It was another beautiful morning in Baja.  Granny and I packed it up and left Baja Joes and Gary Bulla for fishing around 8 AM.  We dragged our Yeti’s filled with coffee and finished them on the beach.  The sun was too low to spot roosterfish so we relaxed and took in the amazing desert scenery.

At 9 when the sun got overhead enough to spot fish we grabbed the 9-weights and began a slow walk down the beach.  We couldn’t see my spot but shortly in we could.  There was a fleet of pangas chumming with live bait for roosters 100 yards off shore.  This was a huge bummer; however their bait was getting pushed to the beach.  I told Granny to make some blind casts in the area hoping for a lurking jack or a rooster.  I walked on and naturally, I was the one that spotted a hungry rooster.

The roosterfish was steaming along the beach coming directly at me.  There was no chance to get Granny in time so I casted.  I hit him dead on and five minutes later I landed a beautiful 15lber.

That was the first time I was ever bummed to land a roosterfish.  This was a dream roosterfish for my lady.  By the time we shot a couple pics and released the fish the pangas were literally drifting into the beach area we were fishing.  It was time to walk further.

We saw very little the next hour other than giant Mexican houndfish.  I must admit, some of these giant needlefish are amazing and they put on a strong fight.  To add some excitement to our morning, I told Granny to cast to them.  They are extremely aggressive yet hard to hook.  She jumped a few then finally connected.  Ten jumps and a screaming run later she landed a three footer.

Granny was having a blast hooking the giant houndfish.  After she released her one she waded right back out in the waves for more.  Three strips after each cast she’d hook one then get four jumps and the long toothy gar-like fish would be off.  It was perfect fun – get the jumps but you don’t have to unhook them.  But suddenly Granny screamed in pain and ran up onto the beach.

I’d just got myself situated to cast to a monster houndfish of my own.  I was knee deep as I turned to run to her aid.  Then wham!  I too felt extraordinary pain.  I ran from the water and looked down only to see a long snotty-like tentacle stuck to my right foot.  It was jellyfish.  Only these weren’t ordinary jellyfish, these were man-o-wars!

The pain of which the sting of a man-o-war delivers is indescribable.  And the thing about getting hit by a man-o-war jellyfish is that you never know what type of reaction you will have.  These stings have killed people.

I was in so much pain that getting to Granny was a struggle.  Poor Granny wasn’t sure what happened to her and was in the sand writhing in pain.  She’d been hit in the soft skin behind her knee and it was already swelling and turning bright red.  In fear of what our reactions would be, we began a full on pursuit to return to the car.

Healthy, a return to our car was a 45 minute walk.  As we began the agonizing walk we experienced only pain and we were making good time.  But the fast walk also got our blood pumping which probably isn’t a good thing.  The pain no longer came only from our wounds but was creeping up our legs and into our hips and back.  Scary!

By the time we got to the car we were in pain nearly everywhere.  Any area not hurting was getting numb.  Finding medical help was definitely on my mind at this point but the only place I could think to go was Cabo.  Cabo was two hours away.  As a last resort to recover, we opted to bust out our camp chairs and sit idle.  Let the hearts slow down and limit the blood pumping poison through our bodies.  And thank God, it worked.

In less than ten minutes our symptoms weren’t getting any worse.  In fact our pain and numbness started to go away.  Everything was going to be ok.

We hardly noticed, but on our fight back to the car there were more beach fly anglers that arrived.  We were parked right on the edge of the beach so they had to walk past us.  We exchanged greetings and soon it was a full on visit.  It’s a small world of fly fishing.  One of them, Austin Kane, was familiar with Granny and I because he reads the blog and follows my Instagram and FB pages.  The other, Daniel Bragg is a guide for Kelly Galloup on the Madison River in Montana.

That was it for our fishing today.  Granny and I are at about 75% recovered from our stings.  The predicament took a lot out of us.  After we felt good enough to move we drove to Los Barriles where we begin another chapter.  Our friend Gary Boyer spends all winter here and we’re going to fish with him the next two days.  Gary has a boat and in the morning we are staying out of the water and going to chase some milkfish on the fly.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing