The Great True Sailfish Adventure

The True brothers were long overdue for a great fishing adventure together. On May 1st 2019, they got a little more than they bargained for with a trip that left all three of us stranded on the Pacific Ocean with a language barrier & no land in sight! Scroll down to the bottom of the blog to get right to the video or keep reading to find out more more about these brothers & this great adventure.

James & Pat True both love to fish - a pastime they learned & shared with their dad Jim True. The boys’ adventures together began in Alaska where James (aka JJ) was born in Ketchikan in 1968, when Pat was four years old. They lived there a couple of years before moving to Anchorage & then on to Fairbanks for a couple of more years.

In Alaska the mosquitos can be ruthless & Pat recalls one time when he was being swarmed & practically carried away by the bugs, as he walked through the Alaskan bush to go fishing with his family. In anger & frustration he threw his jar of Pautkze fish egg bait at the swarm. This ineffective tantrum was so hilarious to Jim True that it became one of his favorite stories to tell, much to his oldest son’s chagrin.

It was in Fairbanks though, where the biggest story unfolded, when Pat was about ten years old & JJ was six. According to Pat, their dad grabbed the poles & loaded the family into the Winnebago to go creek fishing. Pat explained, “JJ kept getting his line snagged & dad ordered me to help my brother. So I got his line loose & as I was reeling it in I caught the 18” Grayling… it was almost a state record! Of course JJ argued that the line had never been snagged & that the fish was on - so he caught it! Dad said we both caught it & made us both hold it for the picture.” This debate can still be sparked 45 years later!

The True Family left Alaska about when the boys were twelve & eight to move to Washington State. They lived in Kennewick, then Moses Lake then settled in Stratford for a while. There are many fun fishing stories from those years the True brothers can share with you. They spent time in Stratford with their cousin Vance True where the three of them would catch carp & perch just to pass time. One of their favorite adventures would then be laying the fish out on the highway to see them demolished by trucks… fun for young adolescent boys in the middle of nowhere!

While living in Central Washington, every spring their father took the family fishing at Park Lake where they would bank fish for trout. Their older sister Cari didn’t throw in a line but would hang out & clean the fish. She would later tease them, “I liked cleaning the fish because I just pretended they were my brothers!” Their relationship as kids was typical of siblings with disagreements, wisecracks & a few scuffles but they all weathered the storm of youth to be close friends as adults.

The brothers had both become adults when their parents moved back to Alaska in the late 80’s. It was about 1991 when Pat & JJ took a week’s vacation to go visit them in Anchorage. While there, they drove to Homer with Jim & his buddy Bob to go halibut fishing for a couple of days. They all caught their limits with fish averaging about 40#’s each & made lifetime memories of this incredible adventure they shared.

It was about 2011 when the boys were able to share a few lake fishing trips with their dad who was living in Ritzville WA at the time. Pat remembers the three of them on Badger Lake, both JJ & Jim with a string of keepers but Pat just kept throwing his dinky ones back. “I finally caught the one I could keep & I had to lay it side by side next to my dad’s to convince him mine was bigger” said Pat with a chuckle.

In January of 2014 Jim True was diagnosed with lung cancer. Later that summer Jim & his wife Maxine moved in with us in Western WA. JJ took him out fishing a couple of times & soaked in all the stories his dad would tell. These stories of adventures hunting & fishing, course through the veins of the True brothers. Is it any wonder that they were excited to plan a bucket list fishing adventure together while vacationing at the well known fishing village of Zihuatanejo Mexico?

The very first thing our resort host told us, as we checked in at the Park Royal Ixtapa was to NOT book any adventures from locals working the beach. So…. the very first night in all our excitement of being on vacation & multiple shots of tequila, we gave half down (200 US dollars) to a guy hustling the bar we sat at, closest to the beach!

Big Ben gave us his card & told the four of us he’d pick us up Wednesday morning to take us to our charter boat with beer, water & food for the day’s adventure. Our 4th companion was my Uncle’s friend Sharon who let Big Ben know she was interested in catching a trophy sailfish to take home & put on her wall. I myself didn’t plan to fish, I just wanted to video these two brothers & try to capture their adventure for them.

On Wednesday morning I texted Sharon to let her know we were headed to the lobby. We waited 15 minutes for a response but knowing she’d had too much fun the night before, we moved onward with our adventure without her.

Big Ben showed up in a taxi half awake & not nearly the friendly, outgoing talker he had been Friday night at the bar. We paid him the remaining 200 US dollars & the three of us squeezed into the back seat as he guided the taxi driver to our destination. It was a 15 minute drive from Ixtapa to the marina in Zihuatanejo & even though it was very early we were all wide awake.

The taxi stopped on a dark back street, Big Ben said something to the driver we didn’t understand & he got out. We all looked at each other then threw open the doors & jumped out too. We then noticed a few locals had set up some vending tables. Big Ben mentioned we could buy some snacks & water so we all bought one water each, looking more forward to beer later in the day on the boat.

We then followed him down to the docks to a 30’ boat where he told us to get in & where a deckhand was untying lines. I saw Big Ben hand over some pesos to the captain & explain in Spanish what we paid for. The captain then jumped off the dock & into the boat where we had grabbed our seats, went up to his captain chair on the upper deck & started the motor. We moved away from the dock at which point we understood Big Ben wasn’t coming with us as our guide. He waved & yelled as we pulled away, “You will need to get a taxi on your own to get back!” & he walked away with a pocket full of money.

We looked at each other in silence, then shrugged & laughed it off. I’m sure at that moment we were all wondering what we had done. It was the first time we had considered the risk of any scam going on… probably because it was our first sober day of vacation! We felt safe enough & our new guides had really professional shirts on advertising their TROPHY SAILFISH MOUNTING business. We smiled at them, asked a couple of questions but discovered only the Captain could speak some limited english… about as much as my limited Spanish so we were all a little in the dark communication wise.

It was completely dark out on the water. We slowly maneuvered through the marina & headed out to the great Pacific Ocean. The lights of Zihuatanejo eventually faded until they were no longer visible - after about an hour of our slow, steady & one geared pace. Then the sky started to glow & for the next hour we witnessed the creation of a new day… it was amazing!

As soon as there was enough light to see, the deckhand went right to work. He cut & prepared bait, then he would get a line set up with a lure, sinkers & hook. JJ & Pat had seats at the back of the boat & he worked right around them. Each had a pole on the corner but then the boat had two more lines extended on each side creating a total of six lines in the water. We fished like this for hours, trolling out on the water with no land in sight. The deckhand worked the whole time, reeling lines in, switching lures & changing bait.

The morning went by quickly in spite of not catching anything. I was overjoyed to see dolphins off in the distance & the captain had noticed my interest because he suddenly yelled at me, “Amiga! Amiga!” pointing across the water. I wasn’t videoing but I will never forget seeing multiple bottlenose dolphins jumping straight out of the water, over 15 feet high into the air! It literally took my breath away. It seemed to me that we started following them, maybe they were a clue to where the fish were at, or maybe just a nice gesture of the captain. It was in fact, by far, my own personal favorite part of my entire vacation when at one point they were swimming along with us beside the boat. I DID get video footage of that so I hope it takes your breath away as it did mine!

The beautiful colors of the sun rise began to burn off along with our adrenaline, & after a few hours of fishing with no luck, I’m sure all three of us had dozed off a little. Suddenly a line went off & a fish was on! The deckhand jumped for the pole to confirm, then handed it o JJ. In the video watch the ocean horizon & you will see the sailfish jumping out of the water - it was incredible! We were all wide awake now as JJ tried reeling it in… but it was an old reel, JJ points out, “You can see me in the video looking down at the reel & trying to get it to work. It seemed like the gears were stripped out because I couldn’t get it to reel in!”.

Then surprisingly, another line went off & another sailfish was on! The deckhand was in control of everything, reeling in other lines while assisting the True brothers. He handed Pat the next pole & both brothers were in charge of bringing one home. At this moment we all saw the most incredible thing… the two fish both jumped out of the water crossing paths in mid air! FYI - these fish were each over six feet long!

Right after the fish jumped, crossing the lines, our captain rushed in & took JJ’s pole to give to Pat & then gave Pat’s back to JJ. I refer to this as the fish switch on the video. Now Pat had the old reel & a long haul ahead of him. JJ proceeded to reel his new fish right in taking about six minutes to get it the boat. I was shocked to see the captain grab a baseball bat & wack the fish before bringing it on board but I was more shocked to see the long sword like nose of the fish! It could do some damage if flailing around on board with us!

For the next 12 minutes, we encouraged Pat along as he reeled in his fish. It was funny to watch the two boat crew each try to tell Pat how to fish when he was perfectly competent. It was just a tough fish & an old reel! He finally landed it, they wacked it & brought it on board. The True brothers were estactic!

Would have been a great time to crack a beer to celebrate & replenish our strength with some snacks however, we had nothing on board that Big Ben promised. Nothing, nada, zero… just the one bottled water we had each bought that morning. Oh well, we would be back to mainland by 11am so we could just grab some lunch & “cervezas” then. We were all too happy to care at the moment.

JJ switched me seats so I could soak up some sun on the back of the boat. While sitting there next to Pat, he offered me his ball cap to keep the sun out of my eyes. As I put it on he told me the cap, that said “Just Fish” on it, had been his dad’s fishing cap. He choked up a little as he then confessed to me & his brother, “I really felt that dad was here with us today, brought his hat so that he would be.” We had a special moment of silence in memory of Jim True.

“I really felt that dad was here with us today”

— Pat True

It was shortly thereafter the boat motor started clunking & clanking, the captain slammed off the throttle & we stopped. He directed the deckhand to lift a panel off the engine… they both looked down at it & then the captain declared, “No transmission!” We look at each other & then Pat pointed out to us, “no kicker motor either”. We were stranded.

The captain started calling on a radio but wasn’t getting a response. Way off in the distance we could see one other boat on the water so the deckhand stood on the back of our boat to wave them down with a white towel. A little 20’ flat bottom boat casually made its way over to us with what appeared to be a family out for a fun day of fishing. Our captain explained the situation & thankfully they let us tie on a tow line & we began our trip home. We were about four miles out from the Marina & it took us four hours to get back. We had plenty of time for contemplation & even paranoia LOL.

JJ asked the captain what they would do with the fish. That’s when we discovered they were expecting us to have them mounted & shipped home to put on our walls! We got a little panicked trying to explain, “No, picture only! Picture only!” I have no idea how much such a thing would cost but there was no way it was in our beer money budget! The captain got on his cell phone & dialed up Big Ben to hand over to JJ. We all listened to him explain that we never wanted mounts, that the gal who didn’t get out of bed was the one who wanted the mount. JJ handed the phone back to the captain who listened to Big Ben & nodded his head. He hung up, shook his head but smiled & said, “picture only”. We replied “Si - Yes!” . He then hesitantly asked us, “how much you pay Bennie?”

Pat & JJ True with their sailfish May 1st, 2019

We were feeling a little bad for these two guys & saw no reason not to tell them. The captain just shook his head & replied, “Bennie, he greedy!” I can only speculate they were expecting to make their profit from the mounting of the fish. We tried to apologize but they understood we weren’t to blame. Again the captain spoke, “Bennie, he willy nilly!” He then retreated to the upper deck to relax for the ride, along with the deckhand. They were chatting it up & laughing so they seemed to be making the most of a bad situation.

We tried to relax too & I played some music on my iPhone which Pat figured out right away was my Mexico themed vacation playlist. Two different times I saw a seabird resting on what I figured was driftwood, but later realized by how fast it was moving that it was perched on a giant sea turtle - so cool! Then as we traveled home at our sea turtle pace, I saw some shadows under the water to the side of the boat. To our amazement, when you got a little higher by standing on a seat, you could see they were schools of about 15 -20 large stingrays swimming by! We saw two different schools slowly swimming like ghosts in the water. What a truly wonderful experience to have broken down!

It was also wonderful when we finally made it back to the docks. We tipped our tow a twenty & our crew grabbed the two fish & carried them to a giant beam to hoist them up for the brothers to get their picture. We tipped them each a twenty & they carried off the fish, hopefully to make a little money for boat repairs. We embarked on finding a restaurant which happened to be in front of a giant sign advertising an international sailfish derby starting on Friday. We ordered chips, guacamole & Corona with lime & then a toast was made, “To the Great True Sailfish Adventure in Zihuatanejo!”

Thanks for reading our little story, click the picture below to watch the our YouTube video. #JACTventures - GO DO IT!