The following is a first-hand report from one of our anglers, Rich Hollo who fished with us this week.
I finally managed to convince one of my friends, Pete Heringer, to take a trip to San Quintin with me and, of course, we had a great trip. We left Fontana on Thursday, June 11 at 2:00pm and arrived in San Quintin right on schedule at around 9:00pm. We stopped at one of the Taco stands in town and got 5 LARGE tacos adobado for 60 pesos?Ķ. That's $.92 per taco US and they were loaded with so much meat that we had a hard time finishing them.

We hired Capitan Hector of Pedro's Pangas to guide us Friday and Saturday and we met Hector at Pedro's at 6:00 Friday morning. The weather was beautiful and we debated running offshore for yellows, but Hector advised us that they had been picking up some yellows at the 6 ?? fathom spot, so we decided to head towards the island. Bait was a bit difficult to make in the usual spots, but we picked up a dozen live baits in a half hour and made the run out the mouth and turned north.

The temperature in the bay was 62 degrees and we felt we had a good chance for some yellows, but we found the temperature at the 6 ?? to be a chilly 57 degrees. We dropped jigs for a few hours and pulled up some nice lings, salmon grouper, and rock cod. We moved around quite a bit as the fishing was a little slow, but we had a steady morning and around 11:00am we decided to go to live bait for lings to fill up our bucket. We made the run back to the 6 ?? spot and found the fish stacking up over the humps on the fish finder. The action was immediate and we limited on lings and put enough rock cod in the boat to fill our 30 gallon bucket. At 2:00 we decided to head to the bay to make a few drifts for halibut and Hector put us on a drift close to the north shore in 30 feet of water. I explained to my friend how halibut hit and what they feel like on the hook and on the 3rd drift, he lifted the rod to a heavy bend. On his first trip to San Quintin, Pete boated a 9 pound halibut!

We checked the sea surface temps on Friday night and decided to try on offshore run on Saturday. We launched early and made bait right in the bay in front of the Old Mill while we waited for Hector. We caught a few dozen Spanish macks in about 15 minutes and then picked Hector up at the dock and made the run toward the mouth. We ran at a heading of 250 degrees and the temperature began to slowly climb as we approached the 10 mile mark. We hit 61 degrees at 15 miles from the point and began to cruise for kelps, but the ocean was barren. We put some jigs out the back and cruised out to 18 miles and then turned north to angle back to the island. By 10:00 we had not spotted any kelps and were not able to raise anything, so we pulled the jigs and made a rough run back to the 6 ??. Radio traffic indicated that it was a slow day all around and it took us a couple of hours to pick up 5 ling and we decided to head into the bay to try for halibut again. On the first drift, Pete hooked up and we put a 5 pound flattie in the bucket. I yanked the candy out of the baby's mouth TWICE, but Pete picked up a second halibut on the next drift. We ended up the afternoon with the 2 halibut and 5 lings, but were happy to have taken the opportunity to run offshore for a look. Pete and I decided to try for halibut again that evening as the tide came in and we re-launched the boat at 4 and headed out to the mouth. I had not tried to catch bait in the afternoon before, but we motored around the bait grounds and then finally found a few balls of bait farther out towards the mouth and we picked up a half dozen nice baits. On the second drift, I MISSED AGAIN, but Pete hooked up a small flattie. This one turned sideways at the surface and we farmed him with the gaff. Not much to show for the effort, but it was a great experience to fish the bay in the evening and we learned how to find the bait fish the next morning.

On Sunday morning, the wind was blowing 5 ??? 10 knotts and we decided to just try to get some meat for the cooler. We tried our new cruising method for bait running around the bay at 5 ??? 6 knots and dropping the sabikis any time we saw a ball of bait on the fish finder. This proved to be a very effective method and we caught several dozen baits in a half hour. We tried a couple of drifts for halibut before heading out, but nada. We decided to run to the island to try for halibut and yellows on the east side, but made several drifts to no avail. We ran to the 6 ?? spot, but picked up only 2 lings in a couple of hours. We finally decided to bite the bullet and head for the banks near the 240. At about noon, we found the fish stacking up in 150 feet of water. We caught several lings and rockfish up till about 1:00 and then the wind started to really move. The swells were approaching 5 foot as we turned towards the boca and building. The bar crossing was uneventful, but the wind had picked up to 25 knots and the tide was ripping in. We tried a few drifts, but conditions were just not right so we made an early run in to start getting ready for the return trip. The wind was howling at 25 ??? 30 knots down the bay and it was the worst I have seen, but aside from being uncomfortable, the transit was uneventful.

We had dinner at El Cliente on the north end of town and got 7 AWESOME shrimp tacos for 80 pesos?Ķ. Less than $.85each. Gas was $2.16 gallon in San Quintin and our double room at the Old Mill was only $32/night. The exchange rate was 13.5:1 pulling cash from the ATM. An interesting observation is that it appears that the US is pumping support into Baja in the form of new dodge pickups and Hummers equipped with M60 machine guns and 40mm rocket launchers. The Mexican military is definitely geared up to deal with the drug runners. We also encountered military check points at 2 of the 3 toll booths on the return trip, but had absolutely no issues. As usual, the soldiers were pleasant and kind and they looked us over but sent us through with little delay. The wait at the border was about an hour and a half on this trip.

Rich