In late October, my friend Jay and I decided to get away from the wet weather and head to hopefully sunny Baja to do some fishing. We went with Fishabout and did the Ultimate Inshore Clinic hosted by Ken Hanley and Jay Murakoshi. I had met Ken Hanley and Jay Murakoshi at The Fly Fishing Show in Bellevue in the spring of 2003. I had read several of Ken's books and he had quite a bit to do with the fact that I started fishing the beaches in San Diego which ultimately led me to bonefishing in Mexico and, finally, to fishing in the Sea of Cortez. At the show Ken and Jay did their slide show on Baja and I was hooked immediately both by Ken's enthusiasm and the fish. We went with two other Americanos, Alan from Orange Co. and Tom from Nevada, and since the trip was so small Ken Hanley didn't join us.
We
stayed at the LaConcha
Hotel just outside of La Paz. The hotel was OK, it
had a good restaurant, a few good amigos working the bar, and a pool that you
could cool off in. The bad storms in September had caused some
damage to the hotel so one day we returned from fishing to find no electricity
and no water, we cooled off in the pool, had a cerveza, then went to town in
search of cooked food.
Here is the front of the hotel and below is the rear showing the pool and small palapa bar.
The fishing day began at 5:30 or 4:30 (after DST ended) when we caught a van-ride to the launch site which was about an hour away with good roads and more like 1 1/2 hours away with the roads in the condition they were in thanks to two hurricanes. We launched from either Las Arenas or Bahia de los Muertos depending on the level of water on the roadway and the amount of surf.
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Las Arenas beach launch |
Bahia de los Muertos launch |
After launching, the first hour or more of the day was spent riding either to Isla Cerralvo or up the coast to search for bait. I quickly learned that fishing for bait could turn into half of your fishing in the Sea of Cortez.
Here we are motoring off in the sunrise towards Isla Cerralvo
This is the bait area off Isla Cerralvo, note how green Baja was due to the recent storms. Below is Jose, our pangaro, catching a net of bait.
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At times the bait fishing would be done from one boat, leaving Jay & I adrift off the island. We took advantage of that time to fish for whatever happened to be below us, most of which looked like aquarium fish. We managed to take some small Trigger Fish and Pargo while waiting for the bait.
We spent much of our time out fishing in open water between the island and the mainland for Skipjacks and Dorado. Here are a few shots...
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They call this inshore? |
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| Jay Murakoshi playing a Skipjack | Skippy ready to come in |
Here is my first skipjack and my first dorado. The pangero gaffed the dorado before I could say anything, I guess they assume everyone wants to eat them.
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We got the occasional visitor too:
In four days of fishing we had one pretty good day, one great day, one OK day, and one pretty rough day. We managed to land 13 different species and I got 10 different ones, 9 being new for me. These were: Skipjack Tuna, Dorado, Ladyfish, Trumpetfish, Triggerfish, Blue & Gold Snapper, Cabrilla, Porcupine Fish, Pompano. I also got a small Jack Crevelle which I had caught previously in the Yucatan.
Fish pictures to come, I need slides from other people...
On top of those fish, JayM got the rare Pez Rama while fishing for Dorado.
At 2:30 we were usually off the water for the ride back, which we could now see and knew why it took so long. Here is one of the arroyos that washed out the road completely.
There must be lots of bad accidents too, we saw many roadside shrines and just hoped and prayed one wouldn't be erected for us.
On the last day of our trip we got blown off the water by high winds so we headed into La Paz to do some sightseeing and shopping, and to have dinner.
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Cathedral de Nuestra Senora de la Paz |
Cross outside of Cathedral |
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The chapel |
Historical Marker |
This is the main church in town, Cathedral de Nuestra Senora de la Paz - Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. It was originally a mission built in 1720 by the Jesuits and the current church was built in 1861.
Across the street from the cathedral is the Plaza Constitucion
This building is now a community center, it looked like it used to be a government building of some kind. Across from it was the old prison:
Walking down towards the water we got to the malecon, the park on the waterfront:
This is one of the many statues on the waterfront, we got there right at sunset.
As we sat at Carlos & Charlies having a few beers we had a maricacha come and play for us, she sang two of my favorite Mexican folk songs, La Llorona and El Feo, then did a song that she wrote.
Rods - I used 9, 10, and 12-weight rods on the trip, Jay even took along a 7-weight for having fun with Ladyfish and reef fish. I broke the 10-weight on day 2 so be sure you have at least two heavy duty rods with you in case one goes bad.
Lines - I used sinking lines about 90% of the time. I had a Rio Deep Sea in 300, 400, and 500 grains for the 9, 10, and 12-weight rods. Jay used a floater about 50% of the time and a Teeny 300 the rest of the time. Jay Murakoshi was fishing a lead-core shooting head all the time.
Flies - The best flies were definitely Sea Habit Sardinas in 1/0 and 2/0, I got most of my fish on this fly. I also did well with a chartreuse Jiggy or Clousers in 1 - 1/0. I got a few fish on an olive Clousers too. Jay used a 1/0 Sar-Mul-Mac some along with the Sea Habit and also did pretty well on poppers and his saltwater foam fly that is yet to be named.
