Historically I have split my fishing time, predominately in the greater Los Cabos area, going one day Panga fishing and the following day Surf Fishing.

My panga captains use very unfamiliar navigational approaches to fishing. They loath modern electronic equipment such as GPS, temperature gauges, depth finders, and fish finders and instead use “word of mouth” and/or a triangulation system off local mountain tops with locations passed down for generations.  They are out there every day and they know what’s going on.  I had one Captain tell me “last year I went out fishing in my panga 335 days!”

I use almost exclusively Sabiki rigs with Size 2, 4, 6 or 1/0 hooks, tipped or not tipped with cut squid, and explore the bottom. A key here is make sure your line strength is at least 40/30. Both Pata and Barco fish for “big fish” using more traditional approaches, such as yo-yo iron, fly-lined live bait, and trolling. Barco and I catch a lot of fish, for example 1,898 fish of 86 different species, in 65 panga trips during calendar 2015. The diversity, however, is not quite as extensive as it was in the more remote locations covered with Pata. 

I find it most interesting – now with over 1,300 panga trips under my belt – that neither I nor my captain have missed a booked date, which is truly phenomenal. We have weather-related postponements due to the Captain of the Port closing the ocean to fishing at the rate of two or three per year but those are quickly rebooked for a later date. And, if it is blowing like holy hell at departure time and you silently wonder “are we going today?” You quickly learn that this question is a really dumb one and you’re glad you didn’t verbalize it, as the answer is always “most definitely!”

Historically I also have had access different fish specimens from alternative sources – some from live bait salesmen (in the old days we purchased live bait about 60% of the time; currently it has dropped to less than 10% of the outings due to lack of supply, enhanced used of frozen cut squid and cut up chunk bait), from surf fishing, from tide pooling, from local fish markets, from commercial fishermen who have access to the deep water shrimp trawlers, and of course, from the extremely productive internet readership of Mexican-Fish.com.