It was another early one out of Magdalena Bay in Baja on our quest for wahoo on the fly. It was cooler and fog rose from the estuary. Like yesterday I was with friends Sammy Vigneri and Grant Hartman and local fishing guide Roddy.
Other than the fog the day was much the same. We went about ten minutes then Roddy threw his cast net to collect live sardines so we could tease a wahoo. Once we had a few we crossed through the frothing mouth of Mag Bay into the open ocean. The only difference today was instead of heading straight out we headed ten miles north then fifteen miles out to sea.
Roddy’s boat isn’t fast and it was a good 2.5 hours before we hit the fishing grounds. It was calm and nice on the Pacific but still, that’s a long ride in a boat. But blue water fly fishing is like all other sorts, you have to go far these days to find the best.
Once we got to Roddy’s spot I sent my big black Clouser with the 60lb wire bite tippet deep on my sinking line with hopes for a wahoo to come play. I sent it all the way to the backing knot then two hand stripped it back as fast as I could. Over and over and over again.
It wasn’t too long before action came. I saw a colorful flash below our boat. It was strikingly chartreuse and blue with bright yellow on the fins. I came tight and knew right away I had a dorado as my line screamed off my tester Bauer reel.
I’m not exaggerating about these colors. There are very few things in nature as vibrant and eye-catching as an excited dorado. This one would be the first of many for today.
When I first started fishing Baja it wasn’t uncommon to land 20-30lb dorado. The past ten years its been hard to find the big bulls. Nevertheless, this is a dang nice one and a nice size for any fish on the fly.
Unfortunately, we could not find a wahoo. I mentioned this species is a tough one and it looks like I nor Sammy will be adding the species to our lists this trip. But no complaints. We had nonstop action today that included a few double hookups.
Today’s highlight was when Sammy hooked this yellowfin tuna and at the same time I hooked up a dorado. The funny thing is, Sam’s tuna sounded deep and took him about 75 yds into his backing. My dorado stayed high and jumped a few times and I landed him in about two minutes. Sammy was still trying to hoist up his tuna.
I released my dorado and spotted another and hooked up again and once again it took only a couple minutes to land him. Sam was still getting beat up by his fish so I released this one. Then I hooked a third while Sammy continued his battle with what turned out to be a fine yellowfin tuna. At last we ended our day posing with our double.
While we didn’t catch our wahoo its been an amazing two days of fishing here in the Mag Bay region of Baja. The good news is these two days weren’t our last. Tomorrow we’re back on our own fishing from shore then driving further north. We’ll end the trip to the north of Mag Bay with two more days on a panga. What we’ll fish for yet we don’t know but I’m sure it will be fun!
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”.