Castigo Expedition: Mag Bay

Story and Photos by Kevin Voegtlin

Most fishing stories start with something like this: The thermostat rose, triple digits creeping in, the midday sun beating down until it was almost unbearable. Or it was cold, the type of biting cold that made it hard to wrap your fingers around the reel. Maybe the wind picked up and the seas grew mean, the boat pitching constantly. Or, it could be that the fishing was hard. We hadn’t been bit in a day, but we knew (fill in your desired species here) were around. You get the point, adversity + grit + success = a good story.

But here’s the thing. Fishing Bahía Magdalena in mid November on board the Castigo is none of that. We couldn’t dramatize it if we wanted. The air? Mid 70’s. Wind? If there was any you weren’t feeling the effects of it on the 80 ft Castigo. And the fishing? Have you ever decided to switch tactics because you already caught enough marlin pitching baits to them?  I mean, we watched the Rams take down the Seahawks live while chasing bird piles. The trip was lux. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still tell a great fishing story.

First, for you gearheads, a little back story on the boat. She deserves it. The Castigo is a pilothouse sportfisher built in 1983 by Jones Goodell, originally designed for long-range charter trips. She features a fiberglass hull with mahogany superstructure, four staterooms and three heads, and carries 4000 gallons of fuel and 700 gallons of water. To put it simply, she was built to get you just about anywhere you want to go.

In 2000 the Castigo was purchased, and is still owned, by Larry Jacinto who spent 3 years completely refitting her. Larry recently won the award for Most Beautiful Truck at the O’Reilly Auto Parts Grand National Truck Show, so it should come as no surprise that his love for classics and attention to detail would carry over to his boat. The Castigo features a custom-fabricated engine room with polished fasteners, stainless exhaust, faired bilges, a polished stainless fuel manifold, and polished engine blocks for smooth paint. Stepping into the engine room feels like you’ve stepped inside a hotrod. The boat went through another complete refit from 2021-2023, and still runs her original main engines and generators. Almost as impressive as the boat herself, are the places she’s fished: Alijos Rocks, Mag Bay, Revillagigedos Islands, the Clipperton Atoll, and Galapagos Islands, with two Panama Canal transits as well. In other words, if there’s somewhere you want to fish, there’s a good chance the Castigo is getting you there. Comfortably at that.

Our crew landed at the Los Cabos International Airport around midday. Maybe it was sooner, but in account for the soon to be mentioned beers, midday feels right. The air was a pleasant eighty-something. The hills glowed green from an unseasonably wet fall. Lukewarm beers in the back seat of a suburban never tasted so good. We made our way to the marina, and eventually the Castigo. Our crew was hoping on board this trip as guests of the boat’s owner, Larry Jacinto, and a couple of his longtime fishing buddies. Two weeks prior, they had delivered the boat to cabo, fishing their way down from Dana Point, with Captain Adam Cargill, Grant Morgan working as mate, and Jeremiah in the galley. After nearly filling the freezer, Larry and friends flew home for a week, and would be back in the morning to kick off our trip.

From left to right: Grant, Jeremiah, Stu, Cpt. Adam, Larry (owner), Ralph, Brando

Picture perfect in November.

The run north was slow, 80ft boats don’t move fast. But there's an argument to be made that things aren’t meant to move fast in Baja, especially once outside the bustle of Cabo. If you’ve ever spent more than a day or two living on board a boat, you know that the pace of things starts to slow down in a great way. You’re exactly where you need to be at all times, and unless you’re the captain or the owner, there’s just not much you can do about it anyway.

We ran through the night and arrived in Mag Bay sometime late morning. At this point the exact time didn’t matter, watches and phones ought to be stowed below deck with the luggage, or chucked overboard within the first hour of running. You get up with the sun and try to go to sleep soon after it goes down. Your most accurate gauge of time may as well be the type of beverage you’re drinking at that moment. Seeing that the bait bought in cabo was already upside, we were in a bit of a pinch and spent the day making bait. If that sounds like an arduous task, a part of the trip you’d pay to have taken care of for you, you haven’t spent an afternoon watching the warm sun sink below the green hills at the tip of the bay, hanging out with new friends, talking fish stories, and filling sabiki rig’s with macs. It’s not marlin, but it's still fishing. 

Making bait, with zero complaints.

With bait tanks full we headed further north and off shore and ran for most of the night. The boys had gotten into a solid wahoo bite on the way down and we needed to scratch that itch, stripers could wait. It paid off. We put multiple big wahoo on the deck throughout the day and ensured good eats for the remainder of the trip. 

Overnight we slid back down south into the marlin grounds. When you think of fishing Mag Bay, this is what most people imagine. Bird piles off shore diving on dense schools of bait, surrounded by an almost unbelievable number of striped marlin and sea lions in gin clear water. It’s pages of Nat Geo playing out in front of you. We started out pitching live bait on schooling fish from the bow, and found success in no time. Three, four, five fish on at once – airborne theatrics in full display – the type of fishing that has even the most seasoned angler laughing giddily. The day continued on like that, with more than 30 fish brought to the boat and enough hooked that we stopped keeping track. 

Good days of fishing are marked by losing count of how many fish were caught.

Larry is not the type of boat owner that just hops on board for a ride, drops a line when his captain tells him, and goes home with a photo to brag about. He knows how to fish. He knows his boat. And he deeply loves both. He also knows exactly how he likes to fish, more specifically here, Larry likes teasing in striped marlin. On our second day of marlin fishing it didn’t take long to see why. Watching a fish rise on a teaser, follow it tight to the corner, and then take a bait you dropped back has to be one of the most fun things in fishing you can do. Things picked right back up where the previous day left off, multiple hook ups, fish sky rocketing out of the water, and nothing but fun had by all. By day’s end we were spent, and ready to move along. 

Tease it in, drop a bait, enjoy the show. Larry, exactly where he loves to be.

Morning found us anchored on a bank well south of where we had been. We flirted with the idea of fishing here on the way up, as rumors of big tuna had been swirling about, but our bait situation didn’t play into that equation. But now, with bait tanks and freezers full and more marlin caught in two days than we could count, we were ready. Tuna fishing on these banks is a different game. You drop anchor, start a chum line and wait. Now that might seem boring, and it would be, if there weren’t two solid ways to pass the time as you sip your morning “coffee.” First up: keeping the horde of seabirds from stealing your chum as it hits the water. You can keep things cordial with a few blasts of hose water every few minutes, or if you’re feeling sporty, hop on the swim step and keep them at bay with threats from the blunt end of a gaff. If you’re looking for something more traditional, grab a jig stick and go deep for grouper. The bite was on, and we pulled up a handful of well sized specimens. 

Then, the first tuna bit. And shortly after the second. It was game on. Both fish took the boys for a few laps around the boat before showing colour. We knew from the get go that they were solid fish, but once on board we were treated with two yellowfin coming in right around the 200-pound mark. If you were trying to write an ending to a fishing story, I don’t think you’d beat those two fish.

Pelagic’s DJ Jovanovic adding prime table fare to the freezer.

The next morning we fished our way back to cabo, picking up another striped marlin on the troll not too far outside the harbour. We wouldn’t fly out until the following afternoon and spent the ensuing downtime anchored offshore, fishing off the back of the boat and jumping in for swims when that November sun would get just a bit too warm. The pulse of Cabo San Lucas drifted over the water as we retold fish stories from the week and marveled at just how good we had it, sipping an afternoon-ish beer and soaking in every minute of escape on board the Castigo. 

Cabo, often best viewed from the safety of an anchorage just far enough out to make you second guess the swim in.

In Loving Memory

Ralph J. Laird 1958-2026

A passionate angler, loyal friend, and part of the family that makes these adventures possible. Ralph shared many days on the water with Larry and the crew, chasing the same horizon we still run toward today. This expedition to Magdalena Bay is dedicated to him.