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I had come back to the Sea of Cortez after being teased, hooked
and landed by the absolute beauty of the place and the wild
excitement of fishing for game fish with a fly rod. This time I
tagged up again with my hunting partner and professional fly
fishing guide, Jim Shuttleworth. He was just ending a week of
guiding a family from Eastern Oregon out of Rancho Buena
Vista.

After a few more minutes of discussion with Cuyuyo, we settled
on a price and agreed to meet at his home just before daylight
the next day. If there were sardines available, we would head to
the east end of the Island of Ceralvo at the northern most point
of the East Cape. We would start the day casting to skip jack,
bonita and jack crevalle...or maybe dorado. The party was about
to begin.

August is one of the hottest months in Mexico, especially the
East Cape of Baja. With the temperature and humidity
hovering in the 90's, the morning air was thick as pudding at
6:00 a.m. when we caught up with Cuyuyo on the beach
behind his home in Los Barriles. He had already launched the
panga and we passed our gear up to him before we shinnied
over the bow and set off for the day.

Rigged with our 10 and 8 weight rods, 200 yards of backing, sinking saltwater fly line and 20
pound test, cushioned with a bmini-twist knot (20 times knot), we each selected a sardina pattern
from Shuttles' elaborate assortment of saltwater flies. Just east of Ceralvo, Cuyuyo cut the engine
and we prepared for the fishing.

The morning sea was deep blue and rolling gently as a bed sheet drying in a slight breeze. I
moved to the bow and Shuttle took the stern. "Casting," he called as he shot line toward a
suddesn disturbance in the water. Cuyuyo began tossing sardines to the left and right. Suddenly
the fish were on them, rising all around us. Because the water was so calm and clear, I could
see the blurred shapes of fish darting in and out of sight, honing in on the tossed sardines and
then disappearing below the surface.

On the bow, I struggled to reach a balance point of the easy
rocking boat, leaning against the railing while trying to dig my
bare feet into the deck for traction. Using a fast sinking
shooting head, I made my first cast and began striping line in
with short, quick jerks. Fish were boiling up as I pulled the fly
through them. Wham! I took a hit and jerked the rod up like
hooking a steelhead. Missed it. I guess I pulled the trigger
too fast.

Shuttle had just hooked up and Cuyuyo pointed off the port
bow. I turned and saw a large form just below the surface
about 15 yards out. A quick back cast to load the road and
then a fore-casted single haul shot the line out in front of the
fish. Strip...Strip...Wham! "Hook up."

The first of the hit knocked me off balance and I immediately did a butt plant on the deck while trying
desperately to tighten the drag on my screaming reel. For 20 minutes, I reeled and fought the fish
as it would give me a little slack and then run like mad. When the fish got close enough to the boat
to see, Cuyuyo yelled, "Toro. Toro." "Jack Crevalle," said Shuttle as he netted the fish and handed it
to me for the catch and release photo of the morning. It looked like a silver VW bug, only powered
by a 289 Cobra engine. "No wonder they call it Toro!"

For another hour of so, we caught and released several other fish - white bonita, skip jack and a
few other jack crevalle. By then the sea lions, wahoo and other larger predators had moved in,
intent on devouring the fish we were after. All of the sudden the bite was off.

"We go fish tuna," cuyuyo said while he powered up the panga
and we headed east toward a group of other boats gathered
on the near horizon. They had spotted a group of porpoise
playing their dazzling game of extreme acrobatics and were
trolling deeper for yellowfin tuna. As we joined the hunt, frigate
birds were racking up sorties and the neon flying fish darted
back and forth across our bow. Having tackled a yellofin
before with my 8 weight, I opted for a 10 weight. The lighter
rod wouldn't have the strength for a good size tuna, and
buoyed by the morning's success, I didn't want to blow out a
rod and miss the chance at a sizable meal.

Both Shuttle and I got hit about the same time. Chaos reigned as we bounced into each other
trying to fight the fish as the boat pitched up and down in the heaving ocean. It was
mid-afternoon and the wind had put a good chop to the water. In the course of the next few
maddening seconds, Shuttle and I had ducked and weaved, changing sides six or seven times
trying to get in control of the fish we had hooked. Then as soon as it began, I lost my fish. To
clear the way for Shuttle to keep up the fight, I sat back on the passenger bench behind the
fighting chair he was leaning against for leverage.

In the next instant, he fell back into the chair and his line came after him in a wad of tangles.
"Damn, I got bit off" he said. At that moment, about 30 yards behind the boat something way out
of focus rose from the ocean and seemed to explode towards us. In a blink of an eye more than
a dozen yellowfin tuna were airborne heading right for the back end of the boat.

"Duck!" We both fell towards the deck as the lead tuna flew past the port side, narrowly missing
the panga's outboard motor. Cuyuyo muttered something in Spanish that was probably the sam
expletive I used. "Wow, that was awesome. They looked like mortars coming at us!" Shuttle
said.

After a few moments of "Did you see that's," Shuttle took a
look at his line that was spit back at him before all the
excitement. It was neatly clipped. Cuyuyo eyed the line and
said, "Azul marlin...Blue marlin."

A blue marlin probably attacked the schooled tuna and since
Shuttle's fish was undoubtedly fighting the hook, it was the
slowest in the school, thereby being the prime target for the
feeding marlin. The other tuna simply ramped up speed and
blew out of the water fleeing the hungry blue. We were lucky
enough to see them in flight, yet fortunate to be far enough
away that we didn't end up with sashimi in our laps.

We had witnessed a natural phenomenon that few had seen before. Even Cuyuyo was in awe.
He has spent his whole life on the Sea of Cortez and had never seen anything like it.

That night, sitting at Nacho's taco stand, we were relating the days adventure with a few other
fishermen and visitors to Los Barriles. It started out with "Let me tell you about our Captain -
Cuyuyo...and the shooting tuna."

Copyright © 2005-2006 Lindsay R. Mohlere, all rights reserved. Used by permission

Our first stop in the 45 minute journey to Ceralvo was alongside of a dinghy 12 foot panga
occupied by two Mexican fishermen selling bait. The bottom of the panga was partially filled with
water, live sardines and mackerel. After a few minutes of rapid fire Mexican negotiation, we had
filled our live box with a couple of buckets full of sardines. The sardines are used to bring the
fish up closer to the surface and start the frenzy.







			©Copyright 2007, Baja Sur Fly Fishers