Fish eyes on, Fish on

Untangling the stiff corpse of a slimey lifeless baitfish from an unfathomable clusterfuck of greasy, gap-filled gill-netting isn't what I imagined. 

While dreamy idealism had painted perfect pictures of me slapping a pristine strip-set into the voracious mouth of a golden snook omewhere along the rocky shores of Peru's northern coast, the more modest manifestations of my imagination led me to the safer assumption that I'd probably be ripping into rising lip of some rising rainbow from a lake 

the primordial pesca and slump-busting first fish of this long awaited adventure turned out to be a mid-sized mullet.



And so, after ignoring all the internal chatter of facist fishing purism  . Or, shall I say fishes? Either way, the seal has been broken and in more ways than one. 

After somewhat smoothly navigating the lonesome little coastal border crossing between Ecuador and Peru — through the towns of Hauquillas and Tumbes, respectively — our itch to make up for lost beach time led us to a place of sweet respite, just north of the resort town of Mancora. 

A quick exit east off the PanAmerican and another 500 meters south of 4x4 beach cruising delivered us to the home of one Robert “Robby” Dixon. And despite his far-from-anything but Peruvian name, Robert knows exactly how to show a fellow fisherman a good time on the northern coast of Peru.

It wasn’t more than a few hours after first meeting Robby in the bustling little beachside village of Cancas that he had us waist deep in the crystalline waters of the Pacific, helping set out a procession of 60-meter gill nets just off the beach. 

It was low tide; there was no time to waste. 

I’m pretty sure that neither of us were much help that first day. We probably created more knots than we untied, to be honest, but Robby is a patient maestro and encouraged us with slow hand movements and sporadic orders, in perfectly clear English.  

We returned to Robby’s in time to watch as a reddening sun submerged itself into the boundless bath that waited below it. Just inside of the distant horizon, and right at our 12, a group of behemoth humpback whales were celebrating the celestial scene with their own show of utter-fucking-brilliance. 

Voice of Chris Tucker: “Daaaaaammmn… Peru.” 

Three lobsters, four pompano, two nice sized lisa (white mullet), a handful of another species I have yet to interpret to English and one super-sexy corvina were our take when we checked the first net that next morning. 

What happened with those fish is a delicious tale that’s destined for another story to come. 

And so is the other tale, the one about how Robby and a salty group of small-town fishermen “went to war” against the foreign interests which have threatened to compromise this bountiful stretch of South American water. It includes an old man helping Robby escape the police with an incendiary… so, like, yeah. 

For now, this story ends with a parting gift: a sopping-wet, John Greenesque, fortune-cookie sounding moral to this whole story about learning how to fish a different way. 

If you keep your fish eyes on, you never know just how you’ll end up catching ‘em. 

Until next time. Keep your fish eyes on.

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