In early October, Jeff Schweitzer, a Salida restaurateur, embarked on a big-game fishing adventure using sea kayaks at a place called Punta Colorada on the Baja peninsula, about 45 minutes north of Cabo San Lucas, in the Sea of Cortez. This is his account of what might have been an unprecedented adventure:
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico — It was my second time fishing with Jim Sammons of California-based La Jolla Kayak on his four-day, guided deep-sea kayak trip north of Cabo San Lucas. Our group went out Oct. 5 with a load of caballito baits.
The morning started slowly, and we moved a few times by loading the kayaks into the pangas.
On the third stop, about 2 miles from Punta Colorada, I was the first one into the water in a 13-foot Prowler Trident kayak.
We used fresh caballito, about 9 inches long, on a 6/0 circle hook with 14 feet of 60-pound test fluorocarbon leader.
After about five minutes, my drag started buzzing, then briefly stopped. There were four other kayaks in the water nearby, and I figured my bait had tangled in someone’s paddle, or something else, because I was about 60 feet from the others.
The drag started again and I let it go for a long six seconds before throwing the lever into gear.
About that time Sammons yelled excitedly: “Jeff, there’s a giant marlin right in front of you.”
In what seemed like slow motion, my kayak started to point at the marlin lazily cruising the surface, and I yelled: “Hook up!”
The marlin didn’t seem hooked as it cruised the surface for five seconds before diving frantically.
After peeling off 80 yards of line from my reel, the marlin leaped clear of the water in the middle of all our boats and kayaks. That’s when pandemonium really hit everyone.
Sammons told me nobody had ever hooked a blue marlin from a kayak. Little did I know how long and hard a blue marlin can fight.
I had 100 yards of 40-pound test monofilament topshot and 300 yards of 65-pound Spectra. We were in about 300 feet of water, and I think the fish went to the bottom and started cruising, heading for Mazatlan.
Because the kayak and I didn’t weigh as much as the fish, he never really had more than 250 yards of line out. At no point did I think I would get spooled, but I did get a heck of a “Baja sleigh ride.” The first hour and a half was definitely the hardest for me.
Finally, I think my hands and gut went numb and my hand kind of seized into the locked position — that was easier for me. Sammons got into his kayak and started paddling to keep me company.
He quickly realized I needed to put more hurt on this fish, so he grabbed my kayak and made the marlin pull us both.
I was soaked with sweat, and my attention was narrowly focused on my hands and the reel in my lap. Nothing else mattered at this point.
By about the fifth hour, everyone was getting eager for it to end. We would run out of daylight soon and now had a 15-mile run back to the hotel, because we had been pulled more than 10 miles from where the fight started.
I had never caught a fish more than 60 pounds, and this blue marlin was way bigger than that. It seemed as though we hadn’t really tired it enough to land anyway. It was like yo-yoing a 350-pound refrigerator — slow and really heavy.
Sammons and I broke it off at the leader and called it a success. After shakily loading the kayaks into the our boat, the Bohemia, we roared back to the hotel. We think it was the first blue marlin caught from a kayak. Interestingly, another guy on the trip, Howard McKim, caught another just two days later.
I am certain this will be debated for many years to come: How big a fish can anybody get all the way to land from a kayak?
You know I want to be the one to answer this question myself. I hope to answer the question on my next trip to the East Cape of Baja California.
