DESERT SAILS

Desert Sails STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY

Sailfish and the desert at first thought may seem like a strange relationship of rather diversified subjects but to Arizona sportsmen this unique association comes right in stride. Though Arizona hasn't a coast line of its own, at least one deep sea fishin' hole is so close that it barely missed being a part of the state. If the southern border had continued straight west, when it was laid out in 1853 at the time of the Gadsden Purchase, instead of angling northward at Nogales, Arizona would have a mighty fine desert bordered fishing port on the upper Gulf of California. However since this area belongs to our good neighbor Mexico to the south, not only do we have ready access to these fine, close-by waters, but each trip is spiced with the added pleasure of visiting another country and another people whose interesting customs, standards and language create a different atmosphere than we are used to at home.

OPPOSITE PAGE “ROAD TO THE SEA” BY ALLEN C. REED. When Arizona anglers drive to the Gulf of California they pass through vast stretches of scenic desert land. City folks who hunger for the visual wonders of nature in the raw can feast their eyes on great helpings of this native unspoiled splendor. On all sides are stately saguaros, desert flowers, and purple hills and the great tranquil distances for the eye to explore. One of the garden spots along the way is Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The highway to Puerto Peñasco passes through the Monument and likewise directly across this color photograph on the opposite page where it shows in the desert camouflage as a faint straight line about % of an inch below the highest tip of the farther Organ Pipe Cactus at the left center of the page.

It is a simple matter for Arizona sportsmen to cross the border and cruise southward 65 miles on the hard-surfaced highway for a day's or weekend's fishing fun. At the little Mexican fishing village of Puerto Peñasco, or Rocky Point as it is also called, the sportsmen may rent a 35-foot motorpowered boat with a skipper and bait boy for $30 a day, and try their luck in the deep water far out in the Gulf; or they may stay ashore and fish in the surf. For lodging and meals they can choose a good hotel room and bill-of-fare or live a campfire, frying pan and tent existence on the sandy beach at Cholla Bay, 8 miles from the village. Depending upon the season, these waters supply everything from panfish catches up to sizes that outweigh the fisherman by a good margin. The possibilities include sea trout, groupers, white sea bass, pintos, cabrilla, dolphin, pompano, skip jack, mackerel, bonefish, red snapper, grunion, shrimp, crab, clams and that prince of sportfish, the agile, acrobatic sail. The record weight of the Pacific variety of sailfish is 275 pounds, the record length over 11 feet.

One enthusiastic sports-fisherman of Arizona is Dr. Eugene A. Gatterdam of Phoenix. Doc, as his friends call him, is truly the dean of Puerto Peñasco piscatorial artists. There is seldom a weekend that he doesn't wet a line in the Gulf. He has successfully tangled with scores of sportfish including sail and marlin both off Southern California and the west coast of Mexico. Doc holds the record for the largest sailfish taken at Puerto Peñasco at 152 pounds.

One Friday afternoon, in mid July, I walked into Doc's office in Phoenix to see about something to relieve a stuffy head I was experiencing from having inhaled an overdose of pollen while chopping out a patch of noxious flowering weeds. Doc was just finishing up for the day. It wasn't long until we were on the subject of fishing.

"I know just the prescription for you," he said, "the sails are in at Peñasco. Tomorrow's Saturday and I'm going down. Why don't you come along? The sea air will clear you up in a jiffy."

After all he was the Doctor, I reasoned, and luckily I had to do just as he prescribed.

We got off on an early start around 4:30 Saturday morning and by the time the first light of the sun was filtering through the forests of saguaro along the highway, we had passed through Gila Bend and were well on our our way.

We reached Lukeville on the United States side of the border at 8 o'clock just as the station was opening. There was one car ahead of us waiting to check through, obviously Peñasco-bound, towing a sleek Chris-Craft on a trailer.

On the Mexico side of the border we registered, stated our business, obtained tourist cards at the cost of $3.00 each and soon were back on the road. Just below the border we passed through the town of Sonoyta and skimmed quickly over the last 60 miles to the Gulf and our destination.

The highway from the border to this Mexican village goes nowhere else. Puerto Peñasco is the end of the line; therefore, there is not much automobile traffic on the streets. The majority of cars in town, Cadillacs to jalopies, belong to visitors from the states who come to fish. Most of the town's people travel about on foot. The daily routine appeared well started when we arrived. The boat builders were busily engaged in their work constructing seaworthy craft for the port's commercial fleet.The peddlers, too, were stirring. Most of them, barefooted, were treading through the sand of the streets and along the water front, their wares in baskets and pails.

The waterman had started his chore of filling the town drums. Though the sea pounds incessantly at Peñasco's doorstep, every drop of fresh water for the 1500 inhabitants must be hauled by tank truck from a well 14 miles inland. These trucks pass through the streets delivering water to 50 gallon drums and barrels located in front of each dwelling, much as trucks in our country deliver ice. However, the hotels and larger business establishments pump the water to roof tanks for storage and pressure.

The commercial boats were loading supplies for a trip to the shrimp beds where they would pack their iced holds with shrimp, 8 to 15 to the pound, for shipment to the states. The barber had the day's first customer in the chair.

We pulled up at the Cortez Hotel, a modern attractive red brick structure built in 1942 at a cost of 1,000,000 pesos, supposedly to house a conference planned between President Roosevelt and President Avila Comacho of Mexico. The conference was never held, but the hotel remains as one of the few modern stopping places in Puerto Peñasco. At the hotel three of Doc's fishing friends: J. H. Willsey, R. J. Griner and R. G. Stark of the Phoenix area joined us for the day's bout with the sails. We were ready to do business as soon as we had breakfast in the Cortez dining room.

With all the fishing gear and our party of five in one car we drove down the boat ramp to the water's edge. The tide was out and boats of all sizes and descriptions rested on the sand at odd angles. The Rio Plata was out of sight beyond the breakwater riding at anchor and we had to engage two water taxis of the rowboat and boypower type to get out to her. Doc conversed in Spanish with one of the local citizens who disappeared and in a few moments came back with a five gallon can containing a dozen frozen mullet packed in cracked ice to be used as sailfish bait along with the mackerel we expected to catch.

Through the window the Gulf looked calm and inviting, and a few boats could be seen already horizon bound. We were all anxious to get out there and see what was in store for us. The day was beginning to grow quite warm but a cooling breeze could be expected on the open water and it is during the warm summer months only when the sailfish seem to visit the upper end of the Gulf. It was just 10:40 by the clock in boat concessionaire Andy Chersin's office when Doc signed for the fishing licenses, which cost 75¢ each, and arranged for the 43-foot Rio Plata to take us out where the sailfish are to be found.

Our oarsman, a Mexican youth of about 15, took us through the maze of tie-lines and anchored boats in the harbor out to the waiting Rio Plata in the bay. She was a comfortable looking cabin cruiser, plenty roomy for the five of us, our skipper, and bait boys to move about freely without tangling up tackle and getting into each other's way.

We hoisted the anchor, started the engine and nosed her out into the Gulf. Looking back it was easy to understand how Puerto Peñasco, or Rocky Point, had come by its most appropriate name. The town is sheltered by an arm of heaped-up volcanic rock that juts high over the desert at the water's edge.

We were barely under way when Doc, with a gleam in his eye, succumbed to the fishing urge and selected his favorite light rod, from the gear on board, for a try at the mackerel.

Sometimes the water for acres around us was flashing silver in the sunlight as literally thousands of mackerel in great schools leaped and splashed. We had feather jigs from three poles trailing the boat and each time a mackerel was pulled in the baitboy would grab the line, unhook it and drop it into the sailfish bait tank.

As soon as we had sufficient bait on board, Doc started preparing for a little action. First he put out the painted, wooden plug teasers and secured them by hand line so they would trail the boat by about 5 feet. These were supposed to help attract the sailfish in close. He baited one hook with a mackerel. It surface-skipped 25 feet behind theboat. He then tied one end of a piece of ordinary cotton sewing thread to his line and the other end to his reel. The reel was then snapped onto free rolling and the thread alone was holding the line from being dragged out by the force of the water on the bait. However, if and when a sailfish hit the bait, the thread would snap allowing the big fish free line for about ten seconds until Doc felt it was time to set the drag and the hook. For variety he baited one of the other lines with a mullet.

boat. He then tied one end of a piece of ordinary cotton sewing thread to his line and the other end to his reel. The reel was then snapped onto free rolling and the thread alone was holding the line from being dragged out by the force of the water on the bait. However, if and when a sailfish hit the bait, the thread would snap allowing the big fish free line for about ten seconds until Doc felt it was time to set the drag and the hook. For variety he baited one of the other lines with a mullet.

By now we were in the blue water and the stage was set. The water closest to shore in this area is of a greenish cast. Out a few miles, however, the coloring changes to a deep blue. When you arrive there it's time to be on the alert for these "blue-water greyhounds" as they are called.

Doc was up in the prow of the Rio Plata sunning himself when he saw the first sailfish break water just ahead.

He hurried aft and slipped on his T-shirt and cap to avoid sunburn in the event of a long-drawn-out battle in the bright sunlight with one of these champs. He had just picked up his rod when a dark shadowy form with a saillike fin glided in close and slashed at the bait.

When the big fish hit, the cotton thread snapped and the bait was freed of any drag from the boat's motion. At the same instant Doc blew a blast from a whistle that hung from a cord about his neck, as a signal to stop the boat. The sail had disappeared into deeper water and the line was spooling off the reel very slowly. Those were a long ten seconds, waiting for Doc to set the hook. I looked at Doc to see what he was about to do. He had a calm easy expression of happy excitement on his face. He knew what he was up against and how to handle the situation.

A series of deep dives followed. Doc was slowly leading him in regaining much of the line he had lost. But the battle wasn't over yet. It took another 16 minutes of intermittent runs and rests before Doc could work his prize up to the boat so the crew could hoist it on deck.

Suddenly Doc reared back hard with the pole and in the water things began to happen. There was a boiling burst of foam so close to the boat that spray from it splashed in our faces. Straight up out of the water came a nine-foot torpedo of scrappy, angry sailfish. He looped and leaped and surfacewalked on his tail as he churned a foamy streak in the water away from the boat. The battle may have started up close but in seconds he had fought out a thousand feet of line leaping, diving, racing all the way.

It is the custom of most anglers, after proving their skill in landing a sailfish, to release all except those wanted for trophy purposes or records. However, in Peñasco that morning ning we had promised a visiting advertising agency crew of photographers and models that we would bring in any sailfish that we caught to help them fulfill an assignment. It was a good day for sails on the Gulf. In a little over three hours we had each scored a victory, a total of five. Back at Andy's boat office, Doc and his companions hung up their catch so that I could make a trophy shot of the group including our boat captain. After I took the photograph, I glanced at my watch. It was 5:45, hardly twenty-four hours since I had walked into Doc's office in Phoenix. And here we were, five Phoenicians, who had left Phoenix scarcely more than half a day ago on a deep sea fishing trip and had scored 100 percent in a most enjoyable and thrilling experience.

Doc's reel fairly shrieked as the 18 lb. test line, taut as a bowstring, melted from the spool, and his glass pole, light as a fly rod, bent nearly double. At every opportunity he retrieved as much line as possible for if the sail ever wrestled the line out to the end, it would snap like the cotton thread had. Sometimes Doc looked a little worried when the spool grew too thin. He had a good opponent on the other end of his line. The first 15 minutes convinced him of that. Doc's prescription had been a whiz and I couldn't help but think how strange it was that along with so many other outstanding attractions we should also have sailfishing in Arizona. And we do... well, practically.