Antonio Reyes Vaca
By
Bruce F. Barber

Tony passed away during the early morning hours of Saturday, December 19, 2009. 
To Know Tony was to love him for, not only was he a humble man, he was a local patriarch.
From humble beginnings he never forgot, Tony rose through the economic ranks to a highly respected position from which he wielded unseen, mostly unknown but unbelievable social power.
Long live Antonio Reyes Vaca.

This is a story of a man born into abject poverty. It is also a story of a baby boy who rose above the Shakespearean stage of mewling and puking in his nurse’s arms. Remember Shakespeare? In ‘As You Like It’ he wrote:

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.

“At first the infant….” And second? In Tony’s case, between ages three and four, he lost his eyesight to a cause that was never identified. His mother took him to a series of doctors, medical clinics and specialists where tests were performed to no avail. And yet, six months later, as quickly as his blindness came upon him, it was gone. To this day there is no answer to the problem nor has there been any other vision-related problem. One has to wonder if this Mexico City street urchin wasn’t elected by some higher power to...?

Tony went to school, for two or three years but, because poverty knows no such luxury as the inside of a schoolroom, he quit to join the work force. His first job was carrying groceries for women shoppers. At his second job he helped a man make toilet seats. He made bricks at his third job and wax candles during his fourth, although he doesn’t remember how long these jobs lasted. The problem is, Tony Reyes is a man whose early life provided no relative importance to dates. He never celebrated a birthday, Christmas, New Year’s or Easter. The only things this growing boy clearly understood was… if he went where the work was he’d land a job and for it receive a centavo or two.

During his fifth job, in a sweater factory, this nine or ten year old boy stood on a box to work …and he still didn’t know one day from the next. As difficult as life was in the 1920s and ‘30s, this likeable young man not only managed to find food and clothing for himself and his mother, he found honor, integrity, and the basic moral principles that guided him throughout his life.

He worked in a furniture factory and then for a container manufacturer for whom he helped with the production of specialized tanks for soap, propane, sugar cane, and gasoline. In fact, because he never missed a day, his employer sent him to job sites in Vera Cruz (where he worked on the making of a banana boat), Cuernavaca (more tanks), and Morelos where the work was just as demanding but at least he had clothes, food and lodging. And, he had friends… who surfaced from time to time as though a guardian angel knew precisely when to offer this laborious youngster a helping hand.

As Tony and I sat in his office, he talking and I listening and writing, a smile suddenly brightened his age-wizened face. Out of the darkness of a memory of endless workdays he told me about the first time in his life, it happened in Morelos, that he realized a day off. Suddenly, that is, there were Sundays… and he went to a show or a dance although the day he remembers most fondly is January 6, the day of the Three Kings. “This is the real Mexican Christmas,” he beamed and went on to describe he and his pals playing together. “Life was really beautiful,” he reminisced.

As World War II came to a close, he began hearing about the availability of jobs in America. As time went on, those same stories changed to reports of men who had gone to America and were making enough money to send some home. Tony was in Aguascalientes when he made up his mind to go. Returning home, for his mother’s signature on a paper verifying his age and citizenship, he signed the essential contract and headed for America… by train. Now, he was a “Brasero,” working on a sugar beet farm in Minnesota, wheat farms in North Dakota, and asparagus in Wyoming. He didn’t make much money but he had a job, food and clothing, and sent what he could to his mom. His eyes sparkled again and I watched him disappear behind a memory of working in the fields with “compadres.” What he didn’t tell me, until later, was how he had suffered in that northern country’s cold for it was there that the seeds of arthritis were planted and would raise their ugly heads later in the form of his age-twisted hands.

When his contract was fulfilled, he went to California (instead of returning to Mexico) where he worked with oranges, lemons, lettuce, asparagus and cotton from San José to Bakersfield to San Fernando to Covina. In fact, he was standing on a ladder in an orange grove near Covina when men from the Immigration Department approached and asked to see his papers. He grinned again and told me they caught him four times and each time he was taken to Tijuana (where work was near-impossible to find). And, because crossing the border was the least of his problems, he returned as fast as he could to find work in the fields… spending a total of five years in the Golden State.

Most of us have heard about “wet-backs” dying in the desert, but who gives these dream-seeking men and women anything more than a passing thought? Tony told me he “jumped the fence” near Yuma and headed for San Diego or Los Angeles. He also told me he ate the food Californian’s threw away—you and I call that food “garbage” and cringe at the thought of taking something out of a garbage can.
He hid in caves, slept under bridges, and did whatever to find work. On one occasion, in Tijuana, he was sleeping behind a pool hall when two policemen awakened him. They wanted to know who he was, where he was from, and what he was doing there. They also wanted to know whether he was willing to become a burglar under their protection.

If there is a man who has never committed a sin, I have to believe it is Tony Reyes. A friend found him a job in a Tijuana hotel. Shortly thereafter, he realized the hotel had clients who arrived, obtained their room key, went into their room for brief periods of time, and departed. Time and time again they came and went until their actions aroused his suspicions. Tony described their actions to a friend who suggested he get the key while the men were absent and the two of them would learn what mystery that room held.

It was marijuana, and when Tony confronted the men about it, they offered him a job he promptly declined… even with the prospect of “making real money.” Shortly thereafter, Tony met a fisherman from San Diego who told him how California’s Ray Cannon had discovered the underwater riches of the Sea of Cortés. And, during that same conversation, suggested Tony join the fishing industry because San Felipe was bound to become a fisherman’s boom town.

During the interview, I saw a photo of a school of sardine-feasting totoava churning the water along a San Felipe beach. Standing in their midst was a man who reached into the violent water to repeatedly grab one of these 150 pound giants by the gills and drag it ashore. The fish were so preoccupied with feasting that they paid no attention to the man’s presence.

On another occasion, some 15 years earlier, I spoke to a 90-years-old fisherman who described to me a monstrous school of corvina in a similar circumstance, the surf literally boiling at water’s edge. Consequently, because I am a mental time traveler, I can envision the millions of fishes the Cortés has known at any given time and the unbelievable but commonplace feeding frenzies that occurred seasonally before the mid-twentieth century.

As a man who has studied the Cortés, I will describe the period between 1947 and ‘77 as the “period of discovery” before which this incomparable sea was indescribably rich and after which it was tragically depleted. Tony landed in San Felipe on the leading edge of its first fishing boom. Whereas the Cortez was being commercially fished at the time, that enterprise had not yet realized the reality of the world’s richest saltwater “aquarium”.

After spending his first week unsuccessfully searching for work, he met a man who helped him land a job on a shrimp boat… and Tony discovered seasickness. When San Felipe’s shrimp season closed, he went to Ensenada but learned most commercial fishing boat captains had long-established crews. Owing to his persistence, however, he landed a job painting a fishing boat. And, while that job progressed, the boat’s owner told him he liked the way Tony worked and offered him a job as a deck hand on a sport fishing boat.

For the following three years Tony worked on sport-fishing boats out of San Felipe and Ensenada. Now, with money in his pocket, and time off between fishing seasons, he obtained a visa that allowed him to visit siblings that had moved from Mexico City to California. When a younger sister (in Covina, California) suggested he work for her during his off-season, he remained in California illegally, (he said, “I went Wet Back again”) and began working on the manufacture of wooden chairs for toddlers.

Whereas he returned to Ensenada and San Felipe for each sports fishing season over the following three years, he spent the “off” seasons working for his sister until the day he bought a house in San Felipe. Then, in 1957, he bought wood and wood working tools and began making his own furniture. In fact, he expanded the line from toddlers’ chairs to neatly upholstered couches and love seats, which he sold to his sister as well as Furniture Store customers he arranged in Tijuana, San Felipe and La Paz.

After buying his first fishing skiff, in San Felipe, he rowed a friend (four round-trip miles) to a favored spot off Mt. Machorro’s rocky point… for five dollars. That man was so impressed by Tony’s sincerity and dedication to work that he found an outboard motor for him (in California), purchased it, brought it to San Felipe, gave it to Tony, and allowed him to pay for it in monthly installments.
Realizing the full measure of the bounty to be reaped in the Cortés, Tony entered into a partnership with San Felipe’s Alfredo Ascolani Sr. who owned six fishing skiffs with 10- and 15-horsepower motors. But, owing to an age-old problem in the industry, Tony wanted men he could trust to take those boats out and return with all of the day’s catch.

Consequently, when he had the men he sought, he began a full-fledged sport fishing business. And, because this business can make or break a man quickly, he fulfilled his need for the English language and, because “the early bird gets the worm”, made himself available when prospective customers wanted to go out. Consequently, while less zealous fishermen slept, Tony and his crew woke at 3:00 a.m., reported to their boats at 4 (for essential preparations), boarded their clients and were heading out to sea by 5.

Tony paused for a moment, reflecting on a distant memory, and displayed another incomparable grin as he described the making of lures out of white-painted fishing weights with double hooks… and his clients reaped the benefits of a thinking man’s enterprise. In fact, his fishing lures were sought in San Felipe for many years.
Owing to he fact that he conducted a “hands-on” study of the totoava’s migratory habits during these early years, Tony obtained a beachside property opposite Isla Lobos, one of Baja California’s Islas Encantadas, that they periodically visited. He called the place Campo Miramar although shortly thereafter he changed its name to “Okie Landing” because his clients called anyone who lost a fish an “Okie Farmer.” (Okie Landing is about halfway between Puertecitos and Bahia San Luis Gonzaga.)
Now, owing to his superior knowledge of the best totoava fishing spots, he gained a popularity among sports fishing enthusiasts that resulted in a bevy of clients who remained with him 25, 30, and 35 years. One of those clients, a man named David Fink (owner of Davies Locker at Newport Beach, California) suggested Tony modify his fishing operation by buying and operating a bona fide sports fishing boat. Then, in place of daily fishing tours to local fishing spots, he could conduct three- four-, five- and six-day tours throughout the Cortez and expand his client interest from totoava to the wealth of other Sea of Cortez game fish.

Acting on David’s recommendation, Tony rented a commercial shrimp boat, loaded skiffs and guides onto it, boarded his clients in San Felipe (and Okie Landing), and gained valuable experience as a sports fishing businessman working a considerably larger area of the sea. Sailing on the outgoing tide, for example, he spent the first day fishing for (live) bait with which, over the remainder of the cruise, his clients caught hordes of fish.

It should be noted that Señor Reyes was never a sports fishing-boat captain. Rather, his expertise was his knowledge of the seasonal migration of fish, and the best fishing spots, throughout the northern Cortez. He gained his knowledge as a diligent “fishing guide” and from conversations with other fishing guides. A Fishing Guide is the man who takes his clients in a fishing skiff to the hot spots from where fish are taken. Each time he rented a trawler or sports fishing boat, it came with its own captain although it was Tony’s managerial skills that organized and conducted those boats’ successful operations.

Whereas Ray Cannon received many accolades for being singularly responsible for awakening Baja California’s fishing industry to the riches of the Sea of Cortés, he never met Tony until the day he limped into Okie Landing with an ailing fishing boat motor (which Tony was instrumental in repairing). Prior to that meeting, however, Cannon had written and telephoned Tony many times to inquire about the totoava’s migratory habits. Consequently, Cannon wrote about Tony Reyes and his fishing tours in more than one of his many articles for Western Outdoor News.
Tony entered into a partnership agreement with San Felipe’s Gustavo Velles who owned the trawler Santa Monica. After outfitting it with 21-foot skiffs and outboard motors, Tony spent the following five years building his fishing tours business. During that period, a Californian introduced Tony to Tom Ward of Orange, California. Not only did Tom want to become a distant part of the Sea of Cortés fishing boom, he rounded up investors who loaned Tony a large sum of money, recommended a particular fishing boat Tony could buy (in Sonora’s Puerto Peñasco) and materially helped him modify that boat from a fishing trawler to a bona fide sports fisher, which was accomplished in San Felipe.

Tom Ward, who had been a gasoline station owner/operator for many years, opened a business he called “Longfin Fishing Supplies,” and became a key agent for Tony Reyes Fishing Tours. In fact, Tony told me Tom advertised on his behalf wherever he traveled across the United States and Canada. When the new boat was ready, with a dozen new 21-foot skiffs powered by new 45 horsepower motors, Tony, Tom Ward, the men who had invested in the project, and the boat’s new Captain, commissioned the José Andrés with a specially selected bottle of champagne and took it to sea for what proved to be an historically successful fishing voyage.

Consequently, from that first five dollar bill collected for rowing a friend to Punta Machorro, to $75 fishing cruises for totoava, to $800 per person, five-day fishing tours to Baja’s midriff islands, Tony Reyes literally catapulted himself “into the driver’s seat” by way of a dedication to learning everything he could about sports and commercial (totoava) fishing.

Born June 13, 1923, this Shakespearean boy became one of the most highly respected sports fishermen in San Felipe with a reputation for honesty and integrity that spread from San Felipe to Ensenada, Tijuana, San Diego, Long Beach, Orange and Los Angeles. His clients number in the thousands and their catches can be measured in as many tons of grouper, totoava (until it was placed on the Endangered Species list), red snapper, corvina, yellow fin tuna and a host of other fishes from the world’s most prolific sea.
Continuing with Shakespeare’s As You Like It, we find:

“And then the lover
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then in justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.”

Tony married the girl of his dreams, Dolores Montez of Bahia de Los Angeles, who bore him a son… and the boy went to sea with his dad to learn the business from the bottom up. Today, while wife and mother looks after the home, 33-year-old Tony Jr, who graduated from an Ensenada fishing school, is Captain of the José Andrés and the man I interviewed became Director of Public Relations, Tony Reyes Fishing Tours.
Regarding his meager beginnings, many of San Felipe’s poor (men, women and children) benefited from his unending kindness (in the form of food, clothing, money and computers) although he performed each anonymously. In addition, his kindness included the use of his house for the storage of books and equipment solicited by San Felipe’s Bill and Kay Gabbard.
Several years ago, Bill and Kay started a unique program they called “Book Buddies” under which they roamed the American southwest soliciting American schools to adopt local schools for the purpose of contributing books (written in the Spanish language), classroom equipment and materials, and funds to permit the creation of libraries, modernized classrooms, and newly painted buildings (inside and out).

When a detachment of soldiers came to town, for drug interdiction purposes, they had little more than the typical military outdoor equipage (tents, cots and open cooking fires). Upon learning the detachment was here to stay, it was Tony Reyes who initiated such a substantial movement on their behalf that the federal government authorized the funding and construction of two major (multi-storied) barracks buildings in which these men could live (sleep, eat and relax) like any other resident.

For the past three years, on behalf of San Felipe’s Las Amigas Club, Señor Reyes has donated a 6-day fishing cruise to the winner of a fund-raising lottery. What’s more, in direct support of San Felipe tourism, he is frequently heard broadcasting an invitation to enjoy the beauty of San Felipe over a popular San Diego radio station. At 79 years of age, Tony Reyes is not only San Felipe’s elder statesman but, like a star “shining in the east,” he is this pueblo’s patriarch.

Tony never owned a camera and yet he has more than 1,000 photographs of his and his clients’ successes. In fact, during the interview, he sorted through several door-sized panels of mounted photographs until, finding the one he sought, he showed me particular shots that expressed his thoughts rather clearly. Pointing to particular photos, he commented, “I think you may be seeing photos no one has ever seen.”

One of the photos I saw was a part of an article published in a New Zealand newspaper. That article described Señor Reyes as a renowned Mexican sports fisherman who had been invited as a guest of an American fisherman to spend two weeks on a New Zealand fishing adventure. During that adventure, the article said, Señor Reyes caught at least one trophy-size tuna.

Regarding his photos, you can see many of them on San Felipe’s web site (www.sanfelipe.com.mx) where Tony Reyes’ fishing reports are updated weekly.  Scroll down the left side of the screen to FISHING.

Finally, were I to conclude this interview with Shakespeare’s final lines from the above-quoted excerpt you would read how he described man’s seventh stage. Instead, I prefer to ask you to envision this incomparable man as he is today… wise but humble, concerned for his fellow man, and modest …with an incomparable grin that says,  “Life is really beautiful.”

Long live Antonio Reyes Vaca!