Sight fishing for Yellowtail
by Gary Bulla

February 2006 Las Arenas

Sometimes when your expectations are small big things can happen. I had booked a day with my favorite captain at Cerralvo Island before my wife and her students arrived in La Paz for our annual whale trip to Magdalena Bay. The wind had been blowing out of the north for three days and the kite surfers at La Ventana were having a ball. Tuesday was my day to fish and the wind died. We heard that there were lots of sardinas out at the island after buying some bait and using most of it catching a few 12-15 pound skippies. While making bait (Valente casting the throw net with while I steered) tight to the beach I readied myself for the toro or jack crevalle to show, which is what usually happens when the schools of bait are disturbed by the round net. The water was green and there wasn't supposed to be anything around but some sierra and dog snappers. All of a suden two huge fish boiled on a handful of bait thrown away from the beach and I cast. A big wake pushed up and a mouth engulfed my fly on the second cast and it was off to the races. I was into my backing on the 10 weight Scott way too quickly and managed to mutter "Grande, eh?" to Valente. His look told me that he wasn't confident I would land whatever I had hooked into. The fish headed into to deep water and we followed immediately with the panga as I frantically tried to retrieve a little line. He surprised me because he usually doesn't follow so quickly -even when I hooked a big yellowfin tuna. So I figured he knew something that hadn't quite registered with me yet. Suddenly the fish turned and for a heart breaking moment as I tried to recover line I was sure it had come unbuttoned. But as it headed down the beach towards a dark spot-read coral reef- the line came tight again. Whew-smiles again. It was now back in ten feet of water and right over the reef and we worried it was going to "rock" me. We hurried to get over it so I could put vertical pressure on it. I began to recover line again as Valente drove the panga just slow enough to keep pressure on the fish. Man, it is great to be working with a captain that really understands flyfishing. As my intermediate SA line came on to the reel (finally!) we looked down and both of us widened our eyes and yelled "YELLOWTAIL!" at each other. Valente told me it it was the first big one he had ever seen caught with a fly. I replied something like "don't say that-it's not in the boat yet!". The fish was rolling and slashing around in a slot in the coral and obviously trying to use it to cut the line. This went on for several minutes with Valente running back and forth between the engine and me-checking out the fishes position and adjusting our position to keep my line vertical.Now I know why his panga is christened "Venado" the deer. He can really hop around when he is excited. Finally it was done- and I was able to slowly lift it to the surface with Valente's eye on the bend of my rod and coaching me not to lift too high or I would break the rod and possibly spoil all our efforts. It was definitely going to be consumed-so he artfully gaffed it, and it was double high fives and a couple of Modelos. The Boga showed about 30 pounds, but that was it's limit. I thanked the fish gods and thought this will never happen again in my lifetime-but in the back of my mind I knew that all the smaller yellowtail I had caught had been very close to shore....maybe they would be here again tomorrow.
To make a long story shorter I got the chance to go back out the next day with my other favorite captain-as Valente had to leave for his winter commercial fishing at Los Frailles. The wind was increasing that morning as the hours went by, but there were even more yellowtail raiding the sardinas that were hugging the shore. I got repeated chances to sight cast to them before they would spot the boat or panic after turning and feeling or seeing my dropping line. It was very much like sight fishing for tarpon in six foot deep flats in Belize, only the fish were moving very fast all the time. I managed to put the fly in front of a fish moving towards me and hooked up again. After another crazy run-it came unbuttoned, but about an hour later a very nice fish grabbed a Tres generaciones and headed for La Paz. This fight was lasting longer and all took place in the deep. We were on a long shelf so it had to run quite a ways to get into water fifty feet deep. It still only took a half hour, and the fish weighed in at 16.7 kilos on a balance scale. I checked the book when I returned home and found the standing yellowtail world record for 10 kilo tippet was ten kilos, or twenty two pounds. Oh Oh well, next year.

I was also thrilled to add a new species to my list -a big eyed Jack (or is it horse eyed?) that afternoon.

My old friend and captain-Valente with the first yellowtail

Down and dirty

Color at last

The second day and the bigger yellowtail on a Tres Generaciones.

2003-2005 copyright gary bulla