An effective counter measure for a claustrophobic coach seat was necessary, so I ordered a margarita and resisted the urge to reach over and choke the comfort out of the imp in front of me, who had just reclined his seat. Meanwhile, in Mexico, the paperwork that I had submitted weeks ago had just caught the eye of somebody looking to make a buck.
Upon arrival in Los Cabos, I confidently presented our carnet (an importation document listing our inventory of professional video equipment) to the customs agent, and was unexpectedly ushered into a side room. There, I was informed that our gear was now in the possession of an “import/export specialist” who would be happy to negotiate the release of our company tackle. According to these uniformed agents, I had simply been the victim of bad timing, as the specific guidelines outlined by the government official that I had so thoroughly navigated in the days leading up to this trip had simply changed. Most likely, by a thick wad of cash.
In those days, we shot outdoor television shows on huge studio cameras, which our videographers packed on sheep hunts up the Himalayas and down tumultuous rivers in South America. Our company founder was something of a visionary. He setup shop adjacent a university with a prominent radio and television program, and seized the opportunity to offer menial wages in exchange for countless hours of labor in order to acquire a valuable library of high-definition wildlife footage. To an outsider like myself, who had come from a guiding and writing background, this level of camera equipment seemed like overkill for documenting two dudes flyfishing, but the spectacle did produce the desired results of keeping others from attempting outdoor TV (eventually, they figured it out). The exhibition provided a menial wage for me too, as one of my duties was negotiating the complex international laws, which are always subject to sudden and erratic change, pertaining to the exploitation of a sovereign nation’s wildlife for the purpose of cable-package content back in the good ol’ USA. In this particular instance, it would appear that I had hit a roadblock and the newfangled production, Fly Fishing the World with Conway Bowman, may be beached before it ever set sail.
My first order of business was to contact our local liaison and guide, a gringo who had been operating in Mexico for many years. He assured me that this sort of thing was typical and that we had nothing to worry about, for a few hundred dollars we’d be back in business. He made a phone call to the “import/export agent” (surely, the Spanish translation for “Art Vandelay”) and I overhead him repeatedly use the acronym “ESPN”. While a former version of the fishing show we intended to produce was, in fact, aired on the nation’s leading sports channel, that had been many years ago, and I questioned the advantage of associating our equipment with a highly-recognizable network. My hunch was Vandelay and his cronies were seeing dollar signs.
A meeting was arranged and while I was preparing to handle these goons face-to-face, the host, Conway Bowman, and the outfitter, Doug Brady of Flytreks, went fishing. The cameramen went to “shoot B-roll”, TV lingo for beauty footage of sunrises, sunsets, and long walks on the beach. Most often, they would just go to the bar. Both of these sounded like much better options than a Mexican backroom negotiation.
As I apprehensively approached this place of business, it was difficult to discern just what type of racket these folks were conducting. The storefront was a windowless, drab building in an otherwise abandoned strip mall in the Mexican desert. A prime setting for clandestine activities, and possibly, the last building I would ever enter. Inside, there were stacks of electronics, boxes of paperwork, and four desks occupied by suspicious men currently in possession of our valuables. Whatever back-slapper had just been told moments before I entered the room must’ve been hilarious, but the laughter subsided immediately and the four “import/export specialists” scowled as I approached the man whom I assumed to be in charge.
In broken Spanglish, I calmly explained that we would need our gear back today. I was pleasantly assured that this would be no problem, $5000 cash would do it, and another $5k upon our departure would ensure the safety of the equipment upon exportation. I decided to approach this like a car deal, and left, returning hours later with our lead videographer, Bill, a well-traveled veteran of international bullshit whose glare could take the fresh paint right off a Sunday school.
Bill the Cameraman
With Bill at the door, I stood my ground, and we left with our equipment for $400 today, $400 upon our departure. The show must go on; though we’d now lost two full production days of a scheduled five-day shoot and it would take ample luck on the angling side of things to pull this rabbit out-of-a-hat. Fortunately, we could rely upon experienced saltwater anglers and a seasoned guide.
On day three, it was ass-on-curb at 4AM. We drove for hours on winding, rough roads across the Baja backcountry to a boat launch, somewhere in the Sea of Cortez. From there we took an hour’s ride out to an isolated island. The waters were inundated with a variety of gamefish; roosters, jacks, needlefish, and the acrobatic ladyfish. In a matter of hours we had all the angling footage we would need, and I had a little time to sample the goods myself.
On the return trip along the rocky shoreline, a Mexican Destroyer approached a few hundred yards off. It seemed to be taking an interest in our vessel, which was confirmed when a Zodiac was launched off the port side and made haste en route to our position. Our guide dozed while we slyly stashed our camera gear beneath the gunnels and a boatload of heavily armed members of Armada de México began their interrogations of our intentions. Our guide, who was surely playing possum, eventually stirred and calmly explained that we were simply fishing. After some intense moments, he convinced the soldiers that we were not the droids they were looking for, and they turned the boat around and returned to the mother ship. Apparently, this shoreline, pockmarked with nooks and crannies, is a popular route for drug smugglers. Though we had yet to encounter any narcos, at the rate we were dodging bullets it was only a matter of time.
The camera crew and the host departed the following day, and Doug and I were left to our own devices with the guide. It had always been a dream of mine to catch a marlin, and though I’d tried with my dad in these very same waters many years prior, we’d come up empty. Today, the goal would be to catch one on a fly rod, a notion that seemed rather ludicrous given my limited experience in pursuit of billfish. An hour or so into our search, we were surrounded by the largest pod of porpoise I have ever witnessed. They stretched to the horizons all around us, and the guide and first mate suggested I jump in and swim with them. I wasted little time diving in, but it wasn’t quite the surreal experience I was hoping for. The dolphins largely avoided me and I soon realized that I was the slowest thing in an open ocean well-stocked with a variety of predators, including tiger sharks, which frequently hunt dolphin pods.
After my ill-advised swim, the boat sprang into action when a marlin came up on one of the teasers. Amidst considerable excitement, the first mate yanked the teaser from the drink and the fish circled the wake frantically while the captain, first mate, and my fishing buddy, barked orders at me in English, Spanish, and “Douglish”, respectively. I grabbed the stout little 10-weight and fired a cast in the fish’s direction. The marlin rushed over, slammed the fly and I was fast to my first billfish. A display of aerial acrobatics ensued, and then the fish sounded, requiring me to lean deep into the rod and crank on the fly reel until he tired. We pulled him aboard for the obligatory grip-n-grin, and quickly released a beautiful representative of the Striped Marlin back into the Pacific.
Not an hour later, a second marlin came up on the teaser and we repeated the process, with my buddy, Doug, at the helm. Leaning on far more experience wrestling with large saltwater gamefish, he landed his in considerable less time and we concluded that we had made our peace on this incredibly fortuitous day, and would do best to return to port in time for salty rims at happy hour.
