Pat & Jim’s Most Excellent Baja Adventure: Part III

(ED: The Underground’s Most Excellent Saltwater Correspondent (Jim Troyer to the outside world) spent some time fly fishing his way around Baja, and wrote the whole story down for us. Like anyone else, we’re suckers for a good fish story. Oh yeah — click here to see Jim’s Picassa photo album .)

TU’s Saltwater & Cerveza Correspondent Jim Troyer

Day 4: Today was Pat’s day and I promised her we would do what she wanted to do. Craig and Kim headed out before sunrise to fish the beach and I just sat down out front with a good cup of coffee to enjoy the morning. After breakfast, Pat wanted to hike up around the point towards La Ribera to explore the beach. I grabbed my rod and hydration pack and off we went.

Craig and Kim decided to paddle back to Punta Arena and fish offshore for some shots at bigger fish. After you hike around the bend at Punta Arena the beach eventually turns less rocky and more sandy….perfect Rooster and “Toro “water. We walked the beach and kept our eyes out for anything flashing or moving off the beach. I saw a small disturbance, shot a cast out, strip, strip, bam…fish on for a brief moment and then gone. It was a nice Jack that I didn’t set the hook in good.

One thing to make sure of down in Baja is that your hooks are “sticky sharp” as many of you know. Dull hooks = no fish! We continued to walk the beach and I stuck a few small Jacks, nothing big but fun anyway.

I noticed a camp on the beach aways down and ran into a few guys fishing in pairs, one on a teaser, the other throwing a fly. We said ” Hi ” and kept moving on down towards La Ribera where we ran into a European couple with fly rods who had some marginal luck on Roosters but were just as happy as we were to be down there.

The wind started to pick up and really nothing was happening so we turned around and headed back. The four guys we saw earlier had left with their rods and ventured elsewhere.

We were almost to the point and I mentioned to Pat to keep here eyes open for any disturbance when she said “you mean like that” — just as the water blew up. I cast into it and one strip I was on for a couple seconds before a nice size Rooster jumped and spit the hook…. oh well :(

The tide had dropped out and nice troughs were visible on the inside of the rocky beach structure. I put on the trusty Olive/white clouser and started blind casting out into the deeper slots.

Bam! Fish on and a nice Lady fish. Another cast, Bam! fish on and a small Rooster….this went on for a bit with a couple more Lady fish, some small Jacks, a Croaker and another small Rooster. Not very big but fun all the same!

After lunch we rented a Quad for 4 hours to do some exploring but really ended up going down to Rancho Leonero for Margaritas!! It was a blast flying down the dirt roads and washes on the way to the ranch.

We cruised through the small town of La Ribera and were amazed at the building going on. Development in the area is big business and will soon take over this tiny, quaint, East Cape town. We were just about to the ranch when the Quad died on us in a gully at the bottom of a steep hill. What the……?

We pushed the Quad up the hill and luckily at the top was the road going to Leonero. A van pulled up with an older Mexican gentleman in it who we remembered from last year. “The Quad es no bueno”…

He was nice enough to take Pat up to the ranch to make a call back to Punta Colorada for help. In the meantime, I’m stuck in the hot sun, on a dirt road with a limited Spanish vocabulary. I waved at some locals driving by but they just kept going. By now I see Pat walking down the road with info that somebody is on their way from Punta Colorada.

It had been about 10 minutes when a truck pulls up with Montana plates and two fly guys inside. ” You guys have a problem with the Quad?” Yep, sure do. Come to find out there wasn’t enough gas in it and we ran out. DUH!!!

Switched it to the reserve tank and we were off….. We ended up hangin’ out at the Rancho bar with these two guys and buying them a beer for their troubles. We ran into Jeff De Brown with The Reel Baja and had a nice talk with him. He and his client had a tough couple of days with just a couple tuna and a shot at a few sails.

After getting some gas from the guys who came over from Punta Colorada, we headed back and went out to Punta Arena to see if we could find Craig and Kim. By now the wind was really blowing and found the guys with the boats beached at the point.

They didn’t have much luck out dredging the depths so when the wind picked up, decided to play it safe and fish the beach. We had a nice ride back, they had to paddle but the wind laid down so it wasn’t too bad.

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