Early morning comes painfully when you picked up the crud on a fishing trip. Now both Sammy and I are feeling like crap. Nonetheless, today is our last day of fishing down here in Baja Mexico with pal Grant Hartman. There was no way we weren’t sucking it up and hitting the water.
Commercial fisherman turned fly fishing guide, Nico, brought his bigger, better, faster boat today. He also brought his nephew Lico along with. I’m guessing Nico sat around the family dinner table last night and told them all about “fly fishing” and how cool it was. Lico does his fair share of fishing as well and decided to join us. A super nice guy just like Nico.
It was another stunner of a day. Almost every day this trip has been phenomenal weather with only light wind. Nico had a plan to drive way up the coast to the north so we could throw Clouser’s into the rocks for snapper, grouper and barred sand bass.
The boat ride took about 45 minutes. We went from beaches to sand dunes. Then we passed the mouth of an estuary. Then another. Then the landscape made a drastic change from beach to solid rock. There were ocean birds working everywhere along with lurking sea lions both sunning on the rocks and searching for fish at sea. Our first cast was at a spectacular place.
Fishing didn’t start out red hot. We made a lot of casts to beautiful water with few results. I picked up a random Pacific bonito and Sammy caught some spotted bay bass. It seemed as the sun got higher however; the fishing got better. I caught my biggest ever barred sand bass. I wish the picture had come out better but the fish was a real porker!
Nico eased Sam and I along and we continued to cast. Grant tossed a hookless teaser on occasion deep into the rocks that we couldn’t reach with flies. Nico had to be careful with the boat not to get too close to the rocks. One big rogue wave could mean disaster. Suddenly, out far from the rocks we heard excited birds and looked to see fish busting bait.
We made a b-line for the action. Nico cut the motor and we coasted into the frenzy. The baitfish were something I’ve never seen before. Grant referred to them as the red sardines. I can’t find anything about them on the internet so any feedback would be welcome. All I can say is they created a red-looking bait ball that the fish were going crazy for.
Sam hooked up first. Seconds later so did I. For the next 20 minutes we caught bonito after bonito. I finally put down the rod to take pictures.
There are many species of bonito around the world. These are the Pacific bonito and when you take the time to look at them up close under the sunlight, the colors are no less than extraordinary. They fight like heck too!
We could have hung out around the red sardines and caught a 100 bonito. They were everywhere. You couldn’t make two strips before going tight. Finally it was time to head back to the rocks to try for something else. I’ve had my mind set on a nice snapper but they haven’t cooperated.
We ended up finding more red sardines up against the rocks. My chartreuse and white Clouser was falling apart from all the toothy bonito it caught. I pulled a new one that was olive and orange in color. Its actually more of an Amazon jungle colored fly than for salt. But I liked the hook and it was nicely tied. It turns out the fish wouldn’t leave it alone!
My next fish will be my fish of the trip. I was catching sand bass after sand bass and they come in pretty easy. Finally I went tight with something that pulled back much harder. This fish had my 12-weight bent deep and was seriously straining my 30lb leader.
Everyone was quick to say, “Yes! Currier finally has us a snapper”, because this is how a snapper fights. But I got a glimpse. It was similar to a snapper but not one. Nico saw the look of excitement on my face and asked if he should dig out his net (I didn’t know he had one). I nodded and soon we had my strange fish.
I recognized the fish. I’ve seen them snorkeling and sometimes prowling below the boat in clear water situations. They never paid attention to my flies and rather appeared to be eating plankton or something tiny. But like people and other animals, there are times when creatures behave out of their norm. Not only did I catch this one but I caught four more including this huge one and Sammy caught one also. It’s an oversized Burrito Grunt (Anisotremus interruptus). Fun Latin name!
About an hour later we were fishing different terrain. More beach like and catching more sand bass. By surprise three pufferfish followed my Clouser up from deep. They were nibbling at my fly. Puffers have crazy buck-teeth and are hard to hook but I re-casted and landed my fly a few feet behind them. One heard it land and turned and ate. The angle allowed me to hook up. A friend caught one of these with me years ago so I knew what it was but its new for me. The bullseye puffer (Sphoeroides annulatus).
Two new fish today puts me over the 450 species mark. A few years ago when I crossed the 400 mark I thought 500 was unobtainable. Not true. I suspect I’ll be there within a couple years. Especially because I’m heading for Borneo in ten days. More on that later.
As always it’s been a blast being down here in Baja with Sammy and Grant. We always have such a good time together. While Sam and I couldn’t pull off our fist wahoo’s on fly, we caught some great fish.
Tomorrow will be a travel day back to Sams condo in Cerritos. I fly to Los Angeles on Sunday then on home on Monday. Tuesday morning I’m right back on the road flying for Atlanta to speak to the Atlanta Fly Fishing Club on Wednesday night. Seems like I’m back to my pre-Covid schedule which is a beautiful thing. Time to sleep off this crud!
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”.
0 Comments