Six months ago, when Sammy rang me and said to block out a week in early November to chase striped marlin on fly, my response was, “I’ll have a look at my schedule”.
I knew dang well the schedule was open. However, I was excited about my new digs in Wisconsin. I wanted to be in Wisconsin. But tonight, I’m super glad Sammy tossed this trip out and happy I had the smarts about me to go. This entire month in Baja has been extremely enjoyable.
Let me remind you AND me, I finally added the striped marlin to my fly rod caught species list. This billfish species has tormented me. There have been times over the years I thought my stripy would never come. Those thoughts are a thing of the past. It’s incredible to have friends like Sammy that bring me along and want me to achieve my goals as much as I.
Then there’s these last two weeks with Granny. After Sammy went home to work, he loaned us his condo here in Baja. He has many times, but we barely take him up on it. We’ve come down and taken the keys but we end up camping around Baja most of the time with only an occasional stopover at his place. This trip, we stayed within 20 miles of Sammy’s place the entire trip. We had fun fishing Sammy’s beach but what will be most memorable was, I relaxed. I’m not a relaxer. The last time I relaxed was when trapped at a fished-out island off the coast of Madagascar in 2011.
Though Granny and I caught fish, including nine baby roosterfish, the beach fishing was tough. After Friday’s success I thought over our last three days we were going to crush it and likely to get a big rooster. That wasn’t the case however. In fact, we were blanked all three days on the Cerritos Beach. That’s fishing. Especially off the beach with a fly rod.
That’s all she wrote for Baja 2022. What a trip. What a year it has been. Later this afternoon Granny and I will catch a ride for San José del Cabo and we’ll grab a hotel then hit a pub to enjoy one last night here. Then tomorrow we fly back to Duluth, MN followed by a very late night drive back home to Hayward, WI. I may have indeed made my last cast for 2022 and my left shoulder is enormously happy about this. Stay tuned for more on “the shoulder”. Out of all my fishing ailments over the years, this one feels seriously bad and I have undoubtedly pushed it too much. What can I say, I love to fly fish.
In the meantime, please visit my webstore for “Christmas Gifts for the Angler that has Everything” and stuff those stockings with my fish decals from “Pescador on the Fly”.
You are a BEAST! Thanks for posting about the “blanks”. It is easy to get high expectations about fishing when you read blogs because people just post the successes and we read through them fast so it sounds like every day is a banger. At least for me, I learn something every time I am out and the blanks remind me that the fish are a bonus. We have the opportunity to be out in some awesome areas seeing amazing sights, even in our home waters! Safe travels!