Barra de Navidad
by Turk Pipkin
(This story was written as a sidebar for the Golf Digest story, "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere.")
Whether it's Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman or most of the gang you tee it up with, there seems to be some inexplicable link between the twin passions of golf and fishing. And whether you’re an old pro or a novice, you won't find better salt-water fishing for your money than on the West Coast of Mexico. That’s why, the day after playing the new Isla Navidad course in Barra de Navidad, I also made a point of also checking out the action off-shore.
At first light, with the sky just glowing orange over the mountains in the east, I met my fishing guide, Ricardo “Colo” Amador. I'd brought my own light-weight saltwater gear, but Colo's twin outboard superpanga was complete with heavy-weight Penn rods and reels and all the tackle we’d need for whatever was biting. At twenty bucks an hour, that’s a heckuva good deal.
I’d recently fished with the El Cid fleet in Mazatlan, where my golf partner and I caught our limits in ten to forty pound tuna and dorado. But the action was all in blue water, about 25 miles off-shore, and that meant a round-trip three hour run just to get to the fish. One of the best things about fishing in Barra is that there's lots of action close-in.
Ten minutes after leaving the marina of the Grand Bay Hotel, Colo and I were already tying on feather jigs and trolling three lines past the rocky outcroppings that protect the entrance to this historic bay. Within minutes, two of the reels started to sing a lovely duet called “fish on the line,” and we had line-tangling tug of wars with two long, sleek sierra, a fish as tasty as it is beautiful.
For the next two hours, we trolled skirts and Rapala lures through the surging foam while schools of sierra and fat torpedo-like bonita jumped all around us, attacked our lures and came reluctantly to the boat.
During December, when the clear blue water moves close to shore, marlin, dorado and sailfish can be caught here in full view of the town or the golf course. If you do catch a marlin or sailfish, here or elsewhere, please use catch-and-release fishing practices whenever possible. The habit of boating and killing billfish – or any other fish you’re not going to eat – reveals nothing but the ignorance of the fisherman. You want photos? My favorites are of my big blue marlin in the water, with a tag inserted into his dorsal fin just moments before we released him to swim and fight another day. You want to mount your trophy? All you need is an estimation of his weight and length. When preparing your trophy, taxidermists no longer use any part of a real fish. The mounts may look lifelike, but they're still fiberglass.
Bottom line: if you’re not going to eat it, let it go. No fisherman worth his salt does otherwise because they understand the fragile nature of fish populations. And because our kids want to fish someday, too.
When the sierra calmed down, Colo pointed the boat south and trolled along the beach past the golf course. The goal here was to find the legendary Pez Gallo or roosterfish, an aggressive fighter with a tall dorsal fin that looks much like a rooster’s comb. And though we didn’t locate our elusive prey, we did see hundreds of shore and sea birds and two enormous whales cruising up the coast in the opposite direction.
Finally, with the wind picking up and the radio bringing scattered reports of tuna but no marlin, we started trolling back and exchanging fish stories about the ones that got away.
Back at the Marina, Colo gave the bonito to some very grateful construction workers who were happy to have their family dinner in hand. In a flash, he also filleted two of the Sierra which I took twenty steps to the chef at La Plazuela, the poolside restaurant at the Grand Bay Hotel.
A quick dip in the pool, a piņa colada with fresh coconut and pineapple, half a gallon of guacamole and, presto – I was being served my very own fresh fish cooked mojo de ajo “with mucho ajo” – lots of garlic. Now this is the kind of fishing I could really get used to.