The Luckiest Cast

After the events soon to be described had transpired, our captain Arturo told us a story of one of his long-term clients from the states.  This man had fished with Arturo once a year for the past 7 years.  In that time, he landed exactly one single solitary roosterfish.  Judging by the day we had, he was either an absurd outlier, beset by unspeakable bad luck or just an awful fisherman.  Arturo told us of this poor guy to put into perspective the feat our dad pulled off earlier that day.

By this point in the morning, my father had landed a rooster using live bait, and Mark and I both landed roosters on the fly, as well as Mark's dorado on fly.  It was our father's turn at the transom and he opted to try the fly rod instead of the live bait.

Now, our dad fishes with us when we're all around, but doesn't get out enough to have developed really strong or accurate casting.  When he has the time, he chooses the fairways instead of the freestones.  Mark and I were both thinking that his chances weren't too good because of the amount of line that must be kept airborne while false casting, and the accuracy needed to complete a proper bait and switch.  We also both knew that he always seems to surprise us with some strangely cooperative fish.

When I hooked the last fish, it was noted that there were others in the vicinity.  Hoping they were still around, our dad wasted no time as he stood with rod in hand as I released mine.  He made one lazy forward roll cast to prep for his first back cast.  As the line and fly lay in the water not 10ft off the outboards, Mark and I were giving him some last-second advice on the double-haul, strip setting and the angle of rod, as if it would make a difference at this point.  Then, the unexpected happened.

While Mark was in the midst of an abbreviated dissertation on the finer points of line management immediately preceding a strip set, a rooster's comb slashed through the surface and grabbed the fly that was listlessly drifting besides the boat.

Our dad understandably lifted the rod as if a brookie had sipped an Adams.  I grabbed the rod at the first ferrule and pulled it back down into line with the fish as Mark pretty much strip set for him from the slack line at his feet.  Then, a momentary hint of tension and the line went slack, but either the same fish didn't taste the steel or another one came up in its wake, because it was there and Mark and I, as well as Arturo, were shouting out excited commands that probably just jumbled into garbled madness.

It was a comedy of errors as three sets of hands when to work untangling deck knots, angling a rod, shouting advice and pointing at a striped fish that was not going to be denied.  The line came tight and this time I didn't let him lift the rod.  He strip set into the fish and the hook buried deep in its lip.

We were all laughing and slapping each other on the back as Arturo proclaimed our dad the luckiest man alive.  He landed the fish and we posed for a few pictures to record another unforgettable fish.  It was not the largest fish of the trip, but definitely the sweetest.

Supper

Morning on the very tip of the Baja Peninsula, otherwise known as Cabo San Lucas, and we are taking a taxi to the marina for our second ever guided trip. I have been itching the entire time to go fishing and this was going to be my one shot. My family convinced me to put down the rod and they also squashed any notion of mine of traveling to go fishing. Where did I want to go? Four hours north is the East Cape, the roosterfish capital of the world and the one of the only places you can get them with a fly rod from the beach. After seeing the surf on the coast of the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific, it made a lot of sense. The water drops to depths of ten or more feet right off the beach, producing massive waves that literally crush people. I quickly realized that even if I wanted to go fishing by myself, it would be pretty difficult with the waves. The guided trip and a boat was the only way to go.

We booked a trip with Baja Anglers, run by Grant and Gisel Hartman and everything went smoothly. We left the marina around 6:45, bought our bait from local fishermen, and were booking it up into the Sea of Cortez to fish off the beaches (not the East Cape).

It is pretty awesome to be motoring across the ocean as the sun is rising on the horizon. The sea is as calm as it will be all day and there is nothing but anticipation in the air. I had a few loose ends to tie up, mainly taking a coastal express sinking fly line off my reel and putting on an intermediate line.

The first mate went to work attaching our bait to spin rods to lure predators from the depths and tease them close enough to the boat for a fly rod.

We didn't really know what to expect with the trip, so when the Captain suddenly stopped the boat along a rock face and they tossed some bait in the water, all three of us kind of just sat around and watched. In a matter of ten seconds a Dorado slashed across the surface after the bait. The guide yelled, "fly rod, fly rod, fly rod," while Matt and I just looked at eachother. I took the initiative, grabbed the rod, made a twenty foot cast and missed a slashing Dorado. I re-casted and set the hook on my first inshore fish.

Out of all the fish I have caught on fly, Dorado jump the most. They aren't as ferocious as tarpon but they are probably more acrobatic. This guy (average for here) jumped over six times.

It being a family vacation and all, I promised everyone back at the hotel that I would bring home a mahi mahi, if I caught one. The last time I killed a fish, I was ten years old fishing with a spinning rod on opening day of trout season. I only caught one fish all day and I made my dad keep it. We didn't have a stringer, so the trout went into a plastic bag where it slowly suffocated to death. It writhing and flopping around didn't sit well with me so I tried to put it back in the water. Unknowledgeable at the time, I thought I was letting it go to live on. That was the last time I ever kept a fish.

So we kept the Mahi Mahi and into the cooler it went. Strangely, I didn't feel too guilty about it. We had it cleaned and my sister cooked it later that night. The fish fed my entire one side of the family, all 17 of us and it was delicious. 

They Called It: Scooby Doo Rock

I Will Name Thee: Sorting Hat Rock

The Window to the Pacific

The Arch

Land's End, Last Rock on the Baja Peninsula

The Pacific Ocean, Not Very Peaceful

Goodnight Mexico

Bait and Switch

A Roosterfish Closing in For the Kill. 

In mid-July, we headed to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a family reunion.  Upon hearing that, only one thing popped into the minds of my brother and I, and that one thing has a huge and unique dorsal fin and has been dubbed "the Elizabeth Hurley of game fish."

If we didn't want to be anti-social, we had maybe a single day to devote to catching a roosterfish on the fly.  After consulting with Grant Hartman at Baja Anglers, (who comes highly recommended by Jeff Currier), we decided to do something that we at TRIW try to stay away from.  We hired a guide.

Roosters from the beach would have to wait.  We didn't want to waste a day in hopes of flailing 10wts at shadows.  We went with the surest thing due to our limited time.  It turned out to be an incredible day.

Every few years, we bite the bullet and spend some cash on something awesome.  Three years ago it was great seats to a UFC event in Philly.  This time, it was a guided trip in the Sea of Cortez, targeting anything and everything with the fly rod.  My brother, father and myself would have 8hrs to put our skills to use with the guides expertise.  It doubled as a Father's Day gift for our old man.

Having absolutely zero experience with inshore fishing, we put all of our trust in the guides.  They used a technique called Bait and Switch to entice fish near enough for us to cast at with the fly rods.  If the guide and angler choreographed it just right, it was incredibly effective.

They tied mullet and small jacks up to 14" in length to 60lb mono line and let them free swim behind the boat under a very slow forward tack.  The fish were kept near the surface, and keen eyes could detect predators that they raised.  When combs slashed the water, the guides began to reel the mullet in, teasing the roosters nearer the boat as the angler began to false cast.  The guide would yank the bait clear of the water immediately before your fly landed in its place.  If the switch was perfect, you'd get a hit almost every time.  If the fly appeared in the water aside the bait, it would confuse the roosters and put them down.

Throughout the 8hr day, we landed 4 roosters and 1 dorado on the fly using the bait and switch method.  Two roosters came on live bait sent behind the boat with a circle hook.  We missed a grande rooster because it took the teaser before the guide could reel it in, and snapped the 60lb mono.  That would have been an insane fight on a 10wt.

It was an unforgettable day.  We all caught roosters on the fly and laughed our assess off at a few things that happened along the way.  Our next few posts will show all in detail.