yellowtail, and a fat pinto on my jig.
At 1 pm the wind had started to pick up considerably. With no more bait and a long ride to shore, we decided it was time to go. In only 2.5 hours of fishing, our haul for the day included 3 white sea bass, 3 yellowtail, 6 leopard grouper, 2 goldspotted bass, and 1 pinto. I cleaned the fish and got them on ice while Tina drove the boat back to the marina. By the time we made it back the wind was howling out of the north. The forecast was right on the money this time.
Another amazing day out on the Sea of Cortez! We’ll be back with friends from Minnesota for more of the same in 2 weeks.
