On night one, I must say, the weather omens were not looking good. I sat and watched a distant lightning show as I sipped the evening scotch in my wonderful elephant-tree camp, but didn't feel a drop. I've had this experience a few times before in the desert, where you get to see and hear a distant storm, but never actually feel a single raindrop falling on your head.
That didn't happen this time. What did happen, was that a few hours after lying down, I woke up to an incredibly intense rain storm: lightning cracking apparently right over my tent, deafening thunder blasts, and POUNDING, pounding rain. Just to be safe wind and dew-wise (an issue on the Pacific coast) I take a 3-4 season tent that has withstood severe conditions in Alaska, so I felt pretty confident that I could just sit and listen, and maybe stick my head out if the sheets of rain stopped falling.
WRONG. Randomly, I put my hand down on the floor of the tent, and guess what? It was soft! Kind of like it had a giant inch-deep puddle under it! And that indeed was the case. That's not good; that's bad. Even in my post-scotch sleepiness, I quickly realized I had to get out of my warm dry sanctuary and do something -- like get out my folding shovel and dig a trench in splashing mud while marble-sized raindrops pelted me mercilessly. It worked, and I got the water flowing around the tent instead of under it. But it was not a pleasant part of a restful night.
The next day was also unperfect: on arrival in Santa Rosalia, a Norte was blowing up whitecaps on the Sea of Cortez. Old and pragmatic, and knowing of a really sweet underpriced hotel with nice rooms and killer views, I decided against more bad-weather camping. However, wind forecasts for the next day were OK, so I did put together my boat and start preparing psychologically to launch in three-foot wakes knocking around the cobblestones of my favorite beach. The wind stops, yes; but the waves take a good 6-8 hours to quit afterward.
Again, initial omens were not good. What is this, at the prime yellowtail spot? Not a yellowtail. Barely any tail at all!
No, yellowtail were decidedly not there at the spot. This shark, who swallowed a speed jig so far down his throat I didn't dare try to extract it until he was dead, saved the day. Firm, white meat, and just delicious.
OK, the "best Baja yet" part is about to start. I got over to the Pacific and settled into a camp at one of my favorite places in the world. There's always an intense, long, 90-minute sunset there.
And yes, fish were on the bite! The wind stayed down the entire time, and I fished flies almost exclusively and topwater predominantly. You couldn't stop the snapper; I think I hooked more than 20 each day out, almost all on topwater.
And, best of all, the snook were in. I started small, but each fish seemed to get twice as big as the last one until I landed one that was easily the biggest I've taken on a fly, ever.
So what's better than that, right? Well, how about prime, calm wind conditions back on the Cortez side, and fairly regular bait bust-ups just off the beach? Word on the beach was that they were seeing more sardines in the area than they'd seen for years, and that dorado were still hanging around in the cooling water to take advantage of that.
I trolled topwater-ish dorado treats five miles out to Isla Carmen and never got anything but needlefish (which were swarming). It was a tough paddle against current and some minor rollers, so I camped out and figured I'd just do a mild 4-5 mile fishing day near camp the second day, and take it easy. Look who spoiled my plan:
After I'd paddled out about 1.5 miles from camp, my very first speed-jig drop got hit hard, by that fish. I was sporting 60 pound braid tipped with 100 pound flourocarbon leader on my burliest level-wind setup -- I've been "rocked" by big yellowtail more times than I'd like to admit, so now I prepare -- and I knew what was called for: hauling that fucker up off the bottom with as much pressure as I dared to put on him. In a kayak, it's more a question of capsizing than breaking that kind of tackle, but I was willing to edge things. The worst risk is in fact getting cut off on a rock, because the sudden release of pressure causes a fearful recoil, in which you swing fast and hard back from the direction the fish had been pulling.
Not a problem this time. For a good four or five seconds after the bite the fish didn't really react, and I pulled up four or five solid few pump-and-reel motions before he knew he was hooked, apparently. THEN he ran like a muthah, causing the drag to scream and slamming the rod butt into the cockpit coaming to tow me at an alarming pace . . . but somehow he didn't get into a rock. Whenever he paused in his shoulder-battering runs, I resumed pumping and reeling, and this went on for ten or fifteen minutes until the fish was up around 150 feet over a 250 foot bottom (I use a line-counting Shimano reel), and hell -- I rested. I could feel the burn in my shoulders and forearms, and sweat was dripping down my face even in the cool of early morning. While I rested, the fish, still a mystery but definitely under suspicion of yellowness, pulled the yak around in a large circle.
"Oh -- it's a BOSS yellow" is what I said out loud when I finally got a good look at him. I love eating yellowtail collar and yellowtail belly and hamachi sushi, and there was just no way I was going to let him go. Yet, as soon as the gaff went into him, things got serious: there goes your restful 4-5 mile day. It is now a 15 mile day of breaking camp and packing the kayak and churning against rising afternoon winds to get back to the mainland shore where there is a cooler full of ice where all that fish meat can be made safe.
I made the trip and I butchered the beast (while rioting seagulls shat all over the camp), and I ate the delicious collar.
The whole next day was devoted to eating and preparing to eat the fish: sushi with ramen for breakfast; ceviche for lunch; extended fish-smoking through the afternoon (with testing/snacking) followed by a super-delicious, fatty belly.
The fishing wasn't bad -- lots more snapper, a grouper dinner -- but the most notable event was a big snapoff, where a strong fish (the dream snook?) ran me hard into the mangrove roots and even broke the tip of my 8wt to rub it in. Maybe I could have stopped him when I was still fresh in the first days of the trip, but I wasn't fresh. I was done. Stick a fork in his ass done.
However, you would have heard no complaints, because what was really done, to perfection, was my best yet Baja winter solstice trip. I looked back at earlier trips, and realized that in tough years, like 2014, I only got a handful of days to paddle and fish amid endless bad wind. It was the opposite in 2017, for sure: so much of a blessing that it kind of became a curse as I paddled and fished (and caught!) my way to total exhaustion. Will I try again next year, knowing it could go either way? Bet on it.
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