Slow Baja - Sportfishing With Jonathan Roldan And TailHunter International

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

When Jonathan Roldan was departing for a year-long job at a remote hotel on the East Cape of Baja, he needed a break. He had already had multiple careers as a fishing guide, deckhand, chef, broadcast journalist, 900-number entrepreneur, and, most recently, an attorney. A year in Baja would be a nice break from his stress-filled life as a courtroom litigator. After he got fired from that hotel job, he drove up to La Paz -a mere six dollars in his pocket, to start over. He built what he refers to as “a little lemonade stand” and started selling fishing trips. From those humble beginnings, hawking fishing trips, guiding by day, packing the catch, and running his one-person taxi service by night, Roldan did everything to keep his clients happy. He went from selling on commission for other skippers to owning a panga of his own. Eventually, he and his wife Jilly would build Tailhunter Sportfishing into a thirty panga fleet, a waterfront bar, a transportation company, and a staff of nearly 50. Tailhunter operates two full-time sportfishing fleets to provide clients with the absolute best fishing in the best conditions. The La Paz-based fleet fishes north around the fertile Espirito Santo Island. The Las Arenas Fleet operates off the beach at Bahia de Los Muertos and fishes the legendary waters around Cerralvo Island. As Roldan likes to say, he’s blessed to be a part of his client’s vacation, a maker of their Kodak moments. Please note at approximately 40:00 minutes, we had some technical challenges, and the sound quality and volume drop off. Listen to the podcast here Visit the Tailhunter International website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Slow Baja is brought to you by the Baja XL rally. The Baja XL is the largest and longest amateur off-road rally on the Baja Peninsula.

It's 10 epic days, L.A. to Cabo back to L.A., mostly on dirt. For an adventure of a lifetime, you got to check out the BajaXL rally. More information at BajaXL.org and on Facebook at the Baja XL Rally news and support group. It's coming up, January 2021. Be there. Hey, this is Michael Emery, the Slow Baja podcast, and I am talking on a Zoom call with my new friend, Jonathan Rolden. in, you're in Texas, right, Jonathan? Yes, we are. Unfortunately, I really love Texas, but unfortunately, we've been stuck here for about three months, Michael.

Well, I haven't finished my intro spiel, but we are talking because you own tail hunter sport fishing down in La Paz, and I love fishing, and I've been itching to talk to you about La Paz and fishing and how you made your multiple career changes to get to doing what you're doing now. So let's just jump into it. Okay, well, we've been down in La Paz for about 25 years now, in 1995. I thought I was taking a year to, away from my law practice, actually. I was an attorney, a litigation attorney for many years, and before that I was in radio and TV. And I guess I get bored easily.

And I thought I was going to take a year off. I've been litigating for about 12 years. I came down, and one year turned into 12 years. And what started with basically one panga, ended up now with two full fleets. a bar and restaurant, a tour company, and we're busy. Well, we were busy until things sort of fell apart a few months ago. Yeah, exactly. Hey, what does two full fleets mean?

That's a mouthful. Well, we have several fleets of pangas in La Paz. There are two distinct areas that we fish. One is straight out of La Paz, and we leave the bay, pick up everyone on the beach. We had straight out north around the Spiritu Santo Island. But the other place we fish is the famous Las Arenas, Saravo Island area, and that's about an hour shuttle ride from La Paz. We pick everyone up from their hotels. We ride down to Bahia de los Mertos. We jump on our panga's old school style,

push right off the beach, and then we're fishing five, ten, fifteen yards off the beach, and this is one of the greatest and most prolific fishing areas in the world. So we were able to fish both areas. Our clients get the opportunity to fish two different areas, two different styles of fishing, and a lot more variety of fish. And correct me if I'm wrong. I've only fished for Dorado in Bahia, in Baja, so I'm not an expert by any stretch of imagination, but this is live bait fishing, right? You're not out trolling. That's one of the beauties of this, and that's why we get so many folks who normally wouldn't go fishing because they get seasick, they don't want to go out far. The unique thing about fishing in our area is that we're

fishing in pongas, which are the skiffs that you see lying along the beach. They're in American design. They're made for these waters. We push right off the beach, and literally, I'm not kidding you. My last Marlin was 100 yards off the beach. We catch tuna in 20, 30, 40, 50, 50 feet of water. We're not having to run 10, 20, 30, 40 miles offshore and big waves. And this is live and dead bait fishing. So if you're in the boat, hold on your reel, hold on your rod, put a bait on a hook and you're fishing. There's no complicated aspects to this. It's very simple, very easy and very, very productive and a lot of fun because instead of dragging a lure up and down for miles and miles way offshore, you're never going to see the land, you're never going to miss, you're never going to miss, you're never going to be out of sight of land. You can very often see the bottom. And this is very, very proactive fishing. So you've got the rod and reel in your hand. And rather than chase, you know, that big giant fish for hours and hours and nothing happening, it's a lot more fun. If Mike, you and I get in the boat and we're hooking two, three, four at a time. And at the end of the day, we've each gotten 10, 15 fish. We've released a bunch more and a lot more action. And a lot of these fish

are actually those big fish that other people are running way offshore to try to catch. We're catching them very close to shore and very shallow waters. Yeah, so, you know, I grew up in San Francisco and grew up deep sea fishing for salmon. You know, I enjoy it and looking back on it now. But as a 10-year-old, 12-year-old, getting up at 3.30 or 4 o'clock in the morning, getting down to the dock and taking some drammamine and getting out on a boat and throwing up, you know, before you get to do the activity that you're doing, you know, it just, it was fun. The weather was often awful. The water getting out of the golden gate into the ocean was just horrific, the potato patch. So, you know, literally people are hurling all over the place.

They're on islands. Yeah, so you're familiar. So my first trip down to Fish in Loretto, it was quite a different scene where you just jump on a panga, as you said. It's, you know, it's a relaxed atmosphere. The weather was good. you pick up your bait and you're on your way and you know pretty soon we were into fish and I caught a dozy and it was a and I guess Dorado run in pairs because my buddy caught one as well and we had a we really had a great day with no drama at all is that really what a typical Baja fishing

experience with tail hunter is like for you absolutely no drama mean that's that's a I should put a t-shirt out that's drama no drama me yeah just trademark that Wait, you can't steal that yet. But yeah, you hit it right on the nose. I used to live in Northern California. I remember pushing out of the Golden Gate, big waves. You're wearing boots and slickers. And everybody was hacking or taking dromimee,

and then I lived in Santa Cruz and the same thing. This is completely different, which is why so many folks really, really enjoy coming to fish with us. The waters are calm. I'm originally from Hawaii. I love having waves. There are no waves where we are. Cior Cortez.

Yeah, there's a two-foot wave is a big wave. If it's three feet, we're probably not going to go out. But that being said, we're only fishing. I can, I've thrown stones from my panga and hit the shore. I've caught 100 and 200-pound fish, and I can see the bottom below me. The waters are 85 degrees. You're not, like I said, you're not far off from shore, and it's not very rough. In fact, very often it's flat, flat calm. Wow, you've already sold me. Wait, I didn't need to be sold. So you've got a pretty interesting background. You're from Hawaii. Tell me about how you got to this year that this year sabbatical that you took to fish. That seems an unlikely story. Radio TV, restaurant chef, courtroom litigator. I mean, come on, man. Tell me about how this all came about and how you ended up deciding La Paz and Tail Hunter was your future.

It's a circuitous route there, Mike. I grew up on an island and I fished where fishing was not necessarily a sport. It's what you did to feed the family. But that's where I grew up as a waterman. We were always surfing, body surfing, swimming, fishing. And then my parents set up in Southern California. My mother was a teacher. And my father was a work for the city of Los Angeles.

It's a city planner. And that's where I completed my school. And then I started working. for a fish hatchery right out of, I did one year of college and then decided, you know, I'm kind of tired of that. So I decided to hit the road. I went to work for a fish hatchery in California, a trout hatchery up in your bishop, California. I was there for a little while, and then I jumped in my van. And by that time, I'd worked for a number of restaurants. So what I did is I would show up in a town and I would find the best restaurant, and I would say, listen,

I can cook everything on this menu. You got French, you got Italian, you got seafood. At least feed me. I'm hungry. I'm living in my truck. give me a chance. And more often than not, I got the job, and I'd stay there for a while and I'd work, and then I'd go to another town, another town. And as I traveled from place to place, I also continued with my schoolwork, picked up a little more here, a little more there. And after a while, I decided I was going to go back to school,

and I went back to Cal State Northridge in Los Angeles. I got a journalism degree there, as well as a political science and a public relations degree. and I was working at CBS radio and TV at the time. I had worked already by that time at about four or five different radio stations and TV stations around California as I had traveled. And while I was in school, I also decided, well, you know, I'm just going to continue with school. So I went to law school.

And I got my JD and then I started practicing. I started with a big litigation firm in Los Angeles. And I was there for a few years, excuse me, a few years with a big firm. Then I broke out on my own. and then fishing kind of drew me back in those days when I don't know if you remember the 900 numbers are very popular the 976 numbers and we set up a partner and I we set up a phone call recording where you could basically call about any fishing area in California we gave you the local fishing report and using both of us that had radio and TV experience so we used that and recorded every day and that collapsed and I went back to school and finished up the rest of my degrees. And then I started practicing law again. And then I just got tired of it.

An opportunity came up because I was writing for a couple of newspapers and magazines. An opportunity came up to go down to Baja and I got offered a job. And I went down there for a year and I never came back. That's kind of the short story. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Probably lost everybody five minutes ago. What's that? I probably lost every one of your listeners about five minutes ago.

You know, I think it's so interesting because I have young kids in college now, and, you know, it seems like these days parents want their kids to professionalize themselves when they're in high school, get into a great college, get straight through that college and go on to a career that leads to a career that leads to a bigger job, and you never get off the hamster wheel, you know, because parents are so afraid of how expensive everything is and how difficult it is to make a living. that and it just seems to me like you had, you know, a, you had a different, a different soundtrack in your head. You know, you're going to go your truck. You're going to fish a little bit. You know, you can feed yourself. You can get a job at a restaurant. You proved yourself. And yeah, and then somehow, you know, hey, you became an attorney. Are you kidding me? And then, hey, you know what? Scrap that. I'm going to go to La Paz and fish. And I love it. Believe me, Michael, I, I, I, gave my parents numerous heart attacks. This is nothing I would wish on anyone else. My parents, imagine exactly what you said. You've got kids in college. Imagine your kid coming

home and going, I've got my law degree, I'm practicing, I'm working with a firm, and I think I'm going to quit that and I'm going to go fishing. That didn't go over very well. It makes perfect sense to me. It's hard enough making a living. I can't tell you, I mean, 25 years ago, I was in La Paz. The hotel I had originally gone down was a remote hotel, 10 miles down in Los Frale, south of Los Borales on the East Cape, and I worked there for almost a year, and I got fired. And so here I am.

I have no passport because my passport had been taken by the guy I worked for. I had no ID. I'm illegal in Mexico. Back 25 years ago, there were no cell phones. So I'm stuck in Mexico. So I'm an illegal alien and I have nothing. I don't speak Spanish very well. I have nowhere to go.

I jumped in my van. I ended up in La Paz with six bucks in my pocket and I started working the streets. And the only thing I knew how to do was sell fishing trips. So I basically built sort of a little lemonade stand out there on the Malicon. I stood there or I walked up and down the street. And that's how I made my living. Those first couple of years, the clients didn't know that I lived in my van. I looked for pesos under the car seat.

I could buy tacos at night. And then I'd make the breakfast and lunches in the morning. I take everybody out fishing. I'd fish all day. I guide all day. Drive them back to town. Then at night, I played taxi service. Okay, you want to go to this restaurant?

I'll pick you guys up at 6 o'clock, be back for you at 8, go back and get somebody else. I'm picking you guys up at 7. I'll come back for you at 9. And I did this for a full two or three years, living in my van. And then the next day, I just started and do the whole thing over again. So this is nothing I'd wish on any of my kids.

I was just very blessed and very fortunate. and that led to something. So let's get into that. Well, we got the Alhunter Empire. The one panga grew into two, grew into five. Now we're running almost 30 pangas, 30 captains. We had a bar and restaurant right on the Malikon, which another 16 employees. We have a tour company with another eight employees plus managers.

And then the COVID hit, and we lost our restaurant. After 12 years, our tailhunter restaurant on the Malicon, We had to permanently close that. But we still have our fishing business. I hope we do. We're hoping to get back. We're hoping to get started because basically we have not worked for nine months now. I've got captains.

I've got employees who are chomping at the bit and hoping something opens up real quickly. Yeah. So let's, this is going to live on the internet for, I hope, quite a while and life will get back to normal and people will get back to fishing. But we are recording on June 6th of 2020. So D-Day 2020, and for the folks who are listening to this on some other time, these are bizarre, bizarre times. You know, to think that you've ran the restaurant for that long, and then it can just evaporate because of a virus is truly shocking.

And my heart goes out to you and to all the families that you were supporting themselves through your business. You know, I feel for you. Well, we're going to pivot because, you know, nobody wants to hear sad stories. So let's put on a smile, Jonathan, and talk about what when we have non-essential travel, which is supposed to be coming in June 22nd or maybe a little bit thereafter. If somebody wants to book a trip with Tail Hunter, what can you do? can't you do? How do you start? What's your advice? Initially, call us, call us or email us.

My email is Jonathan J-O-N-A-T-H-H-A-N-T-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-N at tailhunter. Or call us at 626-6-3-38-3. And then we start a dialogue. The nice thing about what we do is we've had so much contact with folks. I've probably had 20 emails by the time you come down. By the time someone comes down, we're friends already. So it's just putting faces and names. And the nice thing about what we've done for so many years is we've got about an 85% return clientele. We're already in the third generations of some of our clients, and it's very, very gratifying. So when someone contact us, we contact us, we look at some dates, we see what they want to do because we customize all the trips. Maybe somebody only wants to stay for three days, four days, or four

nights, and they only want to fish one day. Maybe they're bringing a family, or this guy's bringing a bachelor party, or this guy wants to fish three days, but he wants to scuba dive for a day, where these people want to stay for 10 days and he doesn't want any telephones. He wants nobody to bother him. He wants to fish one day. He wants to eat at restaurants. He wants to read books and take naps. We customize the trips for everyone.

And then we just set it up and we go from there. So the answer is yes. Whatever you need, you've got it. You've got it dialed in. One call does it all. Pretty much. And the unique thing about it is unlike a lot of other vendors, I should say, or agents, we live there.

We see you as soon as you get off the, Our vans pick you up. We stop for some tacos and beer on the way. You stop at our bar and restaurant or at the hotel, and we meet you personally. We say hi, let you know what's going on. Here's where you're going to be. Here's where you need to be tomorrow. Here's what time you need to get up.

And then you get a list of places to eat. And we see everybody every single day. I personally pack your fish. When you get off of fishing in the afternoon, I'm the one who greets you. Jill sees you in the evenings. We had a restaurant. We're still going to have a small cafe and a bar, but our main restaurant will be closed.

So we see everyone in the afternoons, the evenings. I personally pack the fish. And then we start all over again, seven days a week. So you get personal service from us. So tell me a little bit about the brains of the organization. Tell me about Jill. She's the brains. You know, what they always say is hire and work with people who are smarter than you.

And I've been very, very fortunate to have a wonderful wife named Jill. And we met, gosh, 18 years ago. she had worked in the auto industry for many years. She was trying to book a trip for her bosses at the car dealership. There are three card dealerships, and she handled all of their bookings, all of their travel, all of their fishing. And she happened to call me and set things up. And her bosses came down.

And I said, you know, she's pretty nice gal there that called me and contacted me and set this all up. And they said, yeah, she's single and she loves to fish. Would you like to see a picture of her? And I go, well, sure. They pulled out a picture of Jill, and here's this beautiful red head, and she's holding a couple of yellow tail, and she's on a deck on a San Diego boat. And I went, oh, okay.

I didn't say much more. I didn't want to sound too anxious, but it turned out they were checking me out as well for her. They brought a scouting report back. And I happened to come back to the States a few weeks later, and I made a blind date. found out she liked football, fishing, and beer, and she had an accounting background. And she grew up fishing and hiking and camping. And so the blind date turned into a couple dates.

And those couple dates turned into an engagement three weeks, three months later, three years later. We got married three years after that in 2012 and 2008, excuse me. And now we're still together. And honestly, this doesn't run without her. She is a whiz at everything she does. Wow. Love it. This is what people did before E-Harmony. Yeah, blind dates. Blind dates. See if it works out. Do you like football? You like fishing? Let's get together. Yeah. Likes beer, no problem. Let's get together. And oh, you do accounting as well.

Perfect. Personal. Perfect. Perfect. Let's have a second date. You are perfect. Hey, you said he grew up in Hawaii and you fished to eat. And, you know, that's a heck of a lot better than my dad who grew up in Ohio and had to shoot stuff to eat or his dad shot stuff to eat. Tell me about going from sustenance fishing, fishing to eat because that's what was available, to fishing for pleasure and then fishing for work. Can you break that down for me and just tell me where fishing lives in your your life and in your heart?

Wow, that's a really good question, Michael. Growing up, fishing was for sustenance, as you said. We grew up when sushi, sashimi, and pokey were not gourmet. That was what you ate because you ate cold fish because we didn't have anything to cook it with. There was no propane to cook it with, and you put some soy sauce on it. You ate it with cold rice. Maybe you got some bologna, and that was dinner. And he ate rice three times a day.

and if you got a hold of some fish, you ate everything from the eyeballs to the gills, whatever was left over became soup, whatever you didn't cook, became sashimi or pokey or sushi the next day, and that's what we lived on. It wasn't terrible by any means. You don't know that it's bad. That was just good food back then. And then growing up, it becomes sport fishing where it's fun and you get your rod and you're reel and you jump on a boat or you head up to the mountains and it's now fun fishing. And then your passion for fishing becomes a business and the entire complexion changes. It is a, you've got to have a smile on your face and you've got to actually produce fish. A lot of people come up to me and go, well, how do you be a

guide? And I go, well, if you love what you do, imagine now turning that into a business because now you've got to go out every day. And not just for us, in our particular case, it's not just one guy, you've got to make sure he catches fish. I've got 30, 40, 50 people a day. And it's my job to make sure they not only catch fish, but they have fun doing it. And you've got kids and you've got wives and girlfriends, you've got first timers, and you've got so many different variables that you have to deal with. And you've got to do it with a smile, and you've got to enjoy that too. And so I have to admit that I don't fish as much.

In fact, last year, I think we had eight or 900 clients. We fished nine straight months every single day of the year with 20 to 50 people a day. I got out two times last year to fish. And that was because my grandson was with me. I brought him out. He was a two-year-olds. We got him out. But other than that, I did not get a chance to fish.

I did go scuba diving twice. And those were the only times I made it onto the water. Sounds glamorous until you get on the inside, doesn't it, Jonathan? As they say, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. But all that being said, Michael, I have to tell you, it is really a blessing. And despite the long out, and all of the variables that I mentioned that you have to deal with, with all of the personalities and all of the differences,

I have to tell you, there's nothing like seeing the smiles. And it really is all about smiles. The fishing to me and the scuba diving and the other activities are just a vehicle by which we get everyone down, and we have to remind ourselves that we are blessed to be part of these people's vacation. This is a moment in their time, a Kodak moment, that they're only going to get one time. It's the one time they're going to be,

it's their honeymoon, it's a birthday, it's a father taking his son out for the first time ever fishing, or it's a family taking their kid out because he's graduated. They could come a month later. It will never be the same as those moments they're down with us, and I've got thousands of pictures and handshakes and high fives that I'll treasure my whole life because we were part of those smiles that we helped create,

and we are indeed honored and blessed every single day. There's nothing wrong with seeing smiles every single day and knowing that we help create those. Yeah. And obviously, with the level of repeat business that you're getting, you're doing something right. And it sounds to me already that you're a person who's on top of the details and making sure and carefully caring that your clients, your customers are having that magnificent moment. Even if it kills you, they're going to have that magnificent moment and catch that fish. I had a magnificent moment quite hungover, I'll be honest with you, on the Dorado trip that we took out of Loretto back in 2012.

And again, flipping back to my experience in the San Francisco Bay of going out salmon fishing, I really didn't want to go fishing much after that. I mean, I enjoyed the time with my grandfather and I enjoyed the time with my dad. But the weather conditions, the water conditions, the having to throw up before you could do it, all that stuff was just sort of like, enough already. And I do love salmon. I mean, I'm not kidding.

I do love salmon. I was with a good buddy of mine. I think the fellow, our mutual friend, Ted Donovan, who was his birthday, and we were on a road trip. And we got down to Loretto and said, you know what? Let's go fishing. And I don't know what the magic of a Dorado is, but I said, I want to go out and catch a Dorado.

So we got out on a boat, five of us, I guess, Panga. and man, the captain, we were working and working and working and working and working and and not getting anywhere. And then I got into this beauty and fought it and fought it and fought it and fought it and fought it. And it was just, I hate to say it because it sounds cliche. Life changing. It was life changing. And that's what, I mean, that's what I want to make time to actively do it.

And then the best part of it is, you know, I got it to the boat and I thought, well, you know, I might give this beautiful fish back to the ocean. Without a word, the captain leans over and, you know, gaffs the thing and flips it into the boat. I guess we're going to eat that one. But, you know, the beauty then is to take that fish and take it to a restaurant. And again, we've got a group of five. And I'm sure like Tailhunter in many restaurants in La Paz, you come in with a fish, they're going to cook it five ways. Oh, yeah. All the tortillas, beans, rice, salad, everything, you know, for a pretty nominal fee, and you're gonna get a flippin feast. And I don't know if people understand how magnificent that is,

after you caught the dang thing, to then have somebody else just take it from there. Somebody, you know, unconnected to the boat or anything, you just bring the dang fish in and people are, yep, okay, we'll cook that five ways, okay, perfect. It's a wonderful thing. It is, it is. You touched on so many things, so many emotions

that we hear so often. I'm sitting here with a big smile listening to you because I've seen that, I've seen the light bulb go on, I've seen the eyeballs get big, I've seen the goosebumps pop out on people when they hook that fish, or thinking that I really, I'm not sure I really wanna be out here

and then they hook that fish for the first time or it's a kid or it's a dad or it's a mom or a girlfriend or whatever, and they've got this fish and like you said, releasing it is spectacular in and of its stuff and great thoughts have done that. As soon as you said that and your captain Gapted, I'm going,

I hope they ate it. I hope they ate it because I tell people. Oh, yeah, we ate it. We ate it. There is nothing better than fish that was swimming around that morning. And people don't understand that. They've eaten stuff that was at the market, it was frozen, it was defroster. It comes out of a can or they're eating it at, you know, red lobster or something like that.

Fish that was swimming around that morning that has never been frozen. It is spectacular. And you can cook it in the most simple way or just a few little seasonings. you add everything else. And like you said, it is an incredible, incredible feast. I'm glad you got a chance to experience that. And really, I'm not kidding. It was life-changing. It's been eating at me now. It's been eight years. And I just saw Ted this morning. We had breakfast together. And I just said, you know, hey, Fourth of July, let's get down and do some fishing, buddy. And he's like, oh, all right, all right. And normally, you know, sadly, normally we have kids and sports and

things like that that would keep us from jumping down at a moment's notice to do some fishing and La Paz, but I think we're going to head down there. Please do. Please do. Let me know when you guys are coming down. We'll hook you guys up. We'll get you on some fish and we'll cook some up for you. Don't tell anybody.

We're doing a big podcast here, man. People are going to hear you're hooking me up. Hey, so you've been headed to La Paz and to Baja for decades now. Obviously, you have business there, but outside of that, what keeps you coming back? What keeps you saying, you know what? Aha, I'm heading down. Earning a living? Got to pay bills?

Nobody's doing that anyway, buddy. Everybody's doing a podcast. Nobody's making a living. You got to just do it up. Same with fishing. You want to get rich. I would suggest not getting into fishing. If you want some intangibles,

if you want to make lifetime friends and a lifetime of memories, being outdoors and connecting with nature and anything related to nature, it is life-changing, and an incredible blessing. I keep coming down because I really enjoy the smiles, as I had mentioned before. Nothing is better than it.

You start at the beginning of the day. The sun's coming up. There's so much expectation. There's hope. And in myself, personally, I'm going, oh, please, please, I'm praying to all my fishing saints and everything. Make it a good day. Let the sun come up.

Let the fish be hungry. And at the end of the day, when they start coming out of the vans, they're unloading off the boats and I'm meeting them on the beach, or they're coming into my fish processing plant. How'd it go? And they've got the biggest smile. And they do not stop talking. And I've got four or five, six guys talking to me at the same time telling me what they caught this. And my buddy hooked up another one and it was swimming over here and it cut me off. But I hooked another one. And another one jumped over here and one hit me over here.

And I hooked up this other one. I fought for an hour. And they're all talking to the same time. And I cannot tell you how gratifying that is on a daily basis to get that kind of a feedback for what you're doing and for people to say, you know, they'll pull me aside and go, you know what, that was the best day I can remember. This was the honeymoon we never had. And thank you for putting this together. We are having such an incredible time. That's what keeps me coming back. That, that smile is just, it's priceless, Michael. Better than any day in a courtroom. Oh, gosh. A good day in the courtroom meant, I don't know what it meant, but let's reverse that. a bad day fishing was still not as good as good days.

A bad day fishing in Baja. Let's start there. Yeah. Oh, how can it be bad? I mean, the complaint, a bad day when I was a litigator, I lost a case. Depositions went bad. Evidence went the wrong way. Your client, you found out, we lied to you or something.

Or the judge just had a bad day, and now he took it out on you in the courtroom. A bad day in Mexico where we are meant instead of six fish, I only caught five. Instead of a tuna, I caught Dorado. I ran out of beer by noon because I didn't bring enough beer. Because they got for thirsty. You forgot those guys are so thirsty from their last year. I forgot my suntan lotion. I'm wearing my, I forgot my lucky shirt.

I won't catch any fish today. I forgot to pack my underwear. I mean, those are, those are the fun things, the little things we deal with. And those are to some people bad days and you've got to go, hey, Joe, Bob, Mary Jane, hang on a second. It's not that bad. It's just an inconvenience. It's not bad. Are you still having fun?

Well, yeah, I guess so. Would you rather be in traffic? No, would you rather be in your office? No, I go, that's what's called the Baja Blues. No matter how bad it is, let's say you don't catch any fish, but you're here with your family, you're here with your buddies. I want you to call me in three or four days when you're sitting in traffic. you're sitting near office and tell me that this was still not a better time and that you're not suffering what we call the Baja Blues or the B.B. Syndrome. You're going to wish you're going to be back here having a terrible time in Mexico or in Baja.

Yeah, it's post-traumatic Baja syndrome. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hey, so we're going to, I've got just a few more questions for you. You've been super generous already. Tell me about some of your favorites. I know you're invested deeply in La Paz, but do you have any other favorite spots? I hate to say secret spots, but there are any spots in Baja that you and Jill say, oh, you know, we love XYZ.

Do you have any secrets after 25 years down there? Your favorites, I should say. That's a good question. I love, if you're a diver and a fisherman, there's a spot I hate to tell anybody, because it's more and more popular. No, but everybody who is, most of your listeners have probably heard about it. They know about the East Cape and they know about Los Berlis.

And that's a very, very popular fishing spot. I love to fish that area. Excuse me. I got too excited there. Just to the south of that is a little place called Cabo Pool Mall. It is a marine reserve. And 25 years ago, that is where I started. I started a little hotel called Hotel Los Freilis.

I was the chef, kayak guy, a fishing guide, a dive master, and that's where I started. And they had just opened the Marine Park at that time, which is a reserve in front of Kabul Pomo, and it's one of only three living coral reefs in the entire eastern Pacific. It was just starting to get populated by fish. They're still chasing out a lot of poachers. They're still trying to establish themselves.

Well, 25 years later, you go back to those same spots, and I'm not sure if you're a scuba diver, but you go in those areas and now you jump in the water and you're 50 yards from shore and here comes a giant whale shark that's 30 or 40 feet long or you kneel on the bottom you've got 3,000 Jack Cravel swimming around you or a giant grouper, a hundred or 200-pound grouper comes right up next to you. It's not afraid of you and it's eyeballs are as big as your head and it just hangs out and it's checking you out and you're checking it out and you realize again what a special special place it is and that is to go back to college,

Kabul is a very big treat for us. And if anyone has a chance to go out there and scuba dive or snorkel, that's a great place to go. Other places? Oh, go ahead, Michael. No, I was just going to say that's a great tip. Ted and I were there in 2019 for the Paha Exile rally. And sadly, doing some of these off-roading events, you know, you just don't have enough time to get out and snorkel or scuba or anything. I'm not a licensed scuba diver, although I'd love to be. And we were in Kabul Polo, and I said, man, we need to get in the water. So I got to swim in, but, you know, with a mask and a snorkel, but nothing more advanced than that. And so need to get back to Kabul. That's a great, that's a great tip.

Go ahead. When you come to La Paz, we'll put some tanks on you, and we'll get you out. We'll do what we call an intro to scuba. We'll take you out maybe to the sea lions, or we've got whale sharks right in the bay in about 10 feet of water. Imagine a 20 or 30 foot baby whale shark, and it's the size of a school bus, and you're in the water with this magnificent creature. And it is one of those, you know, as you mentioned, one of those life-changing moments. We'll get some tanks on you and go see the sea life. As you mentioned, I grew up in Hawaii.

Scuba diving or snorkeling in Mexico far, far, far surpasses the sea life that you'll see underwater in Hawaii. It's an incredible place to be. Jacques, still call it the aquarium of the world. There's over 700 known species of fish in the Sea of Cortez, and they're discovering new species every single year. That's amazing. Hey, how about a place that you always wanted to check out? Is there a spot in Baja that you've been, you know, you've been heading down there for a couple of decades now?

Is there a spot that just eats at you? You want to go see it, but you're too busy? Gosh, yes, so many good questions. Where would I love to go check out? I would love to go and check out some of the areas along the Pacific. We just started running trips to Bahia Magdalena. If you're familiar with that Bay, it's hundreds of square miles.

There are parts of it that have yet to be explored. Fishing offshore there, there is an incredible variety of species, Wahoo, tuna, Marlon, Grupper, but inshore along these mangroves, if you imagine the jungle ride at Disneyland, what that's like. That is what it's like to fish in Lopez-Meteos or San Carlos or some of those areas along Bahia Magdalena. It's the place where everyone goes to see the whales during whale season. These shallow bays and these little estuaries, there are people who have gone on there. into those mangroves and never come out. It's the tides change all the time, the currents change all

the time, the shoals change, but you get in there and using shallow, shallow water or a rigs and fishing shallow with light tackle. What caught a thing seemed to 20 different species in one day. Wow. That was just in one spot for just a few hours. And there are places in this bay where no one has ever fished, no one's ever set foot on. I've gone clamming in there and gotten hundreds of clams in an hour. There's shrimp in there. It's just an incredible ecosystem, and I'd love to explore that more. Yeah, they say that that area, Lopez-Metheia Magdalena, that's some old, old-school Baja just has not, luckily, has not found any development.

And, you know, I think the fishermen that are work in that area are mainly fly fishermen, if I'm not mistaken. People who, the locals are all fishermen. The folks who go out there, I'd say, yeah, it is a very nice mecca for fly fishermen, but it doesn't have to be. A lot of fly fishermen do like the area, but it doesn't get a lot of traffic. It's hard to get to. Just get for us to take people from La Paz.

It's a four-hour drive through the desert, and it looks like the surface of the moon. It is boring as heck. And then when you get there, it's dark. It's small little streets, a little tiny town that we put our folks in. There's nothing going on. If you don't get dinner by six o'clock, everything shuts down. But you're back in old, old Mexico, and it's an incredible experience. You see all kinds of wildlife there.

And I would just love to spend more time out there. And I hope it still stays down the end of a dirt road. We need to preserve these places that are still down the quote unquote end of the dirt road. Because once they pave those roads, you and I both know that it changes the complexion completely. The economics change, the people change. Development comes in. and we need to keep some of these areas that are still down to the end of the dirt road. As Mama Espinoza said, bad roads, good people.

Mama Espinoza was a classic, wasn't she? Hello, friends of the podcast, please don't touch your dials. Wanted to inform you that Michael experienced some technical difficulties while recording Jonathan's interview. It's still compelling, just a little harder to hear. And rest assured, I have punished Michael appropriately, and it won't happen again. Hey, last couple of questions here for you, Jonathan. favorite fish to fish for. Tuna.

Tuna. Yep. Is it yellow tail? Is that what? Yellowfin? Yellowfin tuna. Excuse me. Yellowfin?

Yeah. Any member of the tuna family? I mean, that didn't take me long at all to answer. You answered it instantly, and I'm very curious now. I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm leaning into my computer. What makes tuna so exciting? I've probably caught 30 or 40 different species of fish,

but none breaks my arms and breaks my heart like a tuna. It's a very different fish. It doesn't have a swim bladder, so it's capable of speeds of 30, 40, 50 miles an hour in surges. It comes up from the deep. It takes you, and I've seen it break strong men. I fought tuna for six hours, and the tuna still got the best of me. Let me put it this way. Michael, I can put you on a 120-pound marlin, and I'd say even without any experience, you'd probably put it in the boat in about half an hour for 120-pound marlin. That's not unusual.

That's a good fight and catch and release. 120-pound tuna, Michael, is three to four hours on that same tackle. That's how strong they are. I've had guys who are world athletes hook on to a 50 or 60-pound tuna and an hour to end it, they're seeing spots. I've got to take the reel and rot away from them, give them water. They're ready to pass out.

and I've seen guys, I used to work on the tuna boats out of San Diego. I used to be a deck hand out there, and I used to work on the long-range boats. And there was nothing fiercer than cooking 100 to 300-pound fish that in its first run takes 500 yards of line. So basically they're the badass freight trains of the fishing world. Absolutely, yeah. It will outfight a marlin. It will out-fight. You name any fish. I'm sorry, pound for pound. And it's very arguable. I'm sure you're going to get. get some debate on that. But for me, there's nothing like hooking a tuna. It rips you.

People come up and they go, so how do I know when I'm getting bit by a tuna? Will they nibble? I go, these don't nibble. It's going to yank you out of your socks. It's going to yank you out of your seat. You better hold on because this thing is not going to stop. It will tow the punga. I've had to tow sport fishers that I've been on. These are massive fish. It's a giant muscle. That's all it is, a giant muscle with fins that's built like a torpedo. go and off they go. Now there are fish that are faster. The Wahoo are capable of 70 mile an hour bursts. Marlon will jump all over the place, but none of those fish will last two, three, four hours, pound for pound. Sounds like Joe Frazier, the Joe Frazier of fish. How old do we

have to be to remember Joe Frazier? I remember him well. Yay. Okay, so we got favorite fish to fish for favorite fish to eat. What's your favorite fish to eat if you're going to eat fish, Amigo? Oh my gosh. Well, one of the nice things about tuna is you get sashimi, you get pokey, you get sushi out of it, and then of course you can grill it, barbecue it. I like all kinds of fish. Maybe the ones I, where we are, we probably catch 25 different edible species of fish. And there are a couple that I are kind of low on the list. Instead of being nines or tens, I give them about a five or six. One would be probably, I'm not real fond of mackerel. It's oily and dark. Some of the common Pacific Benita is also oily and dark.

Jack, Creval, and some of those, oily and dark. I like white fish. I like meat that's white or pink or red, but not dark black. So that includes eating Dorado, Wahoo, Billfish, tuna, any of the snapper, any of the grouper, any of the sea bass are all delicious fish and all can be prepared. So many different ways that you could, I don't know, we probably did 20 different ways in our restaurant alone, and that doesn't even scratch the surface of some of the ways we can cook these fish. Hey, last question for you.

Advice for first-timers. If somebody's coming down to Baja, whether they're going to fly down and see you right at the airport or drive down, what would you say to somebody to kind of decode the concerns about driving south of the border

or flying down to Mexico to go fishing? There's a lot of information on the web right now. It wasn't so readily available when I first started coming down 25, 30 years ago. Back in those days, it was a two-lane road, and you literally brought extra gas, you brought extra enough to build up a whole new motor with you. You brought shovels, and you brought toilet paper, you brought ropes.

You brought everything to repair your engine. You brought an extra axle one time, an extra tires and wheels. Now it's a really, really pleasant drive. If you're going to drive down, right now you can't, because the border is close to driving until June 22nd because of COVID. But it is a wonderful drive. Take your time to get from the border to Kabul-San-Luca site to give yourself four nice days. Drive for six hours, spend a nice evening somewhere, drive another four, six, eight hours, spend another evening.

The roads are beautiful for the most part. A lot of it is four-lane highway now. There are gas stations along most of the way, and there's also what they call the Green Angels, which is government help vehicle that drives up and down. They've got telephones, water, gas, cables, and things like that, just specifically to help tourists. Also, a big change that's come along is the police have been schooled in how to treat tourists. They realize that it's a very important resource for the economy of Mexico and goodwill to treat tourists nicely. So they've been schooled and trained on how to be nicer police officers to tourists coming down.

So if you're going to drive, check the Internet. Talk to people who've done it before. Talk to people who live down there. If you're going to fly or you're thinking of booking with somebody, try to find somebody. It's very easy for somebody to grab a panga and say, or a sport boat in now, say, I'm a fishing guide, or we've got a charter operation.

Go with somebody who's been around for a while. It is not easy to have a business in Mexico. It's got to be one of the hardest things to do. If you can have a Harvard business degree and it's not going to work in Mexico, find somebody who's been around for a while, it's very easy to check their ratings on Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, all of the other message boards, and then get in touch with them. I mean, just because somebody's good, you might not get along with them.

Remember that you're going to be dealing with them, and it is a good idea to find somebody that you're going to be dealing with personally. If you're dealing with the agent, you're never going to hear from them again after you give them your money. That's something I throw a red flag. Not that it's bad, but I like to know who I'm dealing with. So find somebody you're going to be comfortable with, somebody who answers the questions the way you want them to. And go from there. Find yourself with information, information's power.

If people aren't going with you and Tail Hunter sport fishing in La Paz, they're missing it, buddy. So I really want to say thanks to you for spending some time with us. Let's say that again. I really want to say thanks to you for spending some time with Slow Baja and talking about Tail Hunter and fishing in La Paz and your passion for La Paz. And where can people find you? Where's the best place? What's your web address? I'll have it in the notes, of course, but blast it out for me.

Well, Michael, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. I can keep talking to you, and I'm sorry it took so long for us to get together, but it's really been a pleasure. If anyone wants to check us out, they can look up www.com. www.com. That's all one word.com. Or they can email Jonathan, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N at Tailhunter.com. Well, I can attest after 25 or 30 or 48 emails to get this interview scheduled. Jonathan is quite attentive to his emails and to his business. He does not let a thing slip through the crack, so I am delighted that we got this chance to talk. And the next time we'll be podcasting. We'll be live from Apanga in La Paz with a fish on, I hope.

Perfect. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to having you and hopefully Ted down. Let us know, and it'll be our pleasure to have you down, Michael. Hey, I really, again, want to thank you so much for taking the time today. Jonathan, it's been a pleasure. And we'll be a pleasure. We look forward to pleasure travel and getting back to life as we used to know it, where people used to be able to just drink a beer, go out fishing, and have their Dorado five ways with a couple of margaritas after they've had a successful catch. So can't wait for that to happen and looking forward to doing that later in the summer. You got it, Michael. Thank you so much for having me. It's really been a pleasure.

Thank you so much. Okay, Miguel. I'll talk to you soon. God bless. Well, that was fun. Talking to Jonathan Rolden, a tail hunter sport fishing in La Paz. If you want to book them, you'll see the address and the show notes. So click on and tell them Slow Baja sent you.

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