Day 1 - Friday, August 3rd
Left the house at 1230 and made it to Catavina about a half hour past dark. We spent the night at the little pink motel at the beginning of town.
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Day 2 - Saturday, August 4th
We woke up early and were on the road by 630. We were planning to reach La Paz today but we decided to stop a few places and spend the night in Loreto considering we couldn't pick up the catamaran we were renting in La Paz until 2pm the following the day.
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Day 3 - Sunday, August 5th
We left again from the El Corral? hotel at 730. We made it to La Paz at 130 and launched the boat and had the captains meeting at The Moorings where we were renting our catamaran. We were off by about 4 pm. We took our Robalo to a few coves at the end of the La Paz bay too look for a nice spot to anchor for the night. We were about to pass some tuna pens a few coves inside of La Paz Bay when a Marlin jumped about 50 yards off the bow and a 1/4 mile off the beach. We scrambled to get some gear out of the bag and onto our rods but I guess we were a little too late as we didn't see it again. We stopped for the night in a large cove with several nice sandy beaches and spent the night there. I managed to make some very big green mackeral and a few bigger model caballitos for bait for the following day.
Day 4 - Monday, August 6th
We woke up late and tried to fish in close inbetween the island and the La Paz peninsula but didn't get anything except we saw an 8-10 ft. mako shark. While we were gone my dad's friend and my brother moved the catamaran to Isla Partida.
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Day 5 - Tuesday, August 7th
We woke up very early and went out about 15 miles from Isla Partida and trolled around the birds that had boiling dorado under them. We couldn't get them to go on the trolled lures and decided to go back in. We decided to move the catamaran to Isla San Francisco and we wakeboarded on our Robalo following the catamaran. We got a few miles off the point of Isla Partida and before i jumped to wakeboard i jokingly said, "Hey this is area on the map is marked excellent for shark fishing." (It really did say that.) I was wakeboarding for about 5 minutes when we saw a bunch of makos and eagle rays swimming on the surface. Anyways i made it back to the boat in one piece and we put the trollers out and stopped on a sleeping marlin that sank out. We switched crews and I went out with my dad in search of dinner. We stopped on a very small paddy and saw dorado boiling over a mile away. We run over there and see about three 4x4 paddies and throw lures for a bit and after about 10 minutes about 40 small dorado came in and we caught about 6 and kept 3. I caught 2 on my little bass reel which was a blast. They were only about 5-7 lbs but were a lot of fun and stayed around the boat for atleast 1/2 an hour. We went in and spent the night at Isla San Francisco. Unfortunately we forgot the camera when we caught the dorado.
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Day 6 - Wednesday, August 8th
I woke up to find the Robalo gone and my dad and his friend left a note saying they went out fishing. They said they caught a skipjack which a big marlin chased up to a few feet off the boat. We took the catamaran farther north and I fished around a little bit by myself on the Robalo with no luck. My dad's friend hopped on the boat and we went inshore to check a few coves out and we stopped on a rockpile just off the beach to see if we could catch some triggerfish and as we stopped i saw a big blue tail swim by a few feet from the bow. "Wow big needlefish, wait no dorado!" I threw a megabait but was apparently too late. It was a big one too, atleast 30 pounds. We put out the trollers and were aiming at the tip of San Jose Island i believe and just over halfway between the island and the peninsula I saw a tailing marlin despite the rough seas. We trolled past it and cut across bringing our spread over it's head. It took a large green and white marlin lure and we sped up and watched our 50 pound test peel away. We slowed down to reel in the lines and the fish came unbuttoned. We kept trolling towards some birds that were working some boiling dorado when I spotted another tailer and then saw 4 more tailing next to it. We dragged the lure by it and one hit the same lure as the last fish and this one stuck. I brought it in in about 25 minutes. As soon as we released it I put out the same lure and i set it in the rod holder and set the drag. I saw the line start peeling out and looked up and saw a striper 5 ft in the air. We gunned it and it unpinned at the same time as the first about a minute after hookup. We trolled around more for about four more hits and saw atleast 20 tailing marlin and a bunch of jumping dorado chasing flying fish which was very exciting. It was getting late and we had about 15 miles to go to catch up to the catamaran so we picked up and ran. I saw 3 more tailers after about 10 minutes and we stopped and just dropped back the green and white marlin lure. One came up but the lure was right in the "smoke" from the engine and turned away. We kept going for a couple minutes and then I saw them again and trolled by them. A marlin came up again and again each time just tapping the lure. It must have hit the lure 15 times and finally hooked up. We gunned it and again lost it at the same time. I changed lures hoping for a better bite to land ratio but we didn't see any more marlin. We stopped about 15 miles south of Agua Verde and spent the night on the peninsula. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with us again.
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Day 7 - Thursday, August 9th
We woke up at 6am and towed the Robalo with the catamaran to Agua Verde and anchored there. We had less than 15 gallons of fuel in the Robalo so we left for Puerto Escondido and ran out of gas just before getting to the islands off Puerto Escondido. We hooked up our 18 gallon spare tank we brought with us and make it there in about 8 more gallons. We fueled up and came back to Agua Verde after stopping at the hot springs north of Agua Verde. That night I was able to make about 20 green mackeral.
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Day 8 - Friday, August 10th
We got a late start moving the catamaran back to San Jose Island. While the rest of our crew was moving the catamaran my dad and I went out fishing on the Robalo. Just off Agua Verde we spotted a large blue marlin and I tossed a bait a few feet away from it. It kicked its tail and went after it but i guess the mackeral curved off and got away from the marlin. We boxed the area but had no luck. We ran around some more and found some bait balls with dorado boiling on them. We put out the trollers and got a knockdown on a small mexican flag jethead and then we saw 2 marlin heading straight towards us. I threw a bait 5 feet infront of them and they went after it but the marlin didn't catch it. We trolled a bit longer and found another tailer that we took the spread by and it came up after a dorado colored marlin lure and hit it once, dropped it, picked it up again and took about 100 ft of line and then came off. After that it was around 1pm and we had to switch places with the crew on the catamaran. We switched places and they went off and baited a marlin that came off. They saw about 10 other marlin, some came after their spread but they couldn't get any to go. We anchored the boat and went out fishing again but it appeared to be dead and we only managed a 5 pound amberjack on a rapala.
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Day 9 - Saturday, August 11th
Moved the catamaran to Isle San Francisco.
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Day 10 - Sunday, August 12th
We went to some mangroves on San Jose Island and wake-surfed in there for a bit and then hopped it for a bit of spearfishing. I speared a red snapper and was looking for more until i saw a sea snake sitting on the bottom. Later in the day my dad and I went back in the mangroves and fished from a sandbar near the entrance. We got several hits from roosterfish. After a while of no hookups we decided to slow troll krocodiles along the mangroves which yielded 2 more red snapper big enough to eat and about 4 other snapper that were too small. On the way out I tossed a krocodile out and got about a 2-3 pound roosterfish. After fishing around a bit more we moved the catamaran to a cove on the Baja Coast. On the way there were some dorado boiling but trolling around them yielded nothing. That night a thunderstorm passed over us that almost had us on the rock beach several times. As the storm started coming over us there was no wind at all and then suddenly it was blowing 30 mph within seconds. We were shining flashlights to see how far from shore we couldn't see very far due to the rain pouring down on us. A flash of lightning struck and we saw that we were about 15 ft off the beach. We powered off with the Robalo slamming against the side of the boat. We dropped it back on a towline and kept on going. After about an hour of holding our position and keeping the Robalo from hitting the catamaran we got to the end of our anchor line and we couldn't go any farther upwind. The Robalo drifted off to the front of us and while we were busy fending it off the towline got stuck in the port engine. With the engines so far apart we had no control over the boat and were being spun around in circles. Extremely luckily the wind died 30 seconds after the engine died. We escaped with only a few minor gashes on the side of the catamaran and the Robalo.
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Day 10 - Monday, August 13th
We took the catamaran back over to San Francisco Island and fished later in the day in very rough weather and didn't see a single fish.
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Day 11 - Tuesday, August 14th
We took the catamaran over to Isla Partida and spent the night in a little cove just north of the Isthmus. While moving the catamaran I took the boat out with a few other people and saw a marlin that sunk out as we pulled up to it. I also found a large current break that had a bunch of patties on it but was only holding needlefish.
Day 12 - Wednesday, August 15th
My brother and I moved the catamaran to Isla Espiritu Santu while everyone else went into town to get water, drinks and food. They came back around 4 and we went snorkeling and wakesurfing.
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Day 13 - Thursday, August 16th
We woke up around 7 and set our course for due north from the Isthmus after learning that the dorado were there from some locals. On the way out of the Isthmus we saw jumping dorado chasing flying fish in 20 ft of water in reach of a cast from shore. We threw some lures but couldn't get them to go so we went on our way. About 7 miles out we saw 3 boats working an area so we went to investigate and we found acres of boiling skipjack and some dorado mixed in. We caught about 10 skipjack and decided to troll to see if we could find some dorado. We saw a large floating object in the distance so we went over there and it turned out to be an old freezer box. As we trolled by it we got a dorado on a large dorado colored marlin lure. A few more chased the other lures but none hit. We pulled back up and threw krocodiles but couldn't get them to bite on them. After 15 minutes of trying that I threw the only sardina I had caught the night before. Instantly a small dorado hit the bait and I let it go. I decided to try some cut skipjack and threw those out. We caught about 8 more dorado in the next hour and lost one bigger model ~25lber at gaff that got wrapped up with the fish we were still hanging from the troll. Even though they were biting that it was difficult to entice them to bite. We had to use light line, completely cover the hook and use a lot of meat for them to even take a look at it. After that we didn't get any bites for over an hour on anything. We moved on and found a small bush/tree and as we pulled up we got another fish on the troll. We kept trolling but couldn't get any more. We stopped by the bush and saw tons of dorado that wouldn't bite anything. After 45 minutes of that we moved on and trolled around for a while but couldn't find anything else. Being our last night on the catamaran we had to move the cat near La Paz so we moved it to the same cove we stayed at the first night on the end of the La Paz Peninsula.
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Day 14 - Friday, August 17th
We took the catamaran back to the moorings and went down to San Jose del Cabo where we heard we could launch in the new marina they built there. Also, my dog decided to jump off a 3 story building chasing a cat that was at the bottom. Luckily there was a light tree there which broke her fall and she didn't hurt anything.
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Day 15 - Saturday, August 18th
We went to go talk to the port captain and he told us we couldn't launch there yet because it's not open yet and they don't have the permits for it. We headed down to Cabo San Lucas and launched there. As soon as we left the marina we were getting beat up but we still decided to go all the way to the Gordo Banks for tuna. We got there and started trolling but after a while there was a 4-5 wind chop and it was too rough to stay out in our opinion. We headed back and spent one more night in San Jose del Cabo.
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Day 16 - Sunday, August 19th
We drove up to Los Barilles and stayed in a small hotel in the northern residencial area.
Day 17 - Monday, August 20th
We woke up at about 630 and launched our boat just after the fleet left from infront of Palmas de Cortes. We had the guy down there with a tractor help us launch. We heard that the fish were bitng off Isla Ceralvo but we didn't know exactly where. We headed north and a few miles from Los Barilles I spotted a sleeping marlin out of the corner of my eye while just finishing tying a marlin leader. I grabbed a bait but by the time we turned around our wake had hit it and it sank out. We went another 5 miles north and saw 2 tailing marlin. We threw a trolling jig in and brought it by them. It took a couple of minutes and they sank out several times but eventually one came up and after about 5 tries got hooked. But, of course after about a minute it came unhooked as the previous 6 or 7 marlin.... We headed north once again and started trolling off Isla Ceralvo and headed offshore towards a bank we saw on our gps. After about 15 minutes a marlin hit a large green and yellow marlin lure and took off running. But... as you can probably guess by now it came off after about a minute. Thoroughly dissapointed and wondering what the hell is going on I decided to never ever again try to hook a marlin on the troll. All of our hooks are super sharp we never let an inch of slack in the line. Last year, in Los Barilles we caught 5 marlin and didn't lose a single one. On one fish something went wierd on the reel for a second leaving complete slack in the line for about 20 seconds but still stayed on fine. Anyways, we got to the bank and spotted some seals finning and a marlin slowly tailing along. I grabbed a bait but it sank out before we got to it. We went over to one of the many white floating bouys made of foam. After making several passes around it we got hit on a cedar plug down the middle. It took about 10 feet of line and stopped. I looked back and saw it being dragged on the surface shaking its head madly. It jumped off towards the side and broke 50 pound test at the swivel. The line had gotted rapped around the rod tip. It was by far the biggest dorado I had ever seen, easily 40 pounds. We went up to the bouy and soaked our dying bait for no luck. We trolled across the bank but didn't see much and we kept heading offshore. We spotted 2 more bouys and stopped at the first one. I saw some stuff on the fishfinder at 100 feet so i dropped a krocodile on my baitcaster. I reeled up and got a very small skipjack. I threw it in the bait tank for a minute and made a few more casts. The skipjack was dying quickly so i grabbed the marlin rod with a 100 lb leader and threw it out. The skipjack unfortunately was spinning circles and showing very little signs of life. After a couple of minutes I thought this was completely useless so i put it in gear to bring it in. "Oops, I'm on." The biggest dorado I have ever seen, and probably the biggest I'll catch for years, took off running. After about 15 minutes on 30 lb test and a 100 lb test leader and a circle hook i boated him, took a few pictures, and released. I'm not great at estimating weights but I'm guessing it was around 45 pounds. We trolled around some other bouys with no luck and headed offshore trying for tuna. The water was extremely warm at 89 degrees and there was a lot of bait and we saw 3 sleeping marlin that sank out. We trolled around for about an hour in the glassy conditions but didn't see any boats and there weren't any dolphins or fish. We pulled up and headed the 35 miles back to Los Barilles. On the way back we saw a turtle with a bird sitting on top of it. We thought it was dead and it might be holding dorado. We pulled up and saw about a 15 lb dorado swimming directly under the turtle. We threw everything we had at it, although our bait was live anymore, but it didn't look at any of it. I was about to jump in and spear it with my mini speargun seeing that it wasn't scared at all of the boat. But suddenly the turtle came to life and swam away and the dorado went chasing after it. We got back and spent the night at Palmas de Cortes.
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Day 18 - Tuesday, August 21st
We drove to Mulege and stayed at the Serenidad.
Day 19 - Wednesday, August 22nd
We got up around 7am and tried to make bait but the sardinas weren't interested in our lucky joes. We headed east and went about 15 miles and started trolling. We got a hit on a cedar plug down the middle but nothing else came up. We trolled around for several hours seeing 7 jumpers, and 1 tailer that we trolled by that raced up to our spread but never came up chasing one. We didn't see any signs of dorado and it was getting rough so we went into the bay for some wakesurfing.
Day 20 - Thursday, August 23rd
Drove from Mulege all the way back to San Diego arriving at around 130am.
It wasn't a trip full of fish, but it was fun none the less.
-Alex 
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