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| That's no bag lady. It's me with a small roosterfish |
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| A crazed Steve Kyle fights a dorado |
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| Les Vadasz with skipjack caught trolling a fly |
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| Michael Ross holds up yellowtail he caught |
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| Steve Page wrestles with a big yellowtail |
Loreto is located on the Sea of
Cortez about midway down the peninsula.
The chain of California missions began there in 1697, and over the next
150 years, it stretched all the way to Sonoma, with 21 missions established in
Baja and another 25 in Alta.
It wasn't for a review of early
California history that 15 Squidheads disembarked onto the hot tarmac of the
small Loreto airport last Thursday, but rather for the manly sport of fooling
fish with feathers. I should note that a
few knuckle-draggers in our midst also resorted to bait.
We were met by Sonoman Les Clark,
who, with his wife Linda, purchased Las Cabañas de Loreto in 2003 and have been
hosting (with the assistance of his daughter Jill and son-in-law Richard
Jackson) a growing number of anglers,
including Sonomans, ever since.
The day we arrived it was so hot
the locals were chewing jalapeños to keep their mouths cool.
The Squidheads included Dale
Downing, Michael Ross, Kevin Jaggie, Clem Moore, Ed Moore, Mike Sangiacomo, Les
Vadasz, Steve Page, Jeff Walter, Jim Powers, Bill Brinton, Charlie Brinton,
Bobby Brinton, Kyle and myself. We were loaded with all the necessary weapons
and materials needed for the mission, including saltwater fly rods and reels,
SPF 5000 sun block, and super-strength liquid cork (aka Imodium). Most of the other necessary supplies, Mexican
fishing licenses, 250 cases of beer, 100 cases of wine, chips, salsa, etc.,
were requisitioned in-country.
Our first briefing, held in the
lovely tiled and shaded courtyard of Las Cabañas, began with these five most
dreaded words…"You should have been here...(last week, last year, last
century?)."
"El Niño," or "La
Niña," was messing with the currents and the water temperature in the Gulf
of California, causing the sardines, to divert to Tahiti for their summer
vacation.
"So? We're not fishing for
sardines," I muttered to myself.
Les Clark explained that the
sardines and large game fish such as the Dorado had an intimate relationship of
the gastronomical kind. No sardines meant no Dorado. But our fearless leader, Kyle, who would cast
a fly into a storm drain if he thought it held fish, had a backup plan,
beautiful in its simplicity – "If it swims, we fish for it."
And to this task the Squidheads
bent their backs and elbows for the following four days, catching and releasing
everything from marlin to tuna, roosterfish, bonita, skipjack, jack crevalle,
snappers, moray eels, guppies, goldfish,
and even a few small dorados (the one's that didn't get the memo about Tahiti).
It was in the water, some Squidhead threw a line at it. Letters of apology (and
new bikini tops) are being sent to a few young ladies who swam just a little
too far from the beach.
The results, though less than
spectacular, were just enough to brag about every evening as we shared our accomplishments.
It should be noted that the bar was set relatively low and the most outstanding
achievement was that of a certain member of our group who managed to leave home
without his wallet and survive the week with only his passport – no money and no
credit cards.
Part II
Any avid fisherman who says he
has not pondered the idea of owning his own fishing lodge somewhere on a river,
lake or beach is probably lying. But how many of us would actually be willing
to do it.
I know only one guy – Les Clark, our
host at Las Cabañas de Loreto.
Les, a 40-year Sonoma resident
who had a long and successful career as a trainer and dean of a Police Officer
Standards and Training (POST) School in Sacramento, has always been an avid
outdoorsman and fisherman. One day in
February of 2003, he and his wife Linda were doing some fishing and touring in
Loreto when Linda spotted a "Se Vende" (for sale) sign on a small set
of bungalows nestled just off the beach.
She showed Les, and before they knew it, they were negotiating a deal to
buy the place.
No strangers to the hospitality
trade having run a small local B&B on their east-side Sonoma property, they
had some idea of what they were in for, but it was still quite a commitment,
considering Sonoma is a challenging two and a half day drive from Loreto.
Undaunted, they signed the deal
and began operating that very spring, eventually adding four more cabaña units,
a pool, and covered patio and cooking area.
With that arrangement, they can host up to 12 people, and when necessary,
will even move out of their home on the property and accommodate a few more.
You can find all the information you need to book a cabaña on their website at
www.lascabanasdeloreto.com.
Les and Linda spend a little more
than half the year in Loreto, and when they are not there, their daughter Jill
and her husband Richard Jackson, a talented nature photographer, run the place.
He has lots of interesting
stories about his early days in Loreto and could probably write a book about
the trials and tribulations of being an American and trying to build, expand
and operate a resort in Mexico, but he doesn't seem to be showing any signs of
regrets. In fact, he and Linda are
working on getting dual citizenship to make it better from a business finance
perspective. There is a growing number of Americans moving to Loreto, and those
considering such a move often seek Les and Linda out.
Most important – he bought a boat
and gets to go fishing three to four times a week.
But it isn't just the
fishing.
One night after a dinner with the
group on the patio, Les invited me up to his favorite spot on the resort, a
covered second story patio overlooking the beach. A moon was rising from the Sea of Cortez, and
a gentle breeze kept the warm night a perfect temperature. Smoking a cigar and
sipping a cool beverage, he talked about life in Loreto; about how much he
liked the people, the local government, the town and life there in
general. If there was ever a man at
peace with his life-changing decision it is Les Clark.
The Sonoma Squidheads, there only
for the short term, were more intently focused on the fishing, on which a
"score" of sorts was kept.
Photo by Squidhead Photo Service
LES CLARK (standing) hosted the
Sonoma Squidheads group, including Bill Brinton and Dale Downing, at his Las Cabañas de Loreto resort last week
in Loreto, Mexico.
Part III
Before flying to Loreto, I had no
clear idea what ocean fly-fishing was really like. My angling days are spent on mountain streams
and lakes, fooling small trout with feathers made to look like bugs.
I knew something was different
when our trusty leader, Steve Kyle, sent us a pre-flight list of flies to
purchase. I went to Leland Fly Fishing
Ranch in Schellville and gave my list to Art Hau, who showed me Leland's
selection in those patterns. The
so-called flies were bigger than most of the trout I catch, weighed more than
my cat, Lizzy, and had huge, ugly, googly eyes.
"How in the heck am I going
to cast that?" I wondered to myself.
Hundreds of dollars later I had
my answer – a new, big, saltwater fly rod and equally big (and expensive)
saltwater fly reel.
I didn't have time to hire a
personal trainer to help me beef up the muscles in my right arm and shoulder,
so I began practicing casting the new rig with two hands. The technique I chose
was something I'd seen at the hammer-throw and shot put events in the 2008
Olympics. I was as prepared as I was
going to be.
There were humans living in Baja
more than 3,000 years before the arrival of the Sonoma Squidheads. Deep in its
rugged mountains are caves on which the ancient inhabitants made drawings. In a shallow cave not far from the Squidhead
digs at Las Cabañas de Loreto, is a faded painting that appears to show several
men fishing from a crude dugout canoe.
Two of them are using small fish for bait, while a third seems to be
casting a bunch of feathers. One of the
men using bait is gesturing to the other bait angler by pointing the thumb of
his left hand back over his shoulder toward the third guy, and twirling the
index figure of his other hand near his head and rolling his eyes. (It is truly
amazing how sophisticated those early cave painters were).
My first hint that this was not
Isaac Walton country was on the first morning, when my fishing partner for the
day, Les Vadasz, and I spent the first 20 minutes on the boat watching a guy
net a whole bunch of big-eyed bait fish, which Jesus, our captain, put into the
boat's live well.
We had no sooner cleared the
breakwater than Jesus pointed off our port bow to a chaotic scene of diving
birds and boiling water.
"Bull.... something," he shouted.
My Spanish is not as good as it once was, but
from the way the hundreds of little fish were jumping out of the water
virtually into the gaping mouths of diving pelicans, I assumed that there was a
BFF (big friggin' fish) after them from below.
Jesus gave the outboard a little more throttle and brought our boat
within 40 feet of the scene, pointed to Les and me and said, "OK,
work!"
The night before, we had both
tied on the flies that Kyle had recommended.
I swear one of their googly eyes
winked at me as I swung my rod into a false cast and then let the line go. The fly landed well short of all of the
action and Jesus rolled his eyes. I
quickly made another cast, again falling short.
By this time the BFF and its prey were moving rapidly away from the boat
followed by the flock of diving pelicans.
Without wasting any more eye rolling, Jesus picked up a big bait-casting
rod the length an width of a closet pole, reached into the live well and pulled
out flopping big-eye about six inches long, put a hook through its mouth, and
cast it about a 500 yards toward the boiling water. Within seconds his rod jerked and the reel
started screaming.
Les and I just stood there with
our limp rods in our hands.
Jesus handed his rig, the reel
still screaming away, to Les, pointed in the general direction of the fish and
again said, "Bull."
At first I thought he meant the
fish was strong as a bull or he was saying "pull," because it
appeared to be pulling Les over the side.
Actually the local name for the
fish he'd hooked was "Toro" (bull in English). The official name for
it is Jack Crevalle, a very tough, hard-fighting, tackle-busting fish.
Les fought that bull valiantly,
but it appeared to be winning. We fly fishers are used to letting our little
buggy-whip rods do all the work tiring the fish, but there was no whip in the
rod Les held and it was hooked to what appeared to be a passing '89 Buick
headed for Cabo San Lucas.
Jesus finally took mercy on him
and showed him how to use the heavy rod as a lever, literally
"jacking" the Buick back toward the boat and then reeling in line
quickly as leverage was gained. After another 30 minutes, Les had the bull
alongside. It weighed about 30 pounds,
but until we saw it, both Les and I thought it was much bigger.
"That was a very strong
fish," Les stated. He looked done for the day and it was only 6:45 a.m.
I learned two important things in
that first hour:
1. Pound for pound, saltwater
fish are a hundred times stronger and faster than freshwater varieties.
2. Those guys in the cave
painting, the two using bait, were right.
(More about what I learned about
salt water fly fishing next week.)
Part IV
Jesus says, "Where there are
boobies, there are fish."
He is a great fisherman with the
eyesight of a blue footed boobie.
These sharp-billed, sharp-eyed sea birds glide through the air, a few
inches above the water, dip their beaks in at just the right time and catch their
dinner.
The Squidheads were assigned in
twos to a panga every day. On three of
the four days, I was fortunate enough to have Jesus as our panga captain. My
daily partners included Les Vadasz, Steve Kyle and Steve Page.
Jesus had the uncanny ability to
see boobies miles in the distance. He
could also tell the difference between a slight ripple on the surface of the
sea caused by the wind and ripples made by schools of sardines and other bait
fish.
My partners and I were always
looking for boobies and ripples too, but if it wasn't for Jesus, we wouldn't
have even seen a fish, let alone catch one.
He would watch for boobies, spot
the bait fish, motor us close and then shout, "OK, work!"
We're were expected to jump up on
the deck and cast our googly-eyed sardine flies to the area where the bait fish
were visible. More often than not our
casts would fall short, or in the wrong spot, and Jesus would roll his eyes,
sigh and motor us into position again.
If we failed two or three times in a row, he'd put some live bait on a
hook and cast out himself, more often than not hooking a fish and handing one
of us the rod.
The resemblance to traditional
fly-fishing with bug imitations was nil.
The heavy flies and equally heavy fly rods made casting a challenge,
particularly with the boat rocking in the waves and the air temperature in the
low hundreds. After five minutes of this
work, I was glad to let Jesus try his hand while I sat down and caught my
breath.
We played this hunt, motor and
cast game over miles of water from dawn until our brains were fried by the sun.
Once in awhile, I'd actually see a fishing follow my fly. Finally, on the third
day, I made a cast close enough to the
boiling bait fish that a dorado launched himself at it like a jet-propelled
torpedo, grabbed it, and headed toward the equator at the speed of sound.
I learned the hard way that you
don't "palm" your reel when fighting a salt-water fish. The reel handle bloodied my knuckles and the
turning spool burned a nice line in my hand.
The fish just kept taking line.
Dorado are strong, athletic
fighters, who unlike many oceans species, like to jump. My dorado jumped, dove,
circled the boat, went deep, bent my fly rod nearly double, and only after
about 20 minutes was I able to bring him in.
He weighed eight pounds, which is small. We let him go. I was tired.
It is hard to imagine what a 30 to 50 pounder would have done to me.
Not all of my fellow Squidheaders
were as reluctant to use bait. Several
used boat roads, heavy duty reels rigged with heavy line and baited to catch some
really large yellowtail (tuna), a sailfish and some large dorado and
roosterfish.
The flyrodders were less
successful, but we did manage to hook a few dorado and some roosterfish as
well.
The story from our leader, Steve
Kyle, is that when the sardines are in, everybody can catch big dorado on flies
(or using a spinning reel casting imitation sardines.) We'll have to wait until next year.
People ask me if it was a good
trip, and I answer "Yes. It was actually a great trip, not so much because
I caught a lot of fish (because I didn't), but because of the shared experience
with a great bunch of fellow Sonomans and especially the warm hospitality of
Les Clark and his family at Las Cabañas de Loreto. I look forward to the next
one. If you want a little more information, check out a little video I made
(warning may not be suitable for all audiences).
Great Squidheads
Adventure of 2011 http://vimeo.com/13138232
