Pescando para tuna con Javier de Playa Palmillaby Tommy Kirchhoff

At 6:30 am, we sped toward the Beach Club 96 in the gas-powered, but governed, golf cart. The weather was perfect as it always was in Los Cabos, Mexico. We joked and said, “Tits up,” as we passed the speed bump caution sign—which looked hysterically like a set of tits from the point of view of a belly button.We reached Club 96; I kissed my wife and two boys goodbye and headed down the beach to meet Captain Julio.All sorts of fishermen, white and Mexican, populated Palmilla Beach. Several small boats waited well up onto the sand while four or five big boats moored out about 200 feet from the shore.I had arranged, or negotiated, a special price with Julio indirectly through our property management company. I really didn’t want to pay more than $80 for the morning; it was supposed to cost $180 for three people; but it was just me, and the boats were hardly first class vessels.I sunscreened down, and waited for Julio’s direction. Several white guys said, “There won’t be any fish today,” and headed for their cars. I’d been skunked on enough sportfishing trips to know how they felt.Julio was talking to some Mexicans who were obviously in the company. He was pointing and barking off gentle orders. Then he pointed at me, and told one of his guys that he was taking out “pelota.” OK, I’m bald, but I speak enough Spanish to know that Julio had just called me a ‘kickball’ or playball, or something derogatory along those lines.After everyone left, Julio came to me. He pointed to the shitiest little boat in the fleet, the Leticia, and said, “no one wants to share with you, so you get to have all the luck. You’re going with Javier; he’s a good guy.”Javier was a strong-looking Mexican man in his mid-forties. One of his front teeth was almost all silver. Javier looked less than thrilled to be taking Pelota in the shitiest boat with no one else.We pushed like hell with eight other guys, and got the Leticia down to the water. We shoved-off, sort of getting heckled for having only one tourist in the boat. As we passed

other boats in our fishing fleet, more jeers came, and, Javier understanding that I could speak Spanish but not well enough to keep up with local, rapidfire lingo, played along and made fun of me too. I just figured he took me for a tourist, and told myself, “we’ll just see what happens.”We were the last boat to reach the bait-vendor boat. The outboard on the Leticia looked about 30 years old; Javier had to pump the primer to keep the old girl idling. We bumped against their similar, open-design floating piece of shit, and held on as they filled our bucket with minnows. Javier offered me some first words, “Vente dolares.”Shit. I was suppsed to get a deal on the boat, so twenty bucks for bait didn’t bother me. I pointed to the fish and inquired, “Como se llama?”“Sardinas,” he chucked back, then joked with the bait vendors about his catastrophic situation with Pelota. I was definitely being heckled right in front of me.We pushed off, and headed full speed (or at least Leticia’s full speed) to some unknown place. We trolled some big rubber squids; I had yet to see that work anywhere.We cruised almost 45 minutes until we were almost to Cabo San Lucas. Three other little boats floated in an area together. One white guy had something on his line. He pulled it up to reveal a descent-sized Bonito.Javier worked like mad, pulling-in the trolling lines, freshening the sardine water, and baiting a line for me. He handed me the rod, and in six seconds, something strong grabbed my sardine and ran straight down. I fought it for a few minutes, then saw that we were surrounded by sea lions. Javier growled loudly at them when they surfaced for air.Javier hooked into something just as I got my fish to the boat. Javier slid his pole into a place holder and grabbed a gaff. Twenty seconds was too long for that fish to stay in the water next to the boat—a big sea lion came right up and took that fish away from me like I was a bitch. The hook came flying up into the boat.I realized my adrenaline was coursing, as I tried to reason through my corrections for the next strike—if there would be a next one.I baited my hook and dropped it into the water. I made a mistake between the drag and the bail switches, and suddenly had a giant, tangled mess of line on my reel. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it got. Ugh! Amateur night at the Roxy. OK, I guess the Utah genius master fisherman was going to have to sink to zero on the learning curve.I straightened out, and Javier handed me his rod with a big fish on. I fought this one for at least five minutes, during which time Javier hooked into another one. With two fish on, the sea lions started heading toward our boat. Holding his rod in his left hand, Javier picked up a fat, wooden fishbilly with his right. A sea lion surfaced about 80 feet away from us, but its nose was pointed right at us and it was heading our way. Javier threw the club with all of his mustard and hit the sea lion right in face. It was one hell of a shot, and that thing was gone. I needed the extra time, as I was quickly catching on.I got my fish up to the boat, but gave Javier enough notice to help me out. He quickly gaffed it, dodging a second sea lion, and pulled it into the boat. It was a nice fat Bonito.Javier hand me his rod, and set up the other. Immediately he got one on, and fought it for about seven minutes. When he got it up to the boat, he gleefully exclaimed, “Tuna!” and gaffed it. It was a yellowfin, probably weighing about 10 or 12 pounds. I had been reeling in fish for 20 minutes straight. I was drenched in sweat. Sweat rolled over my sunglass lenses and soaked my shirt.

It didn’t let up. We banged Bonito and Tuna for the next 45 minutes without a break. My forearms were burning, but the adrenaline superceded any pain.On a particularly big, strong fish, I wasn’t making any headway, so I looked at the other boats to see how they were doing. Four boats circled around the Leticia, but their strikes seemed intermittent at best. I questioned the reality of it, then realized that we were the kings. Javier was boasting about the lucky, white guy, and yelling things like “Dios mio!” as one after another, big fish took our bait. We continued to haul them in, dodging sea lions and tossing good tuna and bonito into the fish trunk. I heard another boat captain yell to Javier,“No entiendo!” to which Javier just laughed and yelled back something caddy. We were both laughing and buzzing on adrenaline. We were too busy “catching” to call it fishing.We had 150 sardines to start. Every time we re-baited, pushing the hook through the tough little nose of those silver baitfish, Javier would toss five to ten more live sardines out into the water. Tuna blasted out of the water, chasing and chomping each of my thirteen-cent sardines. The air was electric with so much activity—snorting sea lions, fish ripping through the surface; men calling us out as to why we were catching fish and they weren’t; and bigger boats, with their gargling diesels coming in close to steal some of our action.A Mexican captain yelled, “mucho trabaja!” as if to rob us of our morale as we sweat and fought these amazing fish.After nearly two hours, even the salty and experienced Javier was starting to fatigue. Our bait was running low, and our arms were tight and itchy.My left index finger was cut and bleeding at the crease of the joint from trying to pull a tuna quickly into the boat to avoid a sea lion; I was face to face with the bastard, but I wasn’t giving up that fish, so I just grabbed the line and yanked it in. It finally stopped bleeding after soaking in saltwater and drying many times over. That didn’t stop the burning though.I had moved way up the learning curve. 30 years of fishing experience, plus the helpful tutelage of Javier to remind me how a big reel works was paying off. In fact, for the first hour, I outfished Javier by a three to one ratio, but he definitely caught up by the end.We caught one last bonito with our last sardine. I heard Javier yell something about “agua negra” only minutes before, and somehow all the action ceased. No lions, no fish, no boats, no bait. I opened the fish trunk to take a count. They were stacked up so much that they were impossible to inventory.We trolled more than an hour to get back to Palmilla, but no strikes. We did a high-speed landing, and were met by children, tourists and onlookers. Javier was proud as a peacock as the young boys opened the trunk and started lifting out fat tuna and bonitos three at a time. The boys hung them on the photo display hooks, filling each of the 12 hooks and leaving five still on the table.The final tally was eight tuna and nine bonito. I stood before them and called Javier over to join me for a photo. I repositioned him a few times, then Julio snapped a couple pics with my Olympus.I gave all the fish to Javier and then argued with Julio about the price. He wanted the full $180. I told him to work it out with Claudia at the property management company—someone who sends him most of his clients.Nothing seems straight in Mexico, but Cabo’s got a magic like nowhere else I’ve been.