Baja fly fishing up date for the week of March 27th – April 2nd 2008
Written by – Jeff deBrown
Owner/Guide
The Reel Baja
Water Temperature – 70 / 78
Air Temperature – 47 / 80
Weather – This past week we have had excellent weather with flat calm seas and virtually no wind. We did experience some fog a few mornings. On most days it would be burned off by about ten in the morning leaving us with bright and sunny skies. I do not think we are quite out of the woods yet as far as the wind. I believe we will see a few blows here in April but if we can get lucky and continue what we saw this past week April will be wonderful.
Beach – We continue to see some very good fly fishing action from the beach. This past week we continued to see good schools of smaller Rooster fish(3-5 lbs.) crashing bait along the shores as you can see from the photos below. We are starting to see some very big roosters and although we had some good fish chase the fly this past week we could not get any to commit and eat the fly. We are starting to see some of these bigger Rooster fish along with the bigger Jack Crevelle in the area doing the spring spawn dance. These fish will be in fairly large schools and at times you will see them daisy chaining. When you encounter these fish present a good cast to them and you will most likely get one or two to chase the fly but in their state of mind it is hard to get them to eat.
The above photo is of Dick Knackendoffel and his son Patrick casting into a school of Rooster fish that were boiling on the beach.
Here is a photo of more Rooster fish boiling next to the beach this past week.
Here is Dick waiting for the Rooster fish to push the bait in just a little closer so he can make a cast to them.
A little too close to shore for the boats to get to them.
Inshore – This past week we continued to see fair action for some medium sized Rooster fish. We also have some good schools of Jack Crevelle that have been in the area and if you can find the right school they will attack the fly. We have some very good action for Bonita inshore near Cabo Pulmo. These fish have been giving us plenty of pulls and are very nice size between five and ten pounds. This past week we had an excellent bite for Pargo on some of the reef’s. We had very good success with a chartreuse and white clouser fished on an intermediate line.
Patrick shows off the results of a little team work while we were fishing inshore from the panga this past week. We found a school of Rooster fish and I teased a few fish in and he made the perfect cast.
Off Shore – Off shore is getting better. We have a good number of smaller Dorado that are located between Cabo Pulmo and the light house off shore about twenty miles. The boats that are fishing this area are picking up between two and eight Dorado a day. Most of the Dorado are in the five to ten pound range. In the same area we have some Marlin as well. My current guests Robert Althar and his son Tyler from Florida had a great day with me off shore today. Tyler caught his first ever stripe marlin as well as his first ever sail fish. Tyler caught these fish on conventional gear and was wiped out by the end of the day after pulling on his first two bill fish. We also caught six or seven small Dorado. The strong yellow tail bite we have seen over the past couple of weeks has slowed down. With the slowing of this bite most of the boats have been going further off shore in search of the Dorado. If the weather holds and the water continues to warm up the fishing we are starting to see out side should continue to build.
Here is Tyler with his first ever bill fish a nice Sea of Cortez Sail fish.
Here is Tyler with his second bill fish ever. A nice stripe marlin.
Here is Tyler after wrestling with his fish.
