By Bob Blum
If you listen to Let’s Talk Hook-up, you are probably aware of the fabulous yellowtail and calico bass fishing available around Cedros Island. If you fish long range, you may have stopped near the island to catch yellowtail or to make bait. However, most people don’t know much about the island, and I guarantee your non-fishing friends have not even heard of Cedros Island.
If you were to go due south 310 miles from San Diego down the Baja Peninsular, you will come to the widest part of Baja California. Looking at a map you will notice the Pacific side comes to a point-Puente Eugenia. 4 miles NW of the point is the island of Natividad. 9miles NW is Cedros and another 16 miles is Islas San Benito (3). The water between the islands is relatively shallow, so it is easy to picture an underwater ridge connecting the islands to the mainland. Probably during the last ice age it was all above water, bur today only the islands remain.
Cedros is sorta triangular shaped. It is 24 miles long north to south and 11 miles wide east to west at the base and 4-5 miles wide up near the narrow end. It is the 4th largest Mexican island after Tiburon, Angel de la Guardia, and Cozumel. It is a little bigger than Catalina at 22 miles long and 6 miles wide at it’s widest. I was surprised to learn that Cedros is much larger than Guadalupe-135 square miles to 95 square miles.
Cedros was “discovered” in 1539 by Francisco de Ulloa. Of course there were indigenous people living there for centuries, but you know how that goes (or went). Ulloa named the island Cedros, Spanish for cedar, because he thought there were cedar trees growing there. There were and are no cedars, only pine in the higher elevations, but the name stuck. The island is quite rugged, but there are fresh water springs.
Today approximately 3000 people live on the island mostly in two towns, Cedros Puebla and El Morro. At El Morro is the islands major employer, the Mitsubishi Salt Works. Salt is harvested from gigantic saltpans by evaporation near Guerrero Negro on the mainland and then barged over for loading onto large freighters. We toured the salt works and saw salt in piles 100 feet high. There were 3 grades: table salt, salt for water softeners, and salt for sprinkling on roads in winter. We watched a barge being unloaded and a freighter being loaded. It takes 6 hours to unload a barge and 6 days to load that particular freighter. It all seemed very inefficient to me, but watta I know. A 2 lb. box of table salt cost 47 cents at Ralph’s.
There is also a desalination plant at El Morro. Another industry involves lobster and abalone harvesting. Let’s Talk Hook-up will have two trips with Cedros Adventures to the island in 2014, July 7 and September 8. They are also sponsoring a 6 day skiff trip on the Shogun October 29th that will allow you to fish from skiffs not only at Cedros but also Benitos, Sacramento Reef and more. Check www.letstalkhookup.com on the “Trips” page for more details. I am looking forward to going back. The trips fill fast, so don’t delay to sign up!
Pete Gray’s addition- This was a great trip, but unfortunately heavy winds hampered our ability to fish some of the prime zones for yellowtail and calico bass. We still had fair fishing for yellowtail up to 43 pounds. That fish was landed by Gary Hiltie of San Diego. Grant Christianson landed several fish in the high 30’s on surface iron. It was not the usual fantastic big yellowtail fishing visitors to Cedros Adventures are used to, but there were plenty of chances for big ones. The calico bass fishing was a bit more challenging than normal, but I must say, my fishing buddies John Christianson and Tom Phingston experienced great calico fishing. We concentrated on calico fishing, and spent little time on the yellowtail, and it paid off. The first day we were able to get to the weather side kelp and had good fishing on calicos up to 6 pounds. Tom even landed a 31 pound yellowtail on an MC Swim Bait and Shimano Curado reel! The following two days were too rough to return to this prime spot, but we fished the front side of the island in flat calm/warm conditions. We even jumped into the water for a refreshing afternoon dip! We did well casting jerk baits, surface iron and Shimano Wax Wings along the shoreline for calicos up to 6 pounds. Several times we had two fish on one lure! The final day we were able to get up to the lee of the north end of the island and drifted the kelp with plastics, Wax Wings and weedless MC Swimbaits for fantastic results on calicos that seemed to average 3-5 pounds!
The operators at Cedros Adventures really have it down. The food was fantastic- everything from rib eye steaks to local preparations of yellowtail. The accommodations are water front and very comfortable. The staff does everything for you. You do not have to carry any of your bags or even load your rods in the boat. They filet and package all your fish for you to take home. Gilbert the driver picks you up at a stop in LA and one in San Diego and takes you to the airport in Ensenada to catch the flight. Gilbert is great fun and very anxious to please. The only down side is having to wait for the flight going down and coming back, but the owners told me they are working on this to have it more stream lined. I would highly recommend Cedros Adventures for a wonderful experience. Check www.cedrosadventures.com for more information, and I hope you can join us on one of our trips next year in July or September. Check www.letstalkhookup.com on the trips page for details…Book soon as this year’s trips were filled 6 months in advance!
