Man Catches Fish With Bare Hands

You know people travel miles, spend lots of money and invest in fancy fishing equipment to catch the fish of their dreams, but in Cabo it’s not always necessary; you just have to have your wits about you and be in the right place at the right time as long time Cabo resident, John Parks an American in his early 50’s can attest to. He got a surprise whilst taking his nightly power walk along the beach near his home in the Cabo Real area. The waves were big and the surf crashed loudly on the beach between the Dreams Resort and Casa Del Mar, when he saw something thrown onto the beach by the powerful waves, he could see that it was a sizeable fish and thought it was a halibut, as it flapped and struggled trying to make it back into the sea. John knows a meal when he sees one though; he dropped his hat and sunglasses and sprinted towards the fish, before it was sucked back out to sea, passing three surprised local beach fishermen. He grabbed the fish which was pretty slippery and got his hands into the gills, cutting his fingers on the dorsal spines in the process and deftly snatched it away from the water; he threw it up onto the beach as it spewed sardines from its mouth.  As he hoisted the still struggling fish up, he realized that it was a snook, around 20 lbs and one of the best eating fish in these waters. He did think about throwing it back but then he thought “barbecue!” We can just imagine the looks on the faces of the three local fishermen and what went through their minds, “we’ve been fishing here for years, we’ve never caught a robalo (snook) and along comes this foreigner, who doesn’t even have a rod and snatches one up with his bare hands”. John trudged back along the beach with his prize, which wasn’t easy going in the sand, but he found a little piece of rope and tied it through the fish’s gills, to give his hands a respite. It took him fifteen minutes to get back home, where he excitedly called to his wife to “bring the camera”.  They snapped some photos then took it to the kitchen where the fish was still struggling to the horror of John’s wife, Adali, who was supposed to cook it.  Seeing as they didn’t have fishing equipment at home, John dispatched it with a wine bottle, before filleting it and cooking some on the barbecue and they still have enough for several meals. Snook are known to converge where fresh and saltwater merge; seeing as the exact spot where this one was found, is where an arroyo empties into the sea, it makes sense, though we’ve never heard of one caught by hand, but then as John said “this fish made a fatal mistake”.