Fish Schooling, Anglers Aren’t : La Paz Offers Plenty of Quarry Without a Lot of Competition
LA PAZ, Mexico — Jack McGuire stepped through the gate at Bob Butler’s place with his left arm hanging limp at his side. Shaking some life into it, he half-jokingly predicted: “This is going to be in a cast for a while.”
McGuire, 53, had just spent a good part of the day balancing in a small skiff while struggling to hold a rod bent over the surface by a yellowfin tuna so powerful it dragged him through the Sea of Cortez for more than six hours. Then the fish broke free.
“I didn’t eat lunch,” McGuire complained. “I couldn’t eat lunch. I drank the whole jug of water, four beers, three Cokes, had water poured on my head. . . .”
McGuire was not alone in this temporary realm of super tuna. Joe Snook--that’s his real name--lost the reel from from his rod and struggled through a bird’s nest backlash, but he brought his 70-pound fish to gaff after 2 1/2 hours. Meanwhile, his wife, Virginia, landed a 75-pounder and a small dorado. Don Woll had an 80-pound tuna to blame for his sore muscles and sweaty body.
On a smooth ocean under a blazing sun, anglers could be seen in all directions struggling with the giant tuna. Cruisers not involved in the bite could be seen racing to schools of fish jumping in the distance. Occasionally, a marlin would strike a lure and dance on water.
And after the day grew long, as the big boats began their slow journey south to their respective ports, McGuire, the Snooks and a few others in their tiny pangas set a course for “the forgotten port.”
Such is the label given La Paz by Butler, a 25-year resident who witnessed the city as it went from boom to bust, becoming an obscure destination for the traveling sportsmen from north of the border.
Who, after all, would even think of going to La Paz to catch his first marlin?
Cabo San Lucas more than likely comes to mind. Baja’s East Cape, perhaps.
La Paz, northeast of Cabo San Lucas on the Sea of Cortez, is, well, simply forgotten by most, despite the productivity of its waters.
And La Paz once was the place for big-game fishermen in search of a thrill.
“La Paz was the place, when there was nothing in Cabo in the 1950s,” said Mario Coppola, owner of the Los Arcos Hotel. “I even have pictures. . . . My father (Luis) bought Los Arcos in 1954. They had 17 rooms, and they had fishing tournaments. I still have pictures of the fishing tournaments out of the main pier here in La Paz. There were 25-30 boats from the Ruffo fleet.”
The Velez family got started in the business soon after the Ruffo brothers, and La Paz was on its way to becoming one of the world’s great sportfishing resorts, drawing such celebrities as Bing Crosby and Clark Gable.
The city boasted several fleets--and without a doubt some of the best fishing the world had to offer. Butler recalls catching his first sailfish just off Mogote Point-- inside the harbor. Marlin came in regularly. Roosterfish and pargo teemed along the beaches.
“I was renting every boat in town, everything I could get my hands on, because people demanded boats and we didn’t have enough ourselves,” Butler said.
But then came a turn of events that altered the course of sportfishing in La Paz.
Baja California split into two states in 1974. The population in the southern half of the peninsula was so small that the Mexican government allowed La Paz to retain free-port status. A huge import tax therefore was waived, and La Paz became a hot spot for Mexicans in search of goods to keep or re-sell. The city prospered.
“In those years in the ‘70s, there wasn’t a block in La Paz that wasn’t under construction,” Butler remembers. “It reminded you of the gold rush in the gold days.”
Duty-free La Paz. Mexicans couldn’t resist the bargains and the Baja climate. They poured in, filling hotels and airline seats.
“They would come with only clothes on their back,” Butler said. “And they would go home with watches and alligator shoes from Italy and leather jackets from Italy. They would fill their room up, then take it back to Mexico (to sell). They would pay for their vacation and make a good buck, too.”
La Paz boomed, but the sportfishing business didn’t. The Mexican tourists by and large chose to shop and relax rather than fish, and the fleets found themselves hurting in a big way.
Butler found himself catering to tourists with a 56-foot houseboat, which toured the scenic bay, while his sportfishing business shrank from a dozen or so boats to a couple.
Fishermen began discovering Cabo San Lucas.
La Paz suffered an economic blow when the peso plummeted in the early 1980s. Construction projects were halted, once-bustling streets became almost deserted. Hotel business slumped and flights were dropped.
The government continued to promote Cabo San Lucas and Loreto as tourist destinations, ignoring La Paz.
But the economic gears are apparently meshing again in La Paz. Some of the hotels are reporting improved business, and construction projects continue at a modest pace. But the growth is slow and natural, not boosted by a government after the North American dollar.
The city remains truly Mexican in every way, unspoiled by rampant development and the invasion of a foreign culture. People can walk through Butler’s gate to drop off their catch, then roam about town.
Said Butler: “You know what, I like it like that. I hope it stays like that during my lifetime. There’s enough of the Mexican people around here--and their tourists--that they absorb the American tourists that come in there. And the American tourists fit right in.”
