As we were motoring out of tranquil Bahia Concepcion on our way to San Juanico, I vowed to Sharon that I was going to catch a fish for dinner that night. If you've been following my blog you know that catching fish is not one of my strong points. As the sun was rising over the Sea of Cortez I was deploying first a hand line with a cedar plug and then I let out a line from my pole with a repeller lure.
As we rounded the cape and turned south down the sea a breeze started to blow, I already had our main sail out motor sailing and within short time off went the engine and out came the 155 genoa..which is a large headsail which is very powerful. We were sailing along nicely in 10-15 knot winds and our speed over ground (SOG) was around 7 knots. I turned around and there on the end of the hand line was.....A FISH!!! A hand line is basically a long piece of thin rope with another long piece of fishing line attached to it, this is not a set-up for the sportsman as there is no fight and the fish has little chance of escaping, this is the best way for a cruiser to land a fish while sailing a heeling boat. I pulled the helpless fish to the stern of Si Bon, dropped him into the wet locker on our swim step and let the line back out for another try. Our fish, we think he was a tuna, was not large, but he was big enough for dinner for two later.
Mean time the wind had now increased to 20+ knots and Si Bon was becoming difficult to handle, we furled the genoa (reduced the sail area) in order to calm things down. I looked back and there was another fish on the hand line, I started pulling the line in, this time the boat was heeled WAY over and I was hanging on with one hand and reeling the line in with the other with Si Bon on auto pilot and Sharon ready with the gaff. We suddenly were hit with a strong gust, Si Bon leaned WAY over and began violently pointing herself into the wind, Sharon yelled "TURN OFF AUTO PILOT" and as I reached behind me to turn off the auto pilot....I let go of our fish. So much for the "fish having little chance" theory. At about that time the line on the pole started spinning off the reel, as we tightened the drag the fish snapped off our line...so in a matter of minutes we lost a cedar plug, a repeller lure AND a complete hand line....but we had dinner and 20-25 knots of wind, so life was good.
Soooo.....how was the fish? Well I filleted the little sucker, threw him on the grill and when we bit into the dark purple meat we both nearly feel out of our chairs. This was by far the best tasting fish either one of us had ever eaten, if you didn't know that is was fish, you would swear that the tender meat was a fine steak. The next Day I caught another fish while at anchor and we made him into fish tacos for dinner...so while I probably won't be seen on American Sportsman show anytime soon, at least we've ben able to get a couple of good dinners, and hopefully there will be more to follow.
As of November 8 we are in Puerto Escondido, where we will be for the next week or so before continuing south. Over the next few days I will post some of the adventures that we have had since leaving San Juanico last week.