“There’s thousands of birds. So many we usually limit out by noon.”
“I can’t stand cold weather,” I countered. “You know that.”
“It’s warm. Lows in the fifties. Afternoon it’s up to the mid seventies. Sometimes eighties.”
I paused for a moment, then remembered that Mark had lied to me before.
Many times before.
“I don’t know. I …”
“The place used to be called the Bay of 11,000 Virgins.”
“Go on.”
“The lodge where we’ll be staying, Grizzly Adams used to stay there. A lot.”
“Dan Haggerty Grizzly Adams?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I’m there.”
Although I’ve been an outdoor writer for going on two decades, this would be my first ever waterfowl hunt. My aversion to the cold, being wet and cold, and getting up early only to become wet and cold has kept me from the sport in the past. Knowing this, my friend Mark Buchanan of Big Bore Productions took it upon himself to somehow bring me into the fold of waterfowl hunters. This hunt for black brant in San Quintin, Baja California, Mexico would be my introduction.
The seductive moniker of Bahia de las 11,000 Virgenes - The Bay of 11,000 Virgins - was given in honor of Saint Ursula by Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. In 1602, Spaniard Sebastian Vizcaíno renamed the bay San Quintín in honor of Saint-Quentin whose feast day fell on the date of discovery. Although I was offered no proof that the former name was accurate (I encountered less than forty people on my visit and all of them male) I prefer it over the current one. I just like the way it rolls off my tongue.
...
My sojourn to the bay began when I was met at the San Diego Airport by Mark and the other hunters accompanying us (get ready for blatant namedropping and corporate mention), Mike Cassidy of ESPN Outdoors and Richard Sanders of Russell Moccasins. From there we drove into Mexico and along the Transpeninsular Highway to the quiet fishing village of San Quintin. There, we were met at the Old Mill Hotel by Baja Hunting owner operator Arturo Malo. When we registered I learned that, alas, Grizzly Adams was not there.
The bay itself is reasonably small, about 50 square miles, but perfectly suited for black brant. Shallow waters blanketed with dense beds of eel grass stand protected from harsh winds by surrounding ancient volcanic cones. In addition to eel grass, the waters are teeming with fish such as cod, mackerel, grouper, dorado, and giant black bass. Gray whales, porpoises, and seals, which are locally known as sea wolves or lobos for their affinity to steal hooked fish, also call the bay home.
The hunt began the next morning with a bang on the door at 5:00 a.m. and the offering of fresh fruit and coffee. By 5:30 we were divided into Panga boats for the short jaunt across the bay to our blinds. Mark, his two year old Lab Carson – as in “No Carson!” “Hurry up Carson!” and “Get the hell over here Carson!” – and I were to hunt blind number one, while Richard, Mike, Arturo, and Arturo’s Lab Chavo would hunt blind number two. The blinds themselves were actually nothing more than on the spot constructed screens of short poles and camo netting or cut vegetation. Despite their lack of aesthetics, they worked flawlessly because less than ten minutes after the decoys had been placed and the boat left the birds started flying.
The first to appear was a lone brant...
that flew in straight and hard. As this was my first goose hunt, I looked to Mark for instruction. His scream of, “Shoot it!”got me off to a great, albeit, shaky start. Somehow my first shot was true and the bird spiraled downward and into the retreating tide. After much coaxing, yelling, and prodding Carson retrieved the bird.
“Your first goose on your first shot!” Mark yelled excitedly. “You think you can get another nine more?”
I pulled my facemask back up with a nod and a smile, offered a resounding “hell yeah,” and hunkered down behind the screen. Within minutes the sky was alive with knots of brant, their coal-black heads and necks glistening like wet ebony. They circled the decoys in groups as small as two and three to as large as twenty in number. In the distance were even larger chevrons of brant, portions of the sky black with their movement. Not only were the brant moving but so were pelicans, gulls, curlew and other assorted shore birds. Widgeons, teal, and pintail, all seemingly aware that they were a legal species thus keeping their distance, also darted through the bright sky. In less than two and a half hours, Mark and I had taken more than half our limit and missed at least that many (well, maybe that was just me that missed). During the melee Mark had even managed to take a banded bird from Alaska.
Around 9:30 the boat unexpectedly returned. Despite our success, our guide Sergio thought it best we move given that it was almost low tide. He and his assistant loaded the decoys and our birds and moved us to a blind constructed of palmetto leaves known as tules de viejo molino: bulrush at Old Mill. This blind proved even better than the previous. Strings of brant numbering ten, fifteen, twenty birds in number exploded in and among the decoys. The birds kept coming despite Carson’s thrashing in the water or Mark or I standing to shoot. This storm of geese was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was during this hour and a half swarm that I shot my first triple, two birds of which were banded. Though I was excited about the bands it wasn’t until Sergio picked us up...
that I learned how rare one of them was.
“You get red!” Sergio shouted in broken-English disbelief. “Russia! I not to see in eight year!”
“So I did good?” I jokingly asked.
“For the band? Yes,” Sergio replied. “Not too good to shoot though. Arturo. Others finish 9:30.”
“They see more birds?” I asked, not really believing that they could.
“They shoot brant more good!” Sergio laughed.
That night he and the rest of the guides grilled brant, freshly caught fish, and dozens of oysters from an oyster farm at the other end of the bay. We binged ourselves on food and drink before retiring to the bayside dock for cigars and talk of the day’s hunt. And judging by some of Mike’s and Richard’s stories, they did “shoot brant more good.”
Morning found the next day foggy and at least ten degrees colder than it had been the day before. I put on every stitch of clothing I owned and headed out to brave the lower 50’s temperature (I told you I hate cold weather). The blind assignment was reversed for our second day of hunting with Mark, Carson, and I taking blind number two. In addition to the blind change and different weather conditions we would also face a different tide, as it would be high tide less than an hour after we situated ourselves. From what I could tell, the only effect this had on the hunting was a positive one.
The birds that morning were two to three fold in number from the previous day’s. Plumps of brant swarmed in from all directions toward our spread of decoys. There were so many brant that I could relax and take my time with almost every shot; a luxury on any bird hunt. In addition to birds the bay before us came alive with a small pod of...
gray whales, the sound of their thundering blowholes sending Carson into full blown confusion.
“I hope he doesn’t think that’s a bird hitting the water,” Mark worried aloud. “That’s the last thing I need. Carson trying to retrieve a whale.”
Fortunately Carson never went after a whale. Either he knew it wasn’t a brant or he was too chicken to try to take on a whale.
By 9:30 our black brant hunt had come to an end. Mark and I had limited out with ten birds a piece. Back at the hotel we learned that, again, our three friends had gotten their limit long before we had. Whether the reason was their superior shooting or the fact that they saw more birds I’m not sure. I am sure that my first waterfowl hunt won’t be my last. I had a great time, it wasn’t too cold, and the birds more plentiful than pigeons in a park.
Now if I could just match my return trip to The Bay of 11,000 Virgins to coincide with Grizzly Adam’s fishing trip…
Visit Baja Hunting at www.bajahunting.com
Visit the author at www.gaynecyoung.com