I Want To Be In Baja

I really enjoyed Dick’s story on his July 18th post on his San Felipe Talk blog. He was relating his experiences of visiting the marina at San Felipe just as the crab fishermen came in, and buying some very fresh, and very cheap crab! This was a story I could relate to from personal experience.

Years ago, my wife and I made friends with a lobster fisherman on the south coast of Devon in the UK. He took us out at first light and we helped haul in the lobster pots, re-bait them and set them back again. On that trip we caught a few lobsters and several crab. That evening we had fresh crab for dinner - being a seafood lover anyway, fresh crab has always been one of my favorites - even better than lobster in my opinion.

I knew the Sea of Cortez around San Felipe is famous for its shrimp but I did not know they fished for crab there as well. These particular crab are blue crab and Dick picked up 19 crabs for the grand sum of 150 pesos (less than $12! USD) - that, my friend, is a bargain! As Dick says, back in Virginia, he paid $30 for just 6 crabs. Not that I need another excuse to go to San Felipe and El Dorado Ranch but, next trip, guess where I will be heading!

On my last weekend at El Dorado Ranch, I needed to pick up some checks at the bank in town on Monday morning.  The banks open at 8:30 AM and I had a little extra time to wander around town before then so I took a walk down to the beach.  Since most people see San Felipe during the weekend when there’s music and more hustle and bustle, it was pleasant to spend some time when things go back to business as usual.  It’s a lot quieter, store owners are sweeping the sidewalks and getting new supplies, and the fishermen are still out by the malecon, ready to take anyone out to catch some fish.  Last December, I talked to Mike Abruda who will take people out for 6 hours for $40 dollars.  That morning I spoke with Pepe and he told me the fishing is good.  We tend to call it catching rather than fishing due to the abundance of marine life in the Sea of Cortez.  What many people don’t realize is that years ago, commercial fishing was banned from the area leaving plenty of fish, including sea bass, yellow fin tuna, corvina and dorado, for the individuals who catch fish one at a time. The marina in San Felipe is undergoing expansion to accommodate more and bigger boats.  But if you don’t have your own boat, or even you’re own fishing gear, you can see that going fishing here is as easy as taking a walk to the beach!

One of the attractions of being by the coast at San Felipe, whether you are buying real estate there or just vacationing, is the opportunity to do some fishing. San Felipe, of course, lies on the Sea of Cortez and is, therefore sheltered by the mountains from much of the weather that rolls in from the Pacific side - that is why the weather is always so good down there!

Now, I have to say that I am not much of a fisherman myself - my brother is the fisherman in our family, but I do like boats. So, for the those interested in sports fishing and needing all the information about what goes on there fishing-wise, I am recommending that you visit a website called www.mexfish.com. The attraction of San Felipe, for both fisherman and boating enthusiasts alike, is that it has a marina - in fact San Felipe was founded on its fishing industry.

One thing I hadn’t realised before was the fact that the Colorado River, which runs for 1400 miles down through Colorado and along the California/Arizona border, exits into the Sea of Cortex just to the north of San Felipe, mexfish.com informs me.

“All that Rocky Mountain spring runoff brought massive quantities of nutrient rich, brownish-red silt to the waters around San Felipe that may have have been the source of one Spanish language name for the Sea of Cortez, El Mar Bermejo, or the Vermilion Sea.”

The constant silting has made the area around San Felipe itself quite shallow whereas most of the Sea of Cortez is pretty deep. The shallow waters, however, provide particularly good conditions for shrimp and San Felipe is well known for its shrimp - in fact I will be heading off for San Felipe’s annual Shrimp Festival in early November - watch this space for more details nearer the time. 

“While it is true that major offshore sportfishing quarries such as marlin, tuna, and dorado do not generally swim as far north as San Felipe, these shallow, nutrient-rich local waters actually have a surprisingly wide variety of fish species, including the now endangered totoaba, Totoaba macdonaldi, an amazing member of the humble croaker family that grows to the size of a very respectable billfish.”

Although San Felipe’s commercial fishing has declined since the 1950s, due largely to over fishing, it did spawn the birth of its own unique, what is called ‘panga mothership’ sports fishing industry which is still going strong.  These ‘panga motherships’ “started off as small commercial shrimp boats that were chartered for single sport fishing trips. Later, old wooden-hulled shrimp trawlers were refitted with superstructure modifications that allowed them to carry and launch up to nine “pangas,” Mexico’s ubiquitous artisanal fishing skiffs, about 22 feet long and powered by outboard motors of about 40 to 60 horsepower.”

Today’s ships have all the modern comforts one would expect on a sports fishing trip and range up to 100 ft in length. The fishing season at San Felipe runs from April through November and detailed information, including stories from recent trips by individuals, including what they caught and how big it was, can be found on the mexfish.com website. If you would like to regale us with your own experiences of fishing out of San Felipe we would be happy to share them with our readers - just use the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of the post.