BEWARE OF GONZALO'S SPORT FISHING PANGAS IN CABO SAN LUCAS
MORONS, LIARS AND THIEVES!!!!
SuttonLaw
We had an awful experience with Gonzalo's Sport Fishing Pangas in Cabo San Lucas. On the referral of an experienced friend who had fished with Gonzalo before, we booked two days of fly fishing with them on the boat GABY and understood that we would fish six hours a day and that the price would be $180 US per day. When we arrived in Cabo, we called them to confirm, and discovered that we did have two days booked, but they weren't the same two days that we had requested. The excuse was "We didn't get the fax". This was not a big deal, but we should have known that they were liars, because if they didn't get the fax, they wouldn't have booked us for two days.
When we arrived for the first day of fishing, we discovered that we were to be fishing from another boat, the KARLITA, and that its engine was in such poor shape that it made its own smoke screen, which probably camouflaged us from the view of the fish, and also made us sick from the fumes. After we went aboard, we were informed that the Captain, Victor, needed an additional $20US for bait. He bought 10 small baits on the way out of the marina. The idea was to troll the baits without hooks, tease the sportfish up, then reel in the baits and cast a fly to the fish. Victor was supposed to be experienced in this method.
Victor was a real disappointment. First, we told him that we knew the Roosterfish were in, and we wanted to fish for them only. But on the way around the point, Victor saw some Sierra, and wanted us to troll a fly for them. We told him no, but he insisted. We caught a small tuna trolling the fly, and finally went on to find the Roosters. When Victor finally got set up, after wasting about an hour with various screwing around like looking for bonita and stalling the engine and jump starting the boat several times with his spare battery pack (because the boat battery was dead) I took the starboard side of the stern to cast forehand, and Victor took the port side.
He hooked up a bait and let the fish out to trail. He was supposed to speak English, and told me that he would tell me when to cast. The first Rooster came after the bait and Victor lapsed into a frenzy of Spanish which meant nothing to me except that he was real excited. He also pulled the bait in by a combination of reeling and pulling the rod directly into my face, which sort of prevented my casting. Suffice it to say that it was a real long day of training Victor. He also wanted to quit early, and bait fish for some pompano, so that he could say that we really caught some fish. I put the kibosh on this little maneuver, and insisted that we persevere at the Roosters. We finally took a small Rooster, and immediately returned to the marina. I told Victor that we had booked the GABY, and that we wanted to use that newer boat on the next trip, as the engine smoke was making us sick, and we thought that we had wasted a lot of time jump starting the engine.
When we left the boat, we forgot one of our borrowed rods, a Sage graphite 9' for a 14 three-piece. No one said a word to us about it, and somehow it got secreted under the edge of the boat. Out of sight and out of mind. When we returned at 6:30 a.m. for out second day, after a day off, Victor still didn't say a word about it. He made up some excuse about not being able to switch boats to the GABY, and we embarked for another day of fishing and screwing around jump starting the Karlita, smoking engine and all. We screwed around for about an hour getting around the point, and Victor thought that we could go out a couple of miles and maybe get a Marlin. We insisted that we go with the plan of Rooster fishing. So we got hooked up, and started trolling the baits and the Roosters were there and cooperating.
Bang, Bang, Bang, we got three nice ones in a row. Then at 9:00 a.m. the engine quit, and Victor started trying to jump start it. But now the spare Battery Pack was dead, as Victor had forgotten to charge it. A frenzy of Spanish followed, with much slamming things around. The GABY appeared, with two other fishermen in it, and Victor tried to get them to tow us back.
Finally, one of Victor's pals towed us back to the Marina. I suggested to Victor that I was really disappointed to be missing the best day of fishing on my trip, and that I had to fly back to the States the next day, and that I wanted him to think about how he was going to square this with me. Suddenly Capitano Victor was no longer in charge, so I asked to speak with Gonzalo.
Well, Gonzalo was out of town in Alaska, so we would have to speak with his wife, Karlita. Victor didn't know where Karlita was, so he left to go look for her. He didn't find her, but she did find us on the slip, and immediately started making excuses and arguing with us. I told her that while I was generally a pretty good sport, that I was disappointed to miss my last day of fishing due to shoddy equipment and poor maintenance. She immediately countered that sometimes these things happen, and that it wasn't her fault. I told her that Victor had complained that Gonzalo wouldn't pop for a new battery, even after being told several times that the battery was dead, and merely provided a portable jumper pack. Then Karlita's father appeared, a sort of lame old man, and she sent him to get a new battery.
Then she disappeared. He came back with two used truck batteries which he promoted somewhere without realizing that the marine battery connections screw on to the poles, and truck battery connection clamp on to the poles.
So, amidst assurances that it would only be "ten more minutes" the old man was dispatched to get some jumper cables. The plan emerged the two old truck batteries would sort of float around in the bottom of the boat, and be connected with jumper cables as necessary to the marine battery. Soon the old man showed up again, with greasy jumper cables about 12 feet long, but they had lost a spring on one of the clamps, so we were informed that we were to just press the contact despite the shower of sparks, while Victor cranked the starter, and that everything would be all right.
At this point, I told Pop and Victor that I had about enough, and that we were leaving, and that Karlita should contact us at our hotel to let us know what she would like to do to square up the situation. Still, Victor said nothing about our fly rod which he had hidden on the boat. He must have just forgot about it. We went back to our hotel, and in putting up the equipment realized that our 14' rod was missing. Just then the phone rang, and it was Karlita, who wanted to see us right now in the lobby. We went down, and she was in a frenzy, and told us that the only thing that was going to happen was that we were going to pay her $90. That's $30 an hour for all the time we were out, including the time spent getting towed back, because, after all, nothing is free. I coolly gave her our point of view, which was that her equipment had caused us to miss our last day of fishing, and that we had contracted for 6 hours and only fished one and a half or two hours, and that her operation ought to be thinking about how make this up to us. She said "expletive" a few time to us, and threatened to have the police throw us in jail.
I told her that we were not about to pay her, and as Victor was present, I asked him if he had seen our missing rod. He told us that he had it on the panga and that we should walk down to the marina and pick it up from him. He and Karlita left in the car, and we walked down to the slip.
When we arrived, Victor and Karlita were on the slip, and had the gate to the slip locked. I asked Victor for the rod, and he told me that he wasn't in charge and that I would have to deal with Karlita. Now, Karlita has a pretty hot temper, and was all charged up. I halfway expected her to run out from the slip and bite us! Immediately, she was screaming obscenities at us, and told us that we were not going to get our rod back unless she got $90. Then she pranced smartly to the Karlita and sat herself down in the bow chair, crossed her legs and arms and announced smugly that she could wait there all day. It was a pretty cute scene. Victor was playing with the battery. We realized that we were had, and asked to see the rod to make sure it was really there. She immediately unearthed it from its hiding place, and issued a few obscene taunts. We traded her $90 in travelers checks for the rod through the locked gate, and I said, "Thank you Karlita, and have a nice day". She replied "expletive!". I couldn't help myself at that point, and hollered to Victor, "Hey Victor, you have no balls. You're a woman Victor."
And Victor didn't have anything to say about that. He knew.
So we left, having expected more from the Mexican Tourist Industry. We had been to Mexico several times in the past, and had better experiences. Now, times seem to have changed. We also got shaken down for a $20 bribe by a Mexican Policeman in the evening for making a wrong turn. Our suggestion is to pass on Mexico and fish in a civilized country, like Costa Rica, which we have really enjoyed.
Copyright©1997 Fly Fishing Network