Got some frozen peas and went to Newport jetty to try for a new species. I was not fishing for Garibaldi. On my way out I talked to two people:

Newbie fisherman with his girlfriend: "hey do you know what those orange fish are?"
"Oh those are Garibaldi, state fish! They're protected, can't keep 'em."

Wildlife observer lady: "See those orange fish? They're protected."
"Oh yeah they are, Garibaldi! State fish! I would never!"

There were a number of them, maybe one every 30-50 feet.

I found what seemed like a good pocket between kelp and more than one species around and hopped down the rocks. 3/8oz dropshot on the ultralight seemed like it was scaring the fish so I dropped down to a 1/16oz splitshot, about the same size as the peas. I started flinging some peas in for chum and watched both the opaleye and the Garibaldi move in on the snacks.

However, the state fish would not have it when, by some odd chance, my pea would end up in front of it.

I did get the skunk off with an Opaleye quickly enough. I already count it on my species list but didn't get a pic when I caught a couple 20 years ago.



I pitched behind a stone where perchance a state fish was and I got bit. Uh oh! Set the hook and thankfully something else came up, my first Black Surfperch! I found the blue hue under the scales to be pretty cool.



I managed another slightly larger Opaleye but couldn't find any other willing biters. I tried a few more spots along the jetty but nothing else produced, and the tide was turning, so I skedoodled.

Good to see you came away with something, can't wait for the report.

Popped off the birthday weekend fishing a new local lake with Jared. Not exactly allowed to fish there but, to my understanding, I don't care.

Tried a 1/8oz KM to start, which I did get a couple bites on. Jared threw a dropshot for a while for a couple bites.

Then I switched to a 3/16oz spinnerbait and got slammed. Really dogged me, then got a good glimpse. Tabby bass!



No other bites. We parked in a place we shouldn't have but we did not get any slaps on any wrists by any HOAs. I will consider returning to this lake as a source for light after-work entertainment. I hear there are grass carp in there.

Cool trip! Crawfish boil at your house???

Hope to see you loaded up on biscuits this time!

Hopefully it opens the door for some great change for you. In the meantime enjoy the extra fishing!

Stressful though I'm sure. Hang in there.

Cool report. Too bad about the lost tuna, but that's a pretty crazy sight to see a big ass sea lion throwing a hundred pounder around. At least you got bit, should give some hope for the season.

I got a kite and rigged some plastic flyers a while ago and never got to use them. Would love to see a kite bite for you this year.

Mouth watering...

Clever! Interested to see how it works for you.

You've got cool friends to be doing that all the time! Great trip.

Mosquitos are the worst, I almost always forget they exist until it's too late...there was one in all of Mexico this weekend and it had the audacity to bite me right on my heel, where my shoe would irritate the bite. They know where to cause the most damage.

Nice! I feel like I'd be a shell guy if/when I get a truck. Hope the window stuff gets sorted out quick.

Productive, solid session!

Quote from: Latimeria on June 17, 2025, 09:37:37 AMGreat read Jeremy and what a terrible way to start the trip.  I have to admit just looking at the beaches, it yelled Arizona to me for some reason, like a spot Koga would go to drink bad booze.

Congrats on the new species and are those really spotted bass or possibly a different sub species?  They actually look a little different.

Once again, thanks for the report and the bloody hand.  I got stuck with a little sergeant major down in Baja and I swear it f@cked up my hand for the entire week.

The spotties sure did seem brighter, I'm guessing due to the 81° water. I really have a hard time believing they aren't at least a different subspecies but all the serious sources say it's one species.

I mentioned Koga to several Arizonians while I was down there, they all said they still remember the smell.

Nice numbers and variety at least.

Sounds like I will be sure to bring in the hook cutting tools to urgent care whenever that ends up happening. Gotta appreciate their enthusiasm!

Interesting place! Caught a cold that started the day before leaving. Morning of leaving, I had a few false starts before I successfully got out of bed. Woof. Would have called out sick if it were work for sure.

7 hour drive, no serious traffic there. 405 -> 805 -> 8 -> 98 -> Calexico border crossing. I've never taken the 8 through eastern SD county so that was a nice change of scenery for me. Acorn casino was awfully busy for Friday at noon.

Mexicali was confusing, thank god for Google maps. Then southeast through a bunch of broken down farm/industrial towns. Passed by a man selling peanuts at the local speed bump.

Then a 50 mile straight highway through desert. Lonely but decent two lane road, easily cruise 70.

Then another 70 miles through desert, winding around a bit, very boring, but keeping speed. A few glimpses of the very top of the Golfo de California. Kinda brown and salty that far up though.

Arrived to our resort, the Bella Sirena, at 4pm. I got out of the car and I was pretty lightheaded, but got us checked in alright.

We walked down the beach to our first dinner on the beach. I was a little too wiped out to fish during the first afternoon.



Set an alarm for 0500, slept in til 0545. Dragged myself out to the beach.

The tides here are wicked. According to Windy they were 0'-14' while I was there. I would believe it if it were even more. I worked an 0900 low tide. Every 15 minutes or so, I would look up and realize the beach had changed just a little bit.

There ran two sets of rocky reefs parallel to the beach, with about 50-100 yards of sand separating them. On this first morning, only the last outside reef was submerged in water. I walked out and started casting, looking for my first bite. I knew if I couldn't get bit here I would be the biggest fool on the planet, but it took switching through a 1oz KM, a 5" white grub, then noticed the schools of micro bait swimming at my feet. So I switched to a 1oz c-rig with a white perch grub to get my first fish, almost instantly too.

Welcome to a home away from home!



Happy to get my skunk off with an extra colorful spotty, but still a bit nervous not to catch a new species.

The bite went wide open with the perch grub. I was getting bit every single cast, catching fish probably every other cast. All micro spotties. Biggest was around 10".



I finished the morning with around 30 spotties to my name, no other species. Fun fishing on the perch setup!

I'm really trying to relay the tide movement here because it's pretty unbelievable, I suppose due to how high up it is in the already narrow gulf.





Did some stuff through the middle of the day. Had some fresh oysters that tasted like a launch ramp at this bayside eatery.



Croaker in a market.




In the afternoon I decided to find some cracks between the Arizonians on the beach to cast. I was now working the top of the tide. The high rocks in the above pictures were completely submerged, and the backside of my casts were working the sandy bottom.



I had a feeling that would open up my species a little bit. There was a lot of loose orange algae in the water which I feared would ruin the session, but my very first cast, I got bit as soon as I hit water. A fun fight and I got my first Leatherjack!



After getting the algae off of the line and the fish released, my next cast was also an instant hookup. This persisted, and I went about 6 for 9 casts. Then as I was handling the last one, its dorsal stabbed me really good. I dropped it and started bleeding quite a bit (I just now was reading that these fish have venom in these fins, which might explain the pain, but it thankfully didn't swell).



Got it back in the water and I didn't have a towel to wipe off, so I went back to the resort to clean up. Spent the rest of the evening resting, as the cold was still taking a lot out of me.



Sunday morning, got of bed at 0600. Went to the local jetty. No wind, very clear. I saw some aquarium type fishes close to the rocks, definitely sergeant majors alongside possible wrasse and balloonfish. I brought some crappie hair jigs and KMs, but they were uninterested. Maybe I should have kept the last leatherjack for cut bait. I bet that would have gotten me somewhere. My cold really kicked my ass as I was rock hopping and had to walk back a solid quarter mile to the car once in 90º weather to fetch the KMs. The tide shifted enough to move the visible fish during my walk to the car and I couldn't locate them again. Totally gassed, so I left.


Sunday evening, I went out and cleaned up on the leatherjacks with a fair mix of spotties. I probably caught 40 fish, 25 leatherjacks to 15 spotties. The leatherjacks started putting on a show, and would jump a couple times on a good fight. Very fun on the perch gear.




Long road back today. I accidentally drove into one of the many oddly named express-lanes for the border, and thankfully the border agent just told me not to do it again because I was clearly bewildered and knew I made a mistake. Saved a lot of time...

Do I recommend Puerto Peñasco? They say it's "Arizona's Beach" which is probably more the proper audience. I appreciated being able to rent a Tuscan Villa style resort condo for a long weekend at a very reasonable price, fish on the beach, and enjoy some subtropical weather. It is quite a boring 7 hour drive to get there, and while the fishing was wide open, it wasn't exactly big Cabrilla or anything extraordinary. I think the water might have warmed up a little early and pushed out some of the variety, so maybe coming in April or May might be better to see more reef fishes, corvina, and flunder. Overall though, good safe accessible beachfront resort area!