Late summer diving on the Pacific side of central Baja Mexico can be fantastic. If you can hit it right between the plankton blooms, the chubasco storms, the big southern swell, and the moon phases, the yellowtail hunting is a diver’s dream. After enjoying some perfect conditions at nearby San Benitos Islands with some other list members just a couple of weeks earlier, I was excited to return to Cedros for an extended stay at my shack on the island. My brother Butch, 66, and his wife Ruth would accompany Ana and me. Butch had not dived for a couple of years but really wanted to shoot a big fish.

Stoked to begin our adventure, we arrived at the Ensenada airport early for our 8 AM flight. Surprise Gringo! No plane. The Mexican FAA inspectors had arrived the night before and the plane would be grounded for a couple of weeks. We walked outside and saw a guy working on his plane and made a deal with him to leave in an hour, as soon as he could put all the parts back on. The trip was on again.

The plan was that Ana, Butch and I would all share one gun and take turns going down. As one diver came up he could hand the gun off the other diver on the way down. This way Ana and I could dive deeper and help bring the fish up and with three pairs of eyes not many fish slip past unnoticed. My new float setup was with some red, Home Depot floating line ($10.00 for 100 feet) and a three-dollar long line buoy with a weight taped to it and a home made flag. Worked great.

The first day we went to one of my favorite dive spots where I have shot a lot of big fish and have also had several close calls. The idea was to show Butch how to safely shoot and land a fish.

With Ana as boat guard and Butch watching on the surface, I dove down on a magnificent school of 10 or 12 big fish and got a good toggle shot on one around 50 lbs. With my Home Depot float line I kept him off the bottom and after a good battle pulled up the mono shooting line until I could grab the spear. I thought this is going to be easy and went to slide my hand into his gills. He saw me and must have thought I was a big seal because he went bananas. With me holding the spear and with him thrashing and splashing he managed to circle me four times in about ten seconds. Because I was unable to keep his head up as planned, he pulled me down a few feet and continued to fight until I ran out of air. I prepared to bail out and start over by pushing the spear, and the fish and everything away from me to clear the line. I almost made it. - Except for just one loop of 400 lb. mono around the last joint of my left, little finger. I thought “ no sweat, I can just slip it off, or slip my gloves off”.. By this time the free fish was heading for the bottom with full power and momentum and the loop tightened like it was going to cut my finger off. I was then being pulled down quickly, at an odd angle, by the last joint of my little finger while I worked to free myself.. I was out of air and even using all my energy could still not slip the loop. I had the sudden realization that I was in big trouble. I was just one joint over the line between living and dying in the next few seconds. The panic level definitely spikes in those last moments. I was not on the surface where I could relax, take a big breath and think about it. I felt that I had the time for only one final action and I had two choices-try again to slip the loop, which might fail again in my panicked state, or go for my knife and cut myself free. Butch, watching my safety demonstration from above, knew I was in trouble when he saw me going for my knife. With my left-hand leading me toward the bottom, I had to reach across with my right hand to the outside of my left calf to extract the knife. Thank heaven I did not drop it. The pop when I cut the mono was a wonderful sound. Goodbye fish, goodbye shaft, goodbye slip tip,---- Hello air, Hello life. For several minutes afterward I was still shaken, fatigued, and stunned by how fast the wrap happened, how little control I had and how close I had come to one joint taking me over the line. In retrospect I think that if I had reached higher up the line toward the float, rather than working close to my hand, I could have pulled enough slack to get free. But I don’t want to try it again to find out. I was also very glad that I was not wearing my knife on my right arm as I sometimes do. One positive thing on this first day of diving was that my safety demonstration made a lasting impression on Butch and he did not ever get near the shooting line with any “green"fish.

A couple of days later Ana pulled the trigger on a nice yellowtail while too near a large buoy with a chain to the bottom in about 50 feet. Of course the fish wrapped around the chain several times at about 40 feet, and we worked for half an hour diving to our maximum depth trying to free the fish. We went back to the boat to rest and decided to let the fish die. Then we could go down together, one of us could unsnap the longline clip between the shooting line and the float line, and the other could go grab the fish and the spear and head for the surface. I knew that at this depth, if there was any resistance on my way up I would have to let go and loose another spear and slip tip. The plan was successful and we recovered both the spear and Ana’s 48-lb. fish that we thought was lost.

Around the same buoy and chain for three different days in a row we saw a nice size fish we named “the hook”. He was recognizable by a large hook in his back just behind the dorsal fin and a large weight hanging from his mouth on a piece of fishing line. He would swim in place near the chain and when we came screaming by with the current on one side of the chain, he would simply move to the other side. On the third day Ana finally got close enough and, disregarding the chain, shot the fish. She moved it down current before it could wrap and pulled it up to administer the coup d’etat. “The hook” had his final revenge however as Ana went to insert her knife to brain the fish, he gave one final, mighty shake, flipped the knife loose and it headed for the bottom, never to be seen again. This was knife number two that Ana paid in use tax to King Neptune on this trip. “The hook” weighed 44 lbs. and we have the souvenir weight and hook taken from the fish hanging from a shelf at Cedros.

By this time Butch was diving well and getting to 20 or 25 feet with some hang time. He started off with his first fish at 49 lbs. Two days later we were down together and I was right behind him watching when an unusual school of 12-15 fish, all over 40lbs came cruising through. I watched as he attempted to line up on the first fish, and then the next fish to get the perfect shot. Then suddenly a third fish, even larger, speeds up and bullies the other fish out of the way. The bully died at the hands of spearo Butch, a 66-year-old novice, yellowtail diver. Butch is happy and the 60 lb. fish is the record for the trip. What a magnificent fish!

One day when we were diving in close to shore for pan fish I decided to take my Rob Allen gun, with no reel and no float line, and try it on the small “jurelitos” or small 6 to 8 pound school yellowtail. They are good practice and hard to hit and there is no problem with them running off with your gun because of their small size. Of course within five minutes a 42 lb. fish shows up about eight feet away and taunts me. I thought --- do I want to take a chance on loosing my gun, and I hesitated for quite a while--- at least half a second--- and then in true hunter form, pulled the trigger. BAM. Bitchin!, A stone shot, and I get to keep my gun and the beautiful fish. I swam back to the boat and to everyone’s surprise held up this big fish shot with one band, no reel and no float line. What a beautiful creature to see swimming in ten feet of water.

The trip ended with several fish over 50 lbs. but only Butch, with beginner’s luck, had scored in the rare sixty-pound class. A marvel of this sport is that you never know where or when you will see your dream fish, but with time in the water the unusual, the spectacular and the unexpected will continually be revealed. The memory of two of the most perfect windless, glassy days on the ocean that I have ever seen will bring me back again soon. As often happens, these were the last two days of the trip, when we were in non diving mode getting ready to go. So I dream of such conditions for the next trip when I see that monster, sixty pound plus yellowtail come up from 100 feet out of the crystal blue to give me the perfect broadside.

Dix and Ana Roper October 2001