DATELINE: JUNE 1, 2025 – PUERTO PENASCO, MEXICO
This will be a road trip blog. The standard by which road trips are measured is the 2014 “Band of Brothers” Road Trip, and while I was thinking through comparisons between the two, the first thing that struck me was that somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, eleven years had passed since that two-week exhibition of poor dietary choices. (And who could forget that curiously-timed case of bird flu?) My big takeaway from that journey was how special it was to just be “one of the guys” instead of a father or weird uncle figure, making me treasure my own youth all the more.
The theme song of that trip was Blake Shelton’s “Playboys of the Western World,” and one of the key lyrics is “Let’s go down to Mexico.” And so it was, 11 years later, that another generation of species hunters, two college-age buddies, wanted to do a road trip to Puerto Penasco, and me, having been there before and being old enough to rent a car, got invited along. I could hear that song again in my head, but could only pray that no one would end up naked or arrested. And could I possibly be accepted as “one of the guys,” or was it time to take the role of cantankerous grandfather?
Our cast of characters is a familiar one. You know Vince from a number of blogs, most recently in the deacon rockfish episode. Jacob, another intense life lister from Ventura, California, had set me up with species such as the shadow goby and the California pompano. Both of them were now adults, or at least college students, which in my case was like being an adult except with more bad decisions. (Not that I have evidence these two have made any notable bad decisions – they’re both pretty responsible.) They had not been to Penasco, so it was a wide open shooting gallery of new species for them. I have been to Penasco at least half a dozen times, but the Cortez stingray had still eluded me. It was time to fix that.
We all met up down in Phoenix, where I went through the horror of renting a car for Mexico. There’s a lot of paperwork and cost involved, but it beats Mexican jail if you have even a fender-bender.
Norena at Hertz Phoenix, who kept us out of jail. That’s Vince on the left and Jacob next to me.
The drive down was, frankly, a bit odd. Even though I have been going to Rocky Point for 11 years, I realized that I had never done the driving, and I found myself asking a question I should probably ask myself a lot more – “What would Chris Moore do?” For Chris had taught me to never, ever exceed the ridiculous 12 mile an hour speed limit in Sonoyta. After that, it was pretty easy, and we were at our condo and setting up tackle.
(A big shout out to Dave, the owner of the fabled Capone’s restaurant and brewery, the finest food in Northern Mexico, and, frankly, Southern Arizona. He rented us the condo and made sure we were brilliantly fed each night.)
From left to right, that’s Steve, Dave, Jacon, and Vince.
On that first day, we raced down to the harbor and jumped on board with El Jefe, one of my favorite charter operators in the area.
El Jefe, the guy you need to take for any short-to-medium range trips in the area. He knows where the fish are.
This is a guy who truly feels the needs of the species-hunting world, and it was a blast to watch the kids nail all the stuff that I got the first time I visited Rocky Point.
The lance lizardfish were out in force.
I thought the guys both had records, but it turns out that someone had found much bigger ones since I had been there last. Such is life – while the competitive part of me doesn’t like having records broken, the (very small) mature part enjoys adding new species to the IGFA rolls and inspiring other anglers to find bigger ones.
The guys enjoy a calm day on the Sea of Cortez – it can get bumpy here in a hurry. Just ask Chris Moore, who threw up his own socks on a particularly breezy day a few years ago.
Day two was a lagoon adventure, and this time, we would have to hoof the sandy mile to the water. (Chris’ buddy with the dune buggies was not in town.)
The lagoon at low tide. Just a few hours later, most of this would be underwater. The tidal shifts here are enormous, reaching 18 feet on some days, so pack light and be prepared to keep moving.
This tidal estuary, just east of the main city, is a hotspot for throwing lures and hosts some truly interesting species, including the dreaded Cortez stingray, which everyone but me has caught. And no, I didn’t this time either, thanks for asking.
I can catch oddly-patterned Haller’s rays all I want, but the more colorful Cortez continues to elude me. Even Spellman has caught one.
While the guys got plenty of everything, I did manage to get my first species of the trip – a Guaymas goby, courtesy of Jacob’s sharp eyes. I had seen them there before and just assumed they were mudsuckers. Shame on me.
The beast. Species number 2397. Could 2400 be in store on this trip?
Vince tacked on several new lifers, including a Cortez Croaker.
Jacob tacked on a guitarfish, which I of course thought was the standard shovelnose we get in California.
The guys stayed up half the night researching our catches, and discovered the guitar was a different species – the spadenose – so I was desperate to go back there and get one. Even though they had access to the car and Penasco is quite a party town, they mostly spent the evenings picking apart anchovies and counting gill rakers.
Our third day was a biggie – we finally had good weather to do a trip with Fish On Charters, a highly-regarded local operator with a large, fast boat, specializing in long runs south to target big groupers. It’s not an inexpensive trip, but it’s a must for the serious species hunter trying to get everything they can out of the region.
Even at 30mph, it’s a solid two hours to the reefs they target. It went by quickly as we checked and re-checked gear and discussed every possible fish we could encounter, beginning with the almost-guaranteed spotted cabrilla, and with ending the rarely-seen parrot bass. We made a quick stop to get some live baits – croakers, grunts, and pretty much anything else in the 1-2 pound range. Groupers are not picky about what they eat.
On my first drop, I brought up something of a conundrum. It was a croaker, a Micropogonius for those of you who care about such things. These creatures are an ID mess, but also some open world records. After some weeks of research, heavily aided by Vince and Jacob, the beast was narrowed down to a Golden Croaker, and it became my 249th world record.
This is just about the right size for grouper food.
As soon as we stopped running and put the baits down, the guys got crushed. Grouper fights are like Cousin Chuck’s first date – trying to wrestle something out of the rocks.
Vince scored first with a nice leopard grouper.
Jacob was not far behind with a solid gulf grouper.
I seem to have a gift for spotted cabrilla.
Everyone took some time to cast spoons and tack on some solid Sierra mackerel.
I decided to drop smaller baits to see what was down there, and there were some astonishing rewards. The first was my personal best stone scorpionfish. These difficult-to-handle bottom dwellers are excellent eating, and this one looked to be fairly good-sized.
Do NOT put this in your pants. (By the way, when we weighed it at the harbor, it turned out to be my 250th world record.) I think I can safely say I have half of Marty Arostegui’s total now. But just barely. I also want to note that Carson Moore caught a bigger one a couple of years ago and didn’t submit it because, as a teenager, shelling out the money for the application was more than he wanted to spend. Dude – as a graduation present, your next one is on me.
Then it got wonderful. I had a solid bite and a nice fight off the bottom, and as the fish came into view, I could not form words, but the crew discerned from my grunts and squeals that I wanted a net. It was a parrot bass, a calico relative that is very occasionally found on deep reefs in the Northern Sea of Cortez, and something I had admired in books for years.
Oh hell yes. Species two of the trip and 2398 lifetime. I would have done the whole trip just for this fish.
Moments later, Jacob landed one.
It would be rude of me to point out that mine was bigger. So I won’t.
Vince was now the only guy on the boat who didn’t have a parrot bass, and yes, he was noticeably agitated. He fished hard, caught a few false-alarm croakers, and then had to sit there while I did something awful.
Yes, I caught another one. A juvenile, which still would have counted for Vince, but alas, he did not end up catching this particular beast and was emotionally devastated.
The gang at FishOn. I highly recommend them for a long-distance bottom trip out of Penasco – they were outstanding. Note that Vince is smiling bravely, but that under that polite veneer is a soul full of parrot bass pain.
Now that’s a load of grouper. We ate like kings at Capone’s. Baked grouper, grouper etouffee, blackened grouper – you name it, they made it for us. Note that Vince can’t quite muster a smile in this one.
Day four was another run with Jefe, to some medium-distance spots where we could expect an assortment of bottom fish, with a chance at more grouper and a shot at some weird bottom critters. My very first fish of the day was a new one – the naked puffer.
Aren’t they all actually naked? And this was now 2399 – the next species would be a milestone, and I was happy it wasn’t something with “naked” in the name.
The guys kept themselves busy casting for sierra mackerel while they waited for grouper bites – and there were plenty of grouper bites. They each got two, a mix of gulf and leopard, and dozens of other bottom fish.
Somewhere in there, I had a soft bite and hooked into a fish that fought strangely – a vibrating, twisting, back-and-forward kind of thing. When we got it on board, I was equal parts thrilled and amused – it was a Pacific snake eel, technically a new species for me but one that had a dark and embarrassing backstory.
I had actually landed one of these on the beach at Buena Vista with my buddy Mike back in 1996, but we thought it was a sea snake and we cut it off and ran like the French army.
Either way, it was species 2400, barely four years after #2000. And no, I’m not agreeing to any goals other than 2401.
I also got a mackerel or five. These things are a killer on light tackle, and will attack anything shiny.
The end of day shot with Jefe – my best trip with him ever.
When we had all said our goodbyes with Jefe, we all noticed a lot of splashing and activity a couple of docks away. On closer inspection, we discovered that there was a large school of anchovies hugging the shoreline, trying to get away from all manner of predators. We saw corvina, bay bass, and leatherjacks slicing through the school, and it didn’t take long to set up a sabiki and a couple of live bait rods. I mostly focused on catching bait for the guys, and they stuck fish after fish on light tackle.
Vince with a leatherjack and Jacob with a corvina. It was a marvelous and unexpected way to close out the day.
It was non-stop for a couple of hours. I’ve never seen the harbor that wide open before – I fired the occasional lure into the mix and got bay bass and corvinas.
A bay bass on the spoon.
We ate at Capone’s again, and Dave’s team wowed us with yet more amazing grouper recipes. We certainly talked a lot of shop over those meals, and a bit of life, but I was definitely the elder statesman of the group. Not that we didn’t share the occasional rude joke, and frankly, theirs were better than mine.
The next day would be our last in Penasco, and we decided to give the lagoon another go. Everyone needed something there, and the tides were perfect.
That same morning, 1500 miles north, something far more important was happening. Marta, well known for supporting worthy causes and taking on nearly-impossible quests, had decided, with not a lot of time to train, to do the AIDS benefit ride – an eight-day, 545-mile bicycle hellathon that featured some 3000 vertical feet of climbing each day. I wouldn’t do that in my car. An amateur cyclist at best, she had convinced herself she could finish the ride, and had raised some thousands of dollars for a very worthy cause.
No, she didn’t do it on a cruiser bike, but “Breaking Away” is one of her favorite movies.
I almost destroyed the day before we got a chance to wet a line. Despite dozens of warnings from Chris, I managed to get our rental stuck in the sand out by the lagoon.
We wasted an hour before a kind-hearted local with a 4×4 dragged us out.
On top of that, it started raining, and none of us had thought to bring so much as a poncho. This was Little Bighorn-style bad planning, because it can get surprisingly cold when it’s windy and raining like hell. Still, we focused on catching small live baits and getting them into the channel, and one by one, the catches started piling up.
My personal best shortfin corvina.
And yes, a spadenose. I actually got two. If I had known this at the time, it would have been an easy world record, dammit. The guys did well also, but we were all shivering until the rain let up after four or five hours.
We celebrated a successful trip with one more trip to Capone’s, and that evening, the texts from Marta started streaming in – “OMFG. It was 80 miles pretty much all uphill into the wind. My butt is killing me. I can’t possibly do this six more days. But I gave it a shot.” I would get texts like this for the next six days.
The following morning, the guys and I were off to Phoenix to catch flights home.
The team, after a sumptuous feast at Cracker Barrel.
With 5 species and a major milestone for me, 35 species for Vince, and 38 for Jacob, it had been an awesome trip, but I knew I would still have to return for the Cortez ray. I also knew that Jacob, who I had thought of as a very quiet person, would never let Vince forget about the parrot bass. And while I may have become the crotchety uncle of the group, at least I was part of the group, and I can’t thank the guys enough for coming along and sharing their incredible fishing knowledge. At their age, I could barely catch and identify a stocked rainbow trout. (In my defense, Power Bait hadn’t been invented yet.)
I only had a few days back at home, and each night, Marta’s texts would come in like clockwork. “OMFG. They may have to amputate my butt. I can only give this one more day, but at least I gave it a good shot.” But each night, she had gotten 70-100 miles closer to LA. Five days in, she hinted that she might actually finish. I never doubted her – it is NEVER a good bet to doubt Marta.
On the 7th, I drove down to LA, checked into a nice hotel, and Ubered to the finish area in Santa Monica. Perhaps an hour later, closely tracking her location on my iPhone, I got the privilege of watching her blast through the finish line – an accomplishment that professional cyclists would admire, and all from someone who had started training perhaps three months before. I was, and am, so proud of her.
There she goes. It was so loud she didn’t hear me yelling at her.
She finally sees me.
And we finally found each other, about half an hour later. Yes, her lips eventually healed.
So it was a week of accomplishment, mostly for her, and of perspective, mostly for me. But as we ate a very large dinner, I considered the absolute, complete determination and stubbornness that had carried her through to this improbable triumph, and realized we had more in common than I thought.
Steve
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