Cedros Island with Cedros Adventures, June 17 – 21,2013
We started with 8 veterans and 4 first timers.
We met at my house at 3:30 am and Gilberto, our driver, had the van loaded by 4:00 am. We were on the road and stopped in Ensenada for Breakfast and after a short wait, we were off to the airport. Gilberto and a few of his helpers had our 500 lbs. of tackle ready to go thru customs. All bags were opened and checked, we breezed thru customs with no problems. At the arrival of the plane from Cedros we had the opportunity to talk to the group that had just finished their fishing adventure and they said Calicos were wide open and yellowtail were close to 50 lbs. As we boarded the plane I asked if I could sit shotgun and was told “ok”. I was looking forward to seeing the beautiful Baja Coast and looking for whales. As soon as we took off and got to altitude the Coast was overcast all the way to Cedros. All we could see was the top of the clouds, but as we got to Cedros the clouds cleared enough to see the Island.
Nice landing by our pilot. After a quick unloading of the plane onto one van and one pick up truck we were off to our final destination, the hotel. The guys in the van needed to stop in town for some cerveza (Corona to be precise) and some other essentials. I was in the truck with Dennis and Dan and we headed straight to the hotel to pick out our rooms. (sorry Mike and Eric) sometimes it’s good to not drink. After we settled into our rooms, we got all of our gear ready for the next morning, which was very early. At that time a few of the guys walked down 100+ steps for some shore fishing off the beach. 5 guys = 1 Calico. After dinner a few more guys went down to try out their luck and were able to net one more Calico. The night was cut short for most, as the wake up call was 5am.
Day 1, June 18
Tuesday morning, 5 am early wake up call. After a quick breakfast we are loaded into the vehicles leaving the hotel by 5:45 all the gear had been loaded by the staff onto the truck and van ready to go. The harbor is only 5 minutes away!
By 6 am all four boats were ready and loaded – ready to fish. Each boat stopped for bait, after 15-20 mackerel we were caught, we were off, ready to catch yellowtail, my claim to fame was catching 5 mackerel on a 6 hook bait rig. Jim and David ended up with about 8 yellowtail, Jim caught a new club record – a Yellowtail at 43 lbs, 2 oz. I kept feeding the sea lions and burning up one of my drags on my reel. Jim was very kind and let me use one of his fishing reels, as he stripped the line off of one of my reels and put it onto another reel. For the day all 4 boats ended up with 21 yellowtail.
Rick Dryer and Mike Kaneen both had yellowtail over 40 lbs. Rick Dryer had his personal best at 41lb 5oz. The second part of day one all 4 boats fished for Calico, with many Bass in the 2-5 lb range – with the heaviest bass being approx. 6.5lbs.
Day 2, June 19
The wind was blowing, which made the fishing almost impossible, only one Yellowtail for the day. Three out of 4 boats had a very hard day of fishing, with winds up to 35 mph. That’s not fun on a big boat let alone a 25 ft panga. We saw the Royal Star, Shogun and the Intrepid all fishing off shore with us in our little pangas. As they moved toward the leeward side of the island for protection from the wind, we knew our little boats needed to move also.
The hot boat for day 2 was made up of Dan and Mark Ross both first timers to the island and Dennis Manti the veteran down for his second time. Since this was Cedros Adventures first trip with 12 guys that meant there needed to be a new skipper for the 4th boat. He turned out to be the best skipper on day 2 and 3. As the three anglers on day 2 had 30 -40 big calicos up to 7 lbs, all in all approx. 100 calico caught by their boat . Mark had the biggest calico of the day at 7 lb 7 oz.
Day 3, June 20
Early in the morning all four boats were racing around in the usual spots to try to make bait. There was no bait to be caught, not even one mackerel. So we decided to go calico fishing. The spot we wanted to fish was approx.. 1 hour away with some strong winds in our face. Once we got to the boiler rocks we all made some nice casts. We started fishing off the rocks and into the kelp beds where we started getting our hook ups. Our boat ended up with over 60 calicos for the day with some in the 6-7 lb range. Our last day of fishing for all four boats was great for calicos, but no yellowtail were caught. The new skipper, once again, put Dennis, Dan and Mark onto the big fish again. Dan had a 7 lb 11 oz Calico and his big brother beat him out with an 8 lb 5 oz Calico. Which took big fish honors in the Calico division.
That was the conclusion of our awesome fishing adventure with Cedros Adventures.
The service at Cedros Adventures is outstanding; great dinners, like fresh yellowtail, tacos and tostadas and steak dinners. All served by Omar who runs the hotel and has very high standards and wants to please all of his guests. From this year to last year the hotel has made many nice improvements with many more on the board for future plans.
The general manager of Seeker Rods, Darin gave us 12 different rods to take down with us and “try out”. The rods were really great and this was a plus for our trip. We left the rods down for future anglers to try out. Seeker is in the planning stages of making a rod for fishing Cedros Island specifically.
The Lord totally blessed our trip once again with many great catches and great times of fellowship.
Total Fish Count:
22 yellowtail
1 Halibut
3 small white sea bass
Many 3-5 lb calicos
Jim Kiech had the biggest Yellowtail at 43lbs 2 oz
Mark Ross had the biggest Calico at 8lbs 5 oz
Jim and Mark each won $60 for their 3 days of fishing
It was a great team effort. When we got home, we spread the fish out onto the front lawn and we all ended up with 7 bags each of yellowtail and 4 bags of calicos – perfect sashimi grade filets.
We may be booking another trip for the summer of 2015.
Thanks guys, it’s always great to fish with our club members, you all make the trip most enjoyable.
Thanks,
Rick Chalmers
