By Brent Watkins "aka" Jose

MAGNIFICENT. If one word could sum up the past week with Tony Teyes, magnificent would be it.

The trip started out Sunday with seventeen anglers and the crew loaded aboard the Tony Reyes Sportfishing boat, the Jose Andres. We were headed 250 miles down the Baja to fish the Midriff Island area of the Sea of Cortez. Hurricane Marty had just passed by three days before and today the seas were flat as glass and soon San Felipe was disappearing in the distance.

Sixty seconds, that's how long it took for my first hookup once the mother ship unloaded our pangas and our guide, Beba, placed us over the reef that was 200 feet below us. Before I got my rod bending yellowtail back to the boat my buddies Scott, Manfredo and Sid were also hooked up and pumping and reeling with some good sized fish. This action continued for three solid days for all the pangas. My buddy, Scott said to me, "Baja must be the worlds best fishing hole."

Some highlights from the trip were Ron's 15-minute battle with a Hammer Head Shark, the Santa Barbras contengent fly line baits for very large Cabrillas along the rocky shoreline. John and Curtis with their White Sea Bass monsters, Scott with his catch and release Grouper, Manfredo with his big bull Dorado caught on a hand line, and the Tempe Fire guys almost true stories.

The most striking thing about fishing the Baja's Cortez coast is that you never know what you will catch on the end of your fishing line. Lots of big Yellowtail, Cabrilla, Dorado, Grouper, and several other fish we couldn't identify.

Thanks to John Chow who was our charter master and did a super job of organizing and thanks to Tony Reyes Jr. and his excellent crew for a great time and good job to the southern California guys for catching a ton of yellowtail.