GAWWD!, I hope they don’t stick me I thought as I descended through the frenetic bait ball. Time and again, I found myself needing to escape the panicked bait swirling around me. Sardines instantly sought safety in the small shadow I cast into the frenzy of marlin, sea lions, and whales all trying to eat the last sardine. Diving straight down to about 20- to 30-feet helped me fl. I hoped by telegraphing my move by deliberately and slowly pushing my Gates housing ahead of me, that the slashing predators would avoid striking me. Earlier, my dive buddies Derik Stavenger, Dr. Peter Small and Joe Tobin agreed that the marlin rarely made an accidental stick because the sea lions all appeared whole. I was happy with that rationale until I reviewed my footage after the trip and saw numerous sea lions with holes and slashes.

November 2008 proved to be an epoch month for striped marlin fishing off the banks outside of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. A month earlier hurricane Norbert hit Magdalena Bay 200 miles north causing the water to “turn”, which is a premature upwelling of cold water. This seemed to concentrate the bait and predators south toward the Cape. On one of the days we dove on the Golden Gate Bank, a single boat caught and released 126 marlin—they were after the record of 178 caught in a single day. Many of the marlin showed evidence of  recent angling activities. Some dangled leaders and many of their dorsal fins were split along the dorsal spines all the way to their back. Sea lions feasted on the occasional marlin that did not survive the catch-and-release. Dr. Small pulled an exhausted marlin back to him by the multiple lines hanging from its mouth so that he could cut the bulk of the dragging line.

The week before, Captain Mike McGettigan and Sherry Shaffer of the Ambar III hosted 4 professional still photographers. Every night, I received emails with some of the most incredible marlin images yet taken. I just knew that the day we arrived Mike would say, “You should have been here last week!” But we were lucky. Edgar, Mike’s sharp-eyed deck hand had worked out how to find the bait balls and he found us many over the next 4 amazing days.

The Golden Gate Bank is a square-mile sea mount 300-feet deep rising out of 2,000 feet. This year Mike’s depth finder showed us that huge sheets of bait carpeted the bottom. Something—whales or marlin—managed to pinch off an unlucky group of sardines and drive them to the surface where they were trapped between voracious predators below and sea birds above. Typically, we’d find a school of bait by watching the frigate birds ball up over the school. When they started to spiral down and hit the water, we took off in that direction with our Zodiac. So did every other of the 90 boats on the bank that were not already hooked up. Some times as many as 10 boats charged the same area each belching gouts of black diesel clouds as the captains floored their engines. Adding the angler testosterone to the mix made an for an incredible force descending upon the 75- to 100-fish that made up the ball trapped on the surface.

Our best interactions with the fish occurred when eagle-eyed Edgar spotted a school of bait before the birds, or after 3 pm when most of the fishing boats departed for the margaritas awaiting them on shore. Edgar is a master bait manager. With quick reflexes he’d position the boat near the bait ball, which often charged the boat for shelter in its relatively large shadow. Next, we’d all climb in and then Edgar would gun his engine leaving the school behind. Within seconds, the hapless fish would again come under attack. Large groups of sea lions patrolled the bank. Almost every bait school we encountered already had a bull sea lion with up to 10 females harassing the bait. Generally, the school sheltered under the big bull who stayed on the surface and snacked on the bait when the school came close. Below the bait were many striped marlin—we counted over 60 on a single bait ball. The marlin would attack one or two at a time, each making 3- to 4 high-speed passes before descending for a rest.

Bryde’s Whales also coveted the bait. We’d see these baleen whales lurking at the edges and aligning themselves so that they invariably attacked into the sun. They ignored us as their 50-foot, 13-ton bodies lunged at the fish ball. They opened their mouths and gulped huge quantities of ocean water that made them look like tadpoles as their mouths ballooned to the size of a small auto. Curiously, they always seemed to miss. During the 6 or so passes we witnessed, we never saw them catch a single fish. Perhaps they are more effective in the deeper water?

At first, the bait ball was cohesive and well organized appearing to move as a single organism. When the school was decimated to about a dozen fish, the panicked animals finally darted helter-skelter, each trying to flee in separate directions. The predators, sensing the end, all came together on the surface in one grand chasing and thrashing, each hunting for the last sardine.

I remember heated discussions among fishermen about what marlin actually did with their bills and how they used them to eat. My footage shows that they charged through the school and gulped when they could. The sharp sides of their beaks cleanly sliced many bait in half. In addition, they used their bills to strike a fish and unbalance its swimming so they could gulp it. And yes, marlin really do spear their prey. One speared a sardine within inches of me and then shook its bill out of the water to flip the bait free. I watched another marlin sneak away from the pack with a sardine stuck to its bill. Like a dog, it needed some distance to shake the sardine free and still have enough time to eat it without competition from other marlin or the sea lions.

This was an amazing experience and I and my fellow diving companions are indebted to Mike and Sherry for their hospitality on the trip and for their efforts with Sea Watch, Mike’s organization to promote sustainable fisheries in the Baja.