Home Tournaments Calendar Weather Merchandise Sponsors

Go Back   Spearboard.com - The World's Largest Spearfishing Diving Boating Social Media Forum > Buddy Networking -- Let's Go Hunting! > Anywhere else!

Anywhere else! You can post here to get a conversation started if looking to meet and hunt with people in other areas not listed above.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 08-21-2014, 07:19 AM   #1
ANYH2O
Registered User
 
ANYH2O's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 178
Baja, Mulege

I have a great villa in the Bay of Conception that is a great hub for spearfishing the area, and can be a great place for the wife and family to hang.
Check it out, I have had 4 spearboard groups down so far and they all got fish and had a great time
www.vrbo.com/339293
Call for more details
ANYH2O is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-25-2014, 07:07 AM   #2
ANYH2O
Registered User
 
ANYH2O's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 178
Re: Baja, Mulege

My kid just did some footage of spearfishing Baja:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVnqCmxUg34
enjoy
ANYH2O is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-25-2014, 09:15 AM   #3
mc diver 36
Registered User
 
mc diver 36's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: lower keys
Posts: 461
Re: Baja, Mulege

Unable to play on mobile devices nice-looking YT from the picture though
__________________
Freediver, DIY gear and guns!
mc diver 36 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-25-2014, 02:00 PM   #4
JakeinVegas
Registered User
 
JakeinVegas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 87
Re: Baja, Mulege

First off, Mike is a stand up guy and really easy to work with. He is an expert spearo and will help you get dialed in on the local scene. We went down to Casa De Los Suenos (Mike's place in Bahia Concepcion) the second week of June 2014. We had a great trip and my kids still talk about it almost every day. Here is a rundown of our trip. The good, the bad and the ugly. This will be a long post but I want to paint an accurate picture. Here is a link for the location of the house.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/26...!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

The Drive

We traveled down in two minivans from Las Vegas to Coyote Bay in Bahia Concepcion where the house is located. I was pulling my Avon inflatable on a small trailer and it took us 22 hours door to door. We left Thursday night after work and drove to San Diego and crashed at the KOA in Chula Vista which is one of the nicest campgrounds you will ever go to. We crossed the border shortly after 7am. We missed the office to get our FMM (tourist card/visa) but didn't see anyway to turn back so we kept going. We had made arrangements to pick up someone in Ensenada who needed a ride down south and she helped us secure the tourist card in Ensenada. I would not recommend this route as it involved paying a bribe to the local port officer but it beat travelling back to Tijuana. We were traveling with small children which necessitated multiple stops along the way and slowed down our pace a bit. We stopped for dinner in El Rosario and happened to meet Zen Spearo one of the mods on this board who was headed down the Bay of LA with his son. We drove for quite awhile after dinner and arrived in Guerrero Negro well after dark and very tired. This is white knuckle driving most of the way when you are pulling even a small trailer. I can't imagine bringing down a larger boat. We woke up the next morning and pushed through to the house in Bahia Concepcion with a stop for lunch in Santa Rosalia. We passed through Mulege which is the closest town and about a twenty minute drive from the house. We arrived at the house about 1:30 pm.

The Heat

The first thing we noticed when we stepped out of the car was the heat. It was absolutely brutal. Mike warned me about the heat this time of year but I told him we live in Vegas and are used to the heat so no big deal. The house is well equipped with fans and in cooler weather you can open all the windows and sliding glass doors to catch the breeze and I am sure the house cools down nicely earlier in the year. All the houses in the area are off the grid and rely on solar power and generators and are not equipped with energy sucking air conditioning. We happened to get there during an extra special heat wave and even the locals were miserable but hey that's life and certainly not Mike's fault. We ended up leaving a day early as no one could sleep at night even with wet sheets and fans blowing. The thermometer in my car read 116 degrees at the parking area above the house one afternoon and we finally tapped out Thursday evening when the temperature inside the house reached 100 degrees. Without AC that is really rough. This is not a criticism of Mike or his property this is a weather report. So there is your warning for summer heat.

The House

The house itself is fantastic and everything we were looking for. The house is enormous and divided into three levels with large balconies at every level and sits on a cliff looking out over the bay and several islands. As mentioned before the view is stunning especially at night with a full moon. You enter on the second level and it is divided into a large family room, large dining room, kitchen, bathroom etc.The kitchen is spacious and well equipped with lots of spices/seasonings. You can cook for an army in this place. The master suite takes up the whole top level and is huge with an ensuite shower and bathroom. The lower level is divided into one huge bedroom with three beds and two large rooms with king or queen sized beds. There is a bathroom and shower on this level as well. There is also a casita next to the house with a bedroom, bathroom private balcony and incredible view.

The Beach

The walk down to your own private beach is down a pretty long stairway. Long enough that you will be pretty annoyed if you forget something up top. But if that's the price you pay for a secluded beach in paradise then I'm in. Mike has kayaks and paddleboards available for your use waiting on the beach when you get there. The equipment is all well maintained and of high quality. The water clarity at the beach is very good in the morning and evening but a little murky in the middle of the day due to wind chop stirring up the water. There are no waves to speak of so parent's can relax when kids are playing in the water. The water temp was 85 degrees and the kids played all day without getting cold. We launched my boat at Santispac Beach to the North and then drove around the point and left it parked at our beach all week. The beach has a natural hot spring that flows down into several rock pools but due to outside temps we did not use this amenity.

The Fishing

Now for the part you are all waiting for. I came down with a friend who is a scuba guy and had never done any spearfishing or freediving. I took him out the first day and after 10 minutes in the water using my Mako pole spear he decided that he needed to go and buy a speargun right now. From what I saw the islands around the house hold a fair amount of resident reef fish but you are not going to see many pelagics this far into the bay. We shot lots of trigger fish, dog tooth snapper/pargo and some smaller assorted snapper. Mike told me about a spot that holds some nice dog toothed snapper and we were very successful at that location. I also saw a very large unidentified fish that was just out of range of my 110cm Mako Predator Pro 2G at this location. I was laying on this boulder in about 35' at the bottom of a cliff when he started to drift into view and then my knee slipped off the edge of the rock and he spooked. I still dream about this fish at night when I am trying to fall asleep. We saw two rooster fish when fishing hook and line not far from the house with the little kids but couldn't get a hook up. There are several local pangueros and a gringo named Robert Pickering operating out of Mulege. Robert has a dive shop and runs fishing charters. His website is divemulege.com and he was a very nice fellow. My buddy bought a speargun from him while we were there. We didn't go out on Robert's boat as we were taking two younger kids and it was cheaper to go with one of the local guys. If I was with more experienced divers I definitely would have spent the money to go out with Robert.

We had made arrangements before we left for Baja to go out fishing with a local panguero named Alex who speaks excellent English. The morning we left it was in solid 4' seas and we headed from Mulege over past Punta Chivato so the kids could catch some trigger fish on hook and line. After that we headed over to Isla Santa Ines to do some spearfishing. He dropped me in an area that was about thirty to forty feet deep with lots of structure but had to pull me after twenty minutes as one of the kids was puking his guts out on the boat and my buddy got obliterated by little jellies in the water as he didn't have a wetsuit. I was pretty bummed but you win some and you lose some. There were definitely loads of fish in the area and I shot one snapper just to get the stink off. I saw some huge parrot fish and a couple of cabrilla. By the time we got there the Yellowtail had moved on and the Dorado hadn't yet shown up. We trolled with the kids for the next couple of hours and caught a couple of skipjack. I think this area has been hit pretty heavy with gillnets and the fish populations aren't nearly what they used to be but there are definitely still lots of fish to shoot.

Summary

Mike's house makes for a great base of operations especially if you are travelling with a family. The summer months are brutally hot without AC so you better be pretty tough if you go down in the summer. In my opinion the drive down is not worth it unless you are going for a couple of weeks. We are definitely planning on going down again when it is a little cooler but we will be flying to Loreto and then getting a rental car for the hour and a half drive up to the house.

Don't plan on any shore dives from the house and it is a long kayak paddle out to the islands that hold the most fish. My little boat was perfect for working those islands but not big enough to get out of the bay to areas with pelagics. Again with more experienced spearos I would have ventured much farther in my little boat and may have seen some much bigger fish but this trip was about family and not just spearing. I would recommend hooking up with local pangueros to get the range you need to get on some of the bigger fish. Definitely recommend this trip to anyone who wants to create some memories with their kids.
JakeinVegas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-06-2014, 01:17 AM   #5
ANYH2O
Registered User
 
ANYH2O's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 178
Re: Baja, Mulege

Wow
You cant pay for a write up this good, thanks.
Glad you had fun and got fresh fish.
As to your mystery fish, there are a lot of them in the bay, mostly lg grouper that show up when you least expect it. I have also seen lg yellow jacks, Yellow tail and schools of toro following the whale sharks around, all in the Bay and sometimes right in front of the Villa. Kelston passed on a shot this year on a rooster fish in the Bay that he sized up over 100 lbs. Robert has also seen large grouper just cruising along the kelt edge.
Lots of fun fish still in the bay, not like it use to be, be stay patienct and keep diving. The fish will show.
ANYH2O is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-25-2015, 11:57 PM   #6
ANYH2O
Registered User
 
ANYH2O's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 178
Re: Baja, Mulege

It has been while since I have up dated a good Baja report here.
I spend about 4-8 weeks there in spring and get to see the water warm up and the pelagics come in.
2014 saw the water warm up about 6 weeks early and so the YT were in early.
We had some epic days of diving all in the early 3 weeks in April.
A buddy shot a 50 YT, My boy got his first grouper 80 lb, first rooster 30 lb and missed an opportunity on a rooster 80-100 lb.
We got a lot of YT but by the end of April they had moved to deeper cooler water. And so the AJ came in next. I do guided trips there and some training as well. We had 5 strong Ca divers that came in for a Baja experience the end of April and they did great. they got all new RA 120cm guns and we spent time working on safety, fish ID, use of longer guns, deeper diving, stalking these fish, shooting bigger snapper and cabrilla....... It was a ton of fun and although the YT had gone they still saw a few and landed a 50 lb AJ.

June - Aug is great fishing there but just too hot to hang out with no AC
All other months rock for many different types of fishing.
Try to plan 8-12 mo in advance to get the dates you need to a world class trip. I have all the contact there for boats, tanks, tours, cooks.....
www.vrbo.com/339293
MM
ANYH2O is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-26-2015, 10:07 AM   #7
Timinator
Registered User
 
Timinator's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 865
Re: Baja, Mulege

Anybody need another spero for one of these trips let me know.
__________________
Ever notice how Democrats scatter from the truth like cockroaches from light?
Timinator is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:22 PM.


The World's Largest Spearfishing Diving Social Media Forum Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2002 - 2014 Spearboard.com