Baja: the good and the bad ...

**marktheshark** · 17-11-2007, 23:33

Hullo everyone
Just got back from another amazing time in Baja California, which I'll write up if anyone's interested. Still marlin, still roosterfish, and all the tuna you'll ever want ... it was fish city. Shore was good too, with jacks, grouper, ladyfish and sierra.

But the main reason I'm writing is to warn anyone thinking of visiting Baja anytime soon via the US is this: LEAVE A MINIMUM OF TWO HOURS BETWEEN YOUR ARRIVAL IN THE STATES AND YOUR DEPARTURE. The border controls at Houston (we went via Continental) and LA (according to other visitors) are still a nightmare and the queues, even if you're in transit, are horrendous.
We spent the first night of our holiday in a Houston airport hotel because of the queues (and because the airline sent us to the wrong gate), and we weren't the only ones. That was with a 1hr 40min connection interval.
It was the same on the way back: no matter that you still had a valid tourist visa from the last time, no matter that you're in transit. No matter that they've got six officials standing around pointing you towards the five desks that are open. Everyone has to go through again, and like the worst bad jokes, it isn't funny at all.
God bless America: land of the free. As in, free-hour wait. You've been warned.

**Spitfire66** · 18-11-2007, 09:58

Originally Posted by marktheshark

Hullo everyone
Just got back from another amazing time in Baja California, which I'll write up if anyone's interested. Still marlin, still roosterfish, and all the tuna you'll ever want ... it was fish city. Shore was good too, with jacks, grouper, ladyfish and sierra.

But the main reason I'm writing is to warn anyone thinking of visiting Baja anytime soon via the US is this: LEAVE A MINIMUM OF TWO HOURS BETWEEN YOUR ARRIVAL IN THE STATES AND YOUR DEPARTURE. The border controls at Houston (we went via Continental) and LA (according to other visitors) are still a nightmare and the queues, even if you're in transit, are horrendous.
We spent the first night of our holiday in a Houston airport hotel because of the queues (and because the airline sent us to the wrong gate), and we weren't the only ones. That was with a 1hr 40min connection interval.
It was the same on the way back: no matter that you still had a valid tourist visa from the last time, no matter that you're in transit. No matter that they've got six officials standing around pointing you towards the five desks that are open. Everyone has to go through again, and like the worst bad jokes, it isn't funny at all.
God bless America: land of the free. As in, free-hour wait. You've been warned.

The bazooka lookalike rod tube, and the suicide bomber style fly fishing waistcoat you were wearing had nothing to do with it I suppse

**Kingfish81** · 18-11-2007, 20:16

Mark I'm interested! Get a trip report up! Also slightly concerned by your post about the airports. I'm going to the Baja next July followed immediately by Xmas Island. My flight from Mexico gets in to LA at 5pm and I have to be on a flight to Honolulu at 7:10pm on the same day. So only just over two hours to check out, check back in and get on the next flight... Reckon this will be cutting it a bit fine?

**marktheshark** · 18-11-2007, 20:28

Hi Toby
I can't say .... you should be OK, but check and check again with your agent, and also see if there's a later flight option if you do get held up. Or if you can get on an earlier flight. As I said before, even though we were only in US to transit for 1hr 40min, we still had to go through immigration - and missed our flight. You should be fine ... fingers crossed, but make sure you have an option. Continental Airlines did pay for our night in a ratty airport hotel in Houston, but that was pretty poor when the alternative should have been sipping margaritas while watching the moon come up over the East Cape. Never again!
Catch report will follow soon ....

**PanamaJack** · 19-11-2007, 10:55

Hi Mark/Toby
I similarly experienced the frustration at Houston in August when transiting down to Liberia in northern Costa Rica. The queues for non-US citizens stretched round and round and were extremely slow moving. In my case there was a 2 hour 20 minute window, but I just made it by the skin of my teeth.

And the chap I'd been speaking to on the 'plane failed miserably to pick up a 1hr 40 connection to LA. Mind you, in addition, he committed the 'cardinal sin' of NOTnoting down the address he was staying at in the 'States - his brother who he was meeting there had organised that. Any rate he got hauled off, presumably for interrogation, by Immigration officials.

I was also quite lucky. Having got through Customs I needed the gate details for my onward flight - they hadn't been noted on my e-ticket. So I went to a counter specifically identified as 'gate information' manned by an hispanic lady. Trouble was she wasn't exactly bi-lingual! She looked at the documentation and directed me to another, Continental queue. Fortunately I found a wandering Continental employee who went round 'the back' and got the information for me. I made it with 10 minutes to spare!

Oh for the days (pre-9/11) when, in transit, you could stay airside. Long since gone unfortunately.

On a general point though Houston, in terms of slowness, does from my experience of the 'States come out on top of the pile. Why Continental, whose hub it is, aren't pressurising for a separate queue for transiting passengers I've no idea. It must be costing them a lot of extra money in 'stop over' costs and what it's doing for customer satisfaction doesn't bear thinking about.

I even tried asking those ladies in the beige suits whether there was anyway of getting to the front of the queue and got the usual bureaucratic response - 'nothing to do with us'.

Now Toby, I suppose about the only thing in your favour is that it's possibly not 'rush hour' in terms of European or commuter flights landing so the process might, just might, be quicker. In terms of preparation though I would suggest you really need to familarise yourself with where the departure terminal relative to the one at which you arrive. Also your departure gate and how you're going to get there. It's years since I've been through LA and then I can't recall there being any form of mass transit link between terminals. You had to leg it.

Then, as soon as you get to the Customs Hall make sure you know where the over-sized baggage (fishing rods) is likely to be left. Also keep your luggage tags to hand, sometimes they will want to check them against the luggage on your cart.

Then I guess, in terms of the disaster senario, make sure you find an airline supervisor quickly and, if there's no leeway to connect to that weekly flight down to Christmas, get re-routed. As well as Honululu international flights land at Kona (on the BIG Island) and then its a fairly regular 30 minute commute.
Dave

**Kingfish81** · 19-11-2007, 15:01

Dave, invaluable advice. Thanks! There is a later flight, at 8pm, but it is US$800 rather than $450 for the 7:10pm flight.... However that 8pm flight is an Alaskan Airlines flight and they are the airline that I'm flying out of Mexico with. So if they make me late, I will hassle them to put me on that flight.

From my past two experiences of LA, it's not too bad. The one thing I am definitely doing is buying a bag to put all my gear (including rods - I'm only taking fly rods) in. That way I won't have to hang around and wait for the oversized luggage to arrive.

Mark, I'm looking forward to that trip report!

**PanamaJack** · 19-11-2007, 15:34

Originally Posted by Kingfish81

There is a later flight, at 8pm, but it is US$800 rather than $450 for the 7:10pm flight.... However that 8pm flight is an Alaskan Airlines flight and they are the airline that I'm flying out of Mexico with. So if they make me late, I will hassle them to put me on that flight.

Hi Toby
If you made the bookings as part of the same electronic transaction then I'm sure there won't be any problem - down to them. Still, if in doubt, be forceful without shouting and screaming - that's plan B.

I've only once missed a restricted Apex flight. And that was down I'm afraid to us! One of the skippers I use in Panama had booked us into the Club lounge and there we were, six of us, having the odd tipple at 7am. Unfortunately in that Panama City lounge there were no details of the flight departures being displayed and we just assumed wrongly that one of the ground stewardesses would ultimately guide us to our flight. Um...she finally burst in screaming we must come NOW. And when we got airside, even though the aircraft was still on the stand, the flight was shown as closed. I spoke to the supervisor who confirmed that the captain had asked for our luggage to be removed.

That seemed fairly final! But he suggested we sat down and he'd sort it out. Which he did. In that we were going to miss our Miami connection back to the UK he re-routed us up from Miami to NY La Guaira and then via JFK home. And at no point did he ask for any extra money. We were incredibly fortunate! And to add to that he was going off shift and returning on the same plane as us to Miami.

We got right to JFK before the 'warning bells' started to ring with the check-in staff. They called a supervisor who said she need to talk to the one in Panama City about extra charges. Bingo! We got away with it!

After that tale of woe just let's hope you get the 7:10!
Dave
PS You're still on the 'top of the pile' for the Salwater Flyrodders Trophy with your Roosterfish. Won't have to share with Eric - he's in line for the Flats Trophy with that big Bonefish.

**Kingfish81** · 19-11-2007, 18:19

Wow, that was lucky Dave! The problem I guess is that I fly from Mexico to LA with Alaskan and then from LA to Honolulu with American Airways (I think). However I'm hoping it will all be fine... Going to make sure I've got some very good travel insurance just in case... Good to hear about the Saltwater Flyrodders Trophy! It's going to be in an article in The Field some time next year. Apologies for the slight diversion off topic Mark!

**marktheshark** · 19-11-2007, 20:14

Right, here we go. Spent two weeks in Baja, the first on the East Cape, the second in the Cabo San Lucas-San Jose Corridor at the Sheraton. It's seven years since my last visit and a lot has changed, especially in Cabo San Lucas, but it's still, in my opinion, the best place in the world for all-round fishing: offshore, inshore, shore, whether with bait, lures or fly. It's got the lot. I took my usual eight rods: 50lb, 30lb, 20lb and an ABU Conolon travel 12-20lb 4-piece; Greys Missionary spin, a heavy catfish/uptide, and fly rods in 8 and 12wt.

At Rancho Leonero, chartered three boat trips: first was spent chasing a huge shoal of yellowfin tuna up the coast. We had a dozen fish, largest 20lb, average about 8lb, all absolute nutters. I held a few of the smaller ones on the ABU but needed the 20lb to control the bigger ones. We used live sardines and I learned another painful lesson: the fish shied away from normal line, preferring fluorocarbon; and you need to take great care with your knots with fluorocarbon or you'll get busted off at the first lunge. As I did, several times.
On the second boat trip we went a long way south after wahoo; none, but we picked up a dorado, then went through another vast shoal of tuna, which announced itself by hitting all five of our lures at the same time first up. These were bigger fish, the largest 35lb, and we picked up another dozen or so before the shoal scattered.
On our return learnt another painful lesson from one of the American couples there, who fished regularly and knew the water: they'd told their skipper to head offshore after marlin. Skipper's response was same as mine: not many marlin around now, senor. They persisted and caught two and a sailfish, raised seven billfish in all, had a ball.
Trip three, I asked the skipper to go offshore. Same response: not many marlin around now senor. So I stamped my feet and sure enough, we headed offshore, and five miles out, guess what we saw: a shoal of boats around a shoal of baitfish and several of them playing marlin. We raised four, hooked two, lost both of them. Then the bite died and we moved back inshore and spent the last hour catching roosterfish in less than 10ft of water. Took maybe six of these wonderful fighters, all on the light rod, none bigger than 10lb and every one a joy. We'd managed to hijack a local skipper and buy some live mullet, just as the marlin bite died, so we put one out on a teaser and when the roosterfish started hitting the mullet, dropped back a sardine, which they took. The mullet were too big for them to eat, but they were beating them up nonetheless, playing with their food. If I'd have brought my fly-rod, that would have been fun ...
The last boat trip was from Cabo San Lucas in week two. I used Cabo Magic, and although it cost an arm and half a leg (the dollar's weakness made it a bit more bearable) it was worth it, especially after listening to anglers later who'd gone cheap and caught nowt that day. The Cabo fleet has grown hugely and more than 100 boats left harbour than morning, most of them turning north for the Golden Gate Bank. When we got there, an hour and a half and one dorado later, we could see why: the sea was boiling with baitfish, birds, porpoises, sea lions ... and marlin. We could see the fish surfacing and jumping to chase the shoals. Stripers, 100-150lb, nothing spectacular (!!!) but lots of them. We got one on straight away on livebait that jumped all over the place, tiring itself out quickly; then we missed a few hits. The marlin only wanted mackerel, which we feathered up on the same lures we use of Chesil. They didn't touch the plastics.
We lost a shark too, which bit the bait off just behind the hook, then had a monster run which was another marlin. Just as well it took one of the 50lb wide outfits: the fish was 300 yards away before the skipper could turn the boat, then when it when it was in sight, it set off again, this time taking 400 yards; I could see the bloody thing jumping miles away. On my 30lb gear, I'd have been spooled. There was nothing I could do to stop the fish, we just had to hang on and chase. That was a bigger one, about 150lb. Both fish were released. The crew used circle hooks, and it takes a lot of discipline to just tighten the drag instead of count to seven and then hit, hit, hit the fish in a strike.
Anyway, that was the boat run. We lost another striper and a wahoo on the way back, but it was a good day for me, an average day for the boat, judging by the catch reports. Most of the boats we passed on the way back were flying red catch-and-release marlin tags too, so amazingly, the fishery is still good in spite of the number of fishermen.

Is that the time? I'll do the shore report later