…and actually catch something.
December 27-29 2017
Cabo San Lucas
My work does a Holiday shutdown right before busy seasons, which leaves me with some extra time off between Christmas and New Year’s every year. So in 2017, a co-worker and I decided to hop a flight down to Mexico (for 49 hours) and do some fishing (12 hours of fishing).
We landed in Cabo on a Wednesday afternoon, grabbed a ride to our hotel and almost immediately coordinated a trip to walmart for essentials (water and beer, duh!). Once we had our “essentials” we headed out for dinner and drinks at a local taco place (I probably shouldn’t have had the frozen margaritas) and turned in early because we had to find our way to the dock by 6:30am the following morning. As soon as we got to the dock we met our 2 man crew, boarded the “Adriana” (a 28ft charter by Pisces Sportfishing) and were quickly asked what we wanted to catch. We each came hoping to hook a Marlin and with the full day charter booked, we had 8 hours to get it done! The crew picked our location and we left the harbor in the pitch black of morning.
We sped across the ocean for what felt like hours and finally found a spot to fish among other boats. Getting there might have felt like forever, but the crew set up our lines and within minutes, we were on!
Ladies first meant that this Marlin was mine to reel, and having never fished before I admit that I severely underestimated the strength it requires to catch something that large and powerful. Some 20-30 minutes later (and a lot of help form the crew!) the Marlin was close enough for me grab a picture with it quickly, remove the hook and set it free.
Only a couple of minutes after I caught my fish, we were on again! Time for Scott to get his Marlin too! Before getting the chance to clear the extra lines we had out to allow Scott to bring his fish in, we hooked up a double. 2 Marlins at once! All in all we hooked (and successfully reeled in) 3 Marlin within the first hour of fishing at this spot. This trip will forever give me unrealistic expectations about fishing in the future. But shortly after that 3rd marlin, we learned that when you’re not “on a fish” and not focused on something you really start to feel how big the swells are. All that beer in our cooler and we wanted NOTHING to do with it. The exhaustion from reeling only made our stomachs more uneasy.
With each of us having successfully caught a Marlin (I got 2 of them!) the ocean got the best of us and we asked to head back to shore early. Feeling Sea Sick is no joke and once we were back on land we cleaned up and PASSED out for hours. We woke up in time for dinner, but I still felt crappy and couldn’t stomach anything, ended up only eating the tortillas from dinner.
Next morning we were up again before the sun and headed back to the dock to set out for a 1/2 day (4 hours) of fishing before heading to the airport that afternoon. We took our dramamine this time and put on those pressure point bracelets to combat the ocean. Today we wanted to get Mahi Mahi aka Dorado. My absolute favorite fish! Dorado required a different kind of fishing too, a method called Trolling. Multiple lines were set up behind the boat as we drove slowly along the coast. Trolling is SO MUCH easier on the stomach, something about the boat being idle just makes it so much worse. 3 was again our lucky number because we ended up catching 3 Dorado on day 2.
We managed to stay out for the entire four hours the second day and as we headed back to shore, the crew cleaned one of the Mahi for us to have for lunch. We docked the Adriana and walk our freshly caught fish to a restaurant 20 ft away. They prepared our fish for us 3 ways; ceviche, grilled and blackened, and to this day that was one of the best Mahi Mahi meals I’ve had.
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