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Name: Barnes Age: 38 Vessel: Parker "Hard Core" Location: Portland, Oregon and PV, Mexico Job:Design Computer Chips, Eat Tortilla Chips
Posts: 63
| PV Report 12/26-1/03
I chose to document my trip from start to finish for my own sake, the fishing starts on day 3 if you want to skip ahead…
Following my drive to PV, I forgot to book this trip between Christmas and New Years. Alaska was sold out, I finally got a ticket on cheap flights, mega bucks for a middle seat, not cheap, fuck it.
It was Christmas Day in Portland, with the last week’s weather consisting of a foot of snow, followed by ½ inch of freezing rain that turned to a sheet of ice on top of the snow, and then nearly two feet on top of that. I was thinking only about my fishing trip to PV, the snow and ice was getting very old. I was coming up the hill at my house and all of the sudden I find I’m spinning all four and sliding down the hill backwards. I’m pissed at the snow and ice so I put it in fourth gear and floor it, I’m getting to my house. It goes into a big slide now, the wheels are doing 60MPH, and the rear tires hit the curb, BANG and then grinding noises. I thought I sheared a half shaft, but turns out I blew my spider gears, costly mistake, but all I was thinking is how I get to the airport in the morning! I went to the house and had a beer, to contemplate my options, I’m getting to PV somehow.
I call and sit on hold with about 12 airport shuttles and taxi companies, finally someone tells me, you won’t get a ride in this weather, you’re wasting your time. Shit, I’m getting nervous now. I literally can’t get a ride to the airport. I finally call my friend who helped me rig the boat and understands my mission, and he offers a ride. What a bro. He shows up at 10PM on Christmas night in his chained 4x4, and drives me to the airport, I stay in some shitty hotel out there by PDX. No problem, I will be rewarded…
Day 1
I arrive in PV about 2pm and head to the Marina Fiesta for some visa photos, and then off to the condo. I head out immediately to secure a slip at the Marina La Cruz, and load up on the essential provisions (beer, water, and coffee). I head out in the evening for a streetside Torta Cubana in La Cruz, killer.
Day 2
I get up early, time to get the boat in the water, I had an 8AM high tide. Big hassle getting access to my boat, I talk to the Marina Office, you called too far ahead they tell me, they forget. Lovely, I prep the boat, hitch up, and head to the ramp. I hand the guard my boat permit, I thought it was good for one month, and this was the last day it should have been good from my last trip. No, he tells me, you have the 4 day permit, you cannot launch, back this out of here. I start to argue and pull out my wallet hoping to modify the rules, then he gets irate. I start to back out, and he tells me to hurry up, so I told him to block traffic, which he does. Some people starting asking me all sorts of questions, and kept pestering me, finally, I’m irritated, and I tell them “this isn’t a fucking show”.
I take the boat back to storage and unhitch it, and head all the way around the harbor to get a boat permit. Office is closed, he only works banker’s hours, they’re closed on Saturday. Now what, I’m fucked, my friend is flying in tonight and I’ll have to tell him we can’t fish on Sunday and get a late start on Monday. No, unacceptable. Okay, I’m going to give the La Cruz marina a try.
I hitch it up again, and head out, mind you my trailer brakes are still not fixed due to the shit ice and snow in Portland which shut UPS down for two weeks. I end up taking a wrong turn, now I’m creeping along at 2 inches a second in 4 low, on a dirt rough as shit road, with my eyes pegged to the side view mirror watching the radar slowly lift up electrical wires. Again some gringos on horseback stop and stare at my predicament and start asking me questions, etc. I give them the same line. I’m on a mission.
I finally get the boat launched, refueled, and into its slip. I call my friend and say take a cab, this day was already too long.
I raced back to Paradise Village, rinsed the trailer and dumped it off. I headed down to PV for the Visa photos, and a marathon shopping mission at the Costco. On the way back, sitting in traffic at Bucerias at a red light, I get rear-ended by a local. What the fuck??? I get out, and take a look, my class five hitch punched through the grill of a brand new car. I talk to the driver, “sorry, I’m tired”. He has no interest exchanging information, nor do I, so I tell him to hold his brakes on. Green light, and I punch it separating the cars, off I go, no damage to mine.
I race back to La Cruz and load up the boat. I had a dry box under the berth that had flooded during last month’s washdown with life jackets in it, turning into the nastiest mildew black soup I have ever seen, I yacked twice cleaning it out, and just chucked the jackets.
My friend Jeff showed up, and we started celebrating, we headed to the La Cruz Marina restaurant for dinner, and called it a night.
Day 3
We got up at 4AM and loaded a huge arsenal of tackle. They let us drive up the sidewalk to load the boat at the marina. I again hired ‘Chinaman’ Luis as a experienced hand on deck, he was all bundled up ready to go. We headed out and picked up a load of cabbies from Jaibo the bait making machine. As soon as we approached the point, then it started, just nasty seas, again, fuck, I’ve had enough of this shit every time.
It was worse than the last trip, shoveling water, rocking and rolling, I was standing on a deck hatch, and I cracked the shit out of it on a big wave almost going through it. After 3 hours of this, and only making 10 knots, Luis suggests we just head to the rock. No, we’re going to El Banco I tell him. He pukes over the side and I snap a photo of him. I get the middle finger. I keep going, we are just standing up taking a serious beating. Luis again says, that’s enough, let’s head for the rock since we were now just north of it.”No, we’re going to El Banco”.
Luis get’s pissed at me, and says “ you’re a fucking masochist”. I started laughing, sorry amigo. Later in the day he tells me he won’t ever go on my boat again, he is serious. I tell him that’s okay. I highly recommend him, he’s a great fisherman, great stories, all around good guy…but you need a bigger boat than I have.
We arrive and the only boat out there is a panga and Josh Temple on Maximo, wow, what a machine that is. He’s even rocking and rolling, and I even manage to bury the pulpit in a wave, it’s rough. We skip on the skippies and put out three cabbies for a slow troll, we hook two dorado right off the bat and throw one of them in the box. We continue to troll for awhile, and Luis is not well. He gives us his breakfast saying he won’t be able to eat all day. Killer breakfast tacos. I’m enjoying myself. After a couple of hours with no signs of tuna, we decide to put out the marlin jigs.
We deploy a spread of 2 big jigs on the 50W’s plus two , and a shotgun smaller jig for tuna/dorado. We roll her up to 7.5knots and set the AP for the rock. We get one knockdown on the rigger that doesn’t stick.
Luis starts feeling better and tells some amazing stories. He tells us he knows how to call in a marlin, sure enough 5 minutes later the starboard rigger pops, but nothing’s there. Luis jumped on the rod and feeds it line. There he is, he keeps feeding until line is coming off the reel, he pushed the lever to strike and I hit the throttles. We come tight with it and my buddy Jeff gets the rod. We clear the other lines, and we put the harness on him, that we had already sized up. He gets comfortable right off the bat, and puts the drag way up. The blue was boatside, lit up and feisty in 10 minutes, those Calstars 755XXXH put the pressure on. About 300 pounds Luis says and hooked in the corner of the mouth. I say hold for a quick photo or two and I’m sticking my face and camera right at him, and the marlin gives me a look and lunges at me. I jumped back, hitting the camera button the process. I think it’s a pretty cool shot. We had a clean release.
We trolled around for awhile at the rock, but it was now 4PM and my buddy was dead set on seeing the Charger’s game. We headed for the barn, much to Luis’ relief. We cleaned up and headed to Bucerias where we found a killer sports bar with great pizza and margies, we got home at midnight.
Day 4
I had my Visa appointment, and it was the usual BS of not expecting me, etc. I didn’t get back to the condo until 2PM. Okay, we aren’t going offshore. We head to the boat, and while I’m fixing my electronics as my Navnet hub had failed, Jeff disappears for about 30 minutes. Wound up he had a beer talking to JT on Maximo, who was nice enough to give us a couple big ball bearing clips (shit that didn’t arrive due to the snow storm). Thanks JT, I never did have enough time to swing by to thank him. I let my friend get comfortable with the boat, hoping I would finally get to winch on a big fish this trip. So we bring the free dive gear and spear gun, and head on out, we still had cabbies from the day before so we troll around Pt. de Mita.
We only fished about 30 minutes, and it was getting dark, Jeff decides to go in the water. I tell him it’s too rocky to anchor, so I’ll hover. He jumps in before I clear the lines, and I’m now a couple hundred yards away, when a panga comes out of nowhere headed right for him. Shit, I slice the lines, hit the horn, and punch the throttles. He is submerged and they go right over the top of him. He comes up and heads for the boat, I figure he’s missing some fingers. He’s experienced and said he heard it coming, so he grabbed a rock until it passed. Whew, that was stupid, lesson learned…deploy the dive flag first and stay tight.
We grilled some killer steaks and met up with Don Julio that night, as well as picked up a bunch of provisions.
Day 5
It’s just Jeff and I, but we get a good early start showing up at the boat at 5AM with enough stuff to stay out on El Banco overnight, that was the plan. Unfortunately the bait tank pump had failed, and all our cabbies had rolled. No problem, I carry a spare so 2 quarts of sweat and 15 minutes later I had it changed out. Jaibo loaded us up again with 45 cabbies and off we went. The seas had calmed down dramatically. We got out to El Banco in 2 hours doing 22 knots. We immediately filled the tubes with skippies and I did my first bridling job. Too much of a rookie, I took too long, he’s dead, so I try again. Dead again, shit Luis made it look so easy. Jeff suggests I practice with some dead ones. I do about 15 trial runs, and say I’m ready. We again load up the bait rigs, and this time I get it done, the bait is chugging along with us. I repeat, and it was a smooth operation for the rest of the trip.
We slow troll two skippies on the 50’s and two cabbies on the jig sticks for a few hours, but unfortunately it was a kite show. Tunas would pop up and all the other boats were deploying kites and drifting cabbies over El Banco. It was very effective; unfortunately we left the kite in the back of the truck, no good. We do our best slow trolling and fly lining, watching boats like the Pacifico just yarding fish constantly, frustrating to say the least. Finally around 2PM I get picked up on a schoolie sized tuna, quick fight, but we got something. We bag it around 4PM and head for the barn, we need the kite, we did 27 knots on the way home, going to 32 in the bay.
Sashimi, steaks, and seared ahi with rice and beans for dinner, of course, Don Julio joined us again also.
Day 6
We head out about 6AM, top off the cabbies, and we find the ocean a little bit rougher than the day before. We still arrive at El Banco in just over 2 hours. We load up on skippies, but end up not deploying them. Tuna are coming up left and right, and it is the same show as before. We deploy the kite and we trade off fishing it, while we run two other fly lined cabbies. Tough for us again, we had tuna just breezing and boiling around the boat passing our baits by.
Finally about 3PM I hear an big boil right close to the boat, and my reel starts spinning under my thumb. I give it a long count and lock in, drag is screaming, I’m tight with a decent fish on 40lb. I think I could handle it and keep drifting, but by the 3rd run I’m down to one quarter of spool with a good amount of drag and boats at very close quarters getting close to the line, I tell Jeff time to chase it. He clears the kite and other lines, and gets on the controls.
We get on top of it, and it started circling, so I told him to take it for a walk. Worked perfectly, now I thumbed the spool and got color. In goes a perfect gaff shot and we put a decent fish on the deck. I know it’s not anything to talk about for PV, but for me it was special. We bled and dropped the fish in the kill bag on a solid load of ice, and headed for the barn, we needed fuel and given it was New Years Eve I figured they would close early.
Sure enough, they were closed at La Cruz so we headed for Vallarta. The line for fuel was 1 hour long, we hovered, and had to be pretty aggressive to get in there, we got snaked twice. We side tied to a 32 boston whaler, a guy from Guadalajara who was also out there with 3 tuna, one over 100lbs. He freely offered information as well as some killer ceviche tostados as we both refueled. He said our problem is we should run a double trouble rig on the kite, I had heard about it, but not known how to rig it. Easy, okay, now we’re in business for tomorrow.
We headed out, cleaned the fish and stopped at a La Gloria in La Cruz for steak and lobster, no Don Julio, Cuervo Tradicional this time. I recommend that place.
I headed down to the beach for the fireworks display with the neighbors, I brought a huge platter of sashimi and soy sauce with diced serranos. It was inhaled. I didn’t hit the bed until 2AM.
Day 7
Last day, we headed out to Jaibo at 6AM. He again took care of us, and we gave him a propina grande thanking him for the week’s bait supply. We headed out to El Banco, a bit of a swell, we averaged 22 knots. We tried a bit for skippies, but it wasn’t working, we put two in the tubes, but then I decided we were wasting time. We only saw two other boats out there, Pacifico and one other.
Jeff goes on the kite working the double trouble rig, and I deploy two fly lined cabbies. The kite rig looked bitchen, but there wasn’t much signs of tuna. Pacifico was getting them somehow, and putting a young kid on the fish, awesome, we gave them a thumbs up, but it just wasn’t working for us. I managed two dorado on the fly lined baits, these went into the kill bag. About 2PM we threw in the towel and put out the marlin jigs heading for the deep canyons off of the rock.
About 4 miles short of the rock, the sea is erupting, nice size tuna under some porpoise, coming out of the water. We try and get on them, but they’re skittish, we can’t get within 300 yards of the tuna. We try and intercept them and shut down, but they just head the other way. Jeff decides to get in the water with the dolphins, it was already clear we weren’t getting a tuna this day. I run up on the porpoise and get them running in our wake and he dives. He swam with them for a little while, I kept fishing very close to him all the time. He comes back aboard and says the water is full of jellyfish, the welts were forming all over his back and neck. Ouch.
We put the jigs out again, and troll all over the place with the sun going down. This time, Don Julio joined us on the boat. We kept it sane, and trolled until it was pitch black. We ran in on the electronics at 25 knots.
Steak and ahi again, we ended up catching a pretty decent buzz.
Day 8
Time to haul the boat. We get a late start due to the aforementioned celebration, but the high tide at the ramp isn’t until noon. I decide to have Jeff run the boat over, I meet him over there with the trailer after securing the boat permit from the port captain. What a bullshit process.
We pull the boat, unload it, flush the engines and pumps, and send the boat to a 2 day spa treatment, wash, wax, polish, and then deploy the full cover. It deserved it. The boat and engines were rock solid, and the boat is rigged perfectly for down there. Only a couple minor things gone out that I will take care of next time.
We cleaned and stored gear at the condo, and got cleaned up. We headed for the airport. I came back and decide to take it easy. I enjoyed the sunset watching two humbacks breaching and fin slapping the water for 20 minutes right in front of my house. What an amazing place.
Day 9
I headed down to the boat, it was looking good, tipped the guys at the boat yard, and headed back to La Cruz. Got the car washed, and had breakfast and a bloody at La Glorieta, great food there.
Headed back to the place, and cleaned it up, and then took a cab to the airport.
I arrive at 1:10PM for a 2:45PM flight, I had my fish frozen and bagged in a big suitcase. He explains in Spanish, fish must be in a cooler and suggests given I’m late that I throw it away. No fucking way. I jump in a cab and head to Marina Fiesta, I tell the taxi driver to wait. I’m back in two minutes with a cooler back to the airport. I clear the security, they tape my cooler, I get to the counter with over an hour before my flight, and they say it is closed. We gave your seat away. All I could say is “what the fuck, are you people out of your minds?”.
I tell them how much I paid, and they get offer me a transfer to Northwest airlines. I have to fly through Minneapolis, not getting home until 2AM, and I’m in a middle seat again. They take they’re sweet time, and now I’m approaching 1 hour on the next flight, I suggest they hurry up. She suggests I have some black coffee since she can smell the alcohol. I won’t be flying US air again.
I head to Northwest for more bullshit, they say I have to go o the immigration office yet again to stamp the FM3. I do this and he says run to the gate. I walk, getting there just in time.
Anyways, it was a great trip, non-stop every minute running on no more than four hours of sleep per night. My hands look like chopped meat, I’m black and blue all over from the beating the sea provided, and I’m wedged in a middle seat as I type this, but I’ve got a shit-eating perma-grin on my face.
I won’t be back down until March or so, where I plan to take it easy and work on the boat, maybe venture offshore if there is something around. This was all in prep for next Fall where I’ll be down there for 3 month’s straight of fishing.
Back to work for me now, and I already feel the withdrawal symptoms.
I took a mountain of photos, here are some of them:
Cheers!
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