Welcome to The Baja Fish Blog, your blog for Southern Baja fishing reports covering the East Cape, La Paz and Cabo San Lucas. We will also be posting on-the-water reports, photos, videos, gear reviews and tackle tips.
Here
is the latest secret weapon for those springtime roosters on the fly.
It's called "The Weapon" from Dave Blair of Think Like a Fish http://www.thinklikeafish.biz/.
I've been playing around with a few of my hoochie hybrid patterns on
The Weapon pusher head and next is the bullet head. I also tied up a few
larger billfish/dorado patterns...enjoy.
I had a few questions coming in about this lure. All my clients know that I've been fishing with http://MakairaPullingLures.com/ for many years and wouldn't leave the dock without my Makaira Brutus, 19, 18 and Lenas. But, the bullet lure in the
photo is a Mark White lure out of Kauai. I met Mark on a trip out to
the Garden Isle back in 2007. He proceeded to load me up with his unique
ceramic lures. He has formulated his own proprietary ceramic mix that
when cured becomes as hard as steel, of which he demonstrated in his
studio by dropping one of his heads on a concrete floor. He counts each
time he has dropped the head to illustrate the strength of the ceramic
mix. When I was there in '07 he had dropped the lure around a hundred
times, and you could see all the cracks and chips in the concrete where
the lure had struck the floor. He is probably up to 8004 on the drop
count by now and I am sure the collection of cracks in his studio floor
continues. He also has a variety of glaze colors that have a unique foil
(oil slick) characteristic to them with some great textures. These
baits were definitely wahoo and deck proof, but, do they trolling...and
raise fish? Well, I've run his 9" Slant and it has done very well on the
billfish and dorado. Also, his 5" bullet heads are a "go to" for small
pelagics on the shotgun. What I really like about his baits are that
they are perfectly weighted, as ceramic has a nice weight to it as a
material and the glazes he comes up with are really nice. Mark also has a
ceramic popper (again, immune to the abuses of the reef) that is very
popular in The Islands for surf fishing for jacks (ulua, papio, etc).
His work is definitely worth adding to your collection.
For those of you not familiar with Japanese Gyotaku fish prints,
Gyotaku (Japanese, from gyo "fish" + taku "rubbing") is a traditional form of Japanese fish printing or rubbing, dating from the mid-19th century, a form of nature printing used by fishermen to record their catches. In order to make a gyotaku print, one places the subject (e.g. fish, crab, scallop shell) on a wooden bench and paints one side with sumi ink. Next a piece of paper or other material is laid over the ink-covered fish. Finally, one rubs the material until there is the image of the fish on it.
Modern gyotaku artists often substitute acrylic or other painting material for the traditional sumi-e,
Here is a video on Okinawa Gyotaku fish prints:
Lyle Brunson takes Gyotaku prints to the next level with his expertise in large game fish prints like marlin, sailfish, tuna, dorado, wahoo and roosterfish. He designs each print to the customer's preferences. You can go with just black ink for that traditional look, a light wash of color for billfish or something more colorful for species like dorado (mahi mahi). I can attest to Lyles skill and attention to detail, as my clients have been overwhelmed by the quality, artistry and craftsmanship of his prints. One other benefit to a fish print is you can fold in up and put it in a suitcase for the trip home. When you get home you can mount your print by following Lyle's detailed mounting directions...done. No waiting for two months for that fiberglass mount. Lyle's work really speaks for itself and I highly recommend his work.
I met Jessica at the Fred Hall Sportfishing show in Long Beach, CA. She
showed me the Scentblazer product line and I was immediately interested
in their teaser design. I'm a big fan of large teasers and I think they
raise fish, period. I was also very interested because over the past
eight or ten years I had built similar teasers out of PVC pipe, mylar
tape, vinyl skirts. Basically, fancy chum tubes for trolling. The
Scentblazer teaser for fit and finish made my teasers look crude in
comparison. Their teaser is your classic bowling pin shape but with a
two piece, polycarbonate body with a hollow bait chamber and large open
grate at the back of the teaser.
I rigged two of them up with about four
feet of 650lb. Momoi Xhard leader and loaded them up with bait. The
bait chamber worked perfectly with our local bullet and frigate tuna.
You simply unscrew the head of the teaser, load your chum into the body
and screw the two pieces together. We would remove the head (behind the
pectoral fins) and tail, gut the bait, cut crosshatch slices in the body
of the bait on both sides and insert into the teaser. The one detail I
really liked about this teaser, unlike others on the market, was the
fact that I could control the action of the teaser by adding or removing
chum from the chamber. Less chum equaled more action. The teaser would
buck, skitter on the surface and dive with a really erratic action with
less chum. If it was packed down with bait, it would push lots of water
throwing a huge smoke trail, head shake and still dig in even when the
wind would come up in the afternoon. We've raised a couple blues on them
this Summer but I think we are definitely going to raise some more this
Fall.
From Justin:
Just like the name implies, they are grown up versions of the original "Brutus" and "19", sporting a 1 7/8" diameter head. They also come in weighted or non-weighted versions and like yall know can be made to order with whatever head color and skirt color combinations you like. Check out the picture with the original "Brutus" and "19" in there for reference.
From Mark:
I've been running Justin's lures for about 4 years with excellent result. His Brutus has been "blue marlin money" for us on the long corner. This lure digs in, throws a huge smoke trail and really is a great fish raiser. The 19, with it's slight angled head and long lines creates a beautiful smoke trail, running well in rougher seas. Now with the BIG Brutus and BIG 19 on the short corner Justin has the spread covered. Throw in weighted/keeled options and these baits will cover all sea conditions. I don't do too many product endorsements but Justin's line of lures are worth checking out.
