A trip to Paradise: Rancho Leonero (August 2023) Part 1

[Latimeria]

The much-awaited Baja vacation was upon us.  I took my first Uber to the airport with XXL Rod tube and Ginormous suitcase in hand.
It's been a while since I was last at the airport, so I can't believe how much bigger and crowded it got!  I get a text from Steve he was inside, and we started the process of checking in and waiting in one long ass line through security.  Amazingly it moved pretty quickly, and we got to our gate in plenty of time.





The flight was good and there was even plenty of leg room for Steve!  We landed without a hitch and got off the plane to 95+ heat with 80% humidity... YIKES!  We grabbed our gear and started making our way through customs.  I brought 6 rods and reels instead of the 4 that are only allowed for international travel to Mexico.  Thankfully I split up the reels between my suitcase and carry-on, as they pulled me over for a search.  Steve got through just fine, but apparently the XXL rod tube gave some suspicions.  Well, he went through everything except my carry-on and let me go since I only had 4 reels in my suitcase.  Now I had to find where Squatch disappeared to.

I found him and we made our way to the Rancho Leonero van that was picking us up.  We were slightly delayed because we had to wait for a second unscheduled party, but it wasn't that bad at all and a couple of good guys.  We stopped for travel cervezas and fresh tortillas from the town before hitting the highway.





It was beautiful scenery on the ride up and many of the arroyos had water in it from the day before.  Tropical Storm Eugene had dumped a lot of water in the region and there was plenty of greenery.

We got to the Ranch and I truly haven't felt this good in the last 3 years! 





After a few arrival pictures we checked in and made our way to the room.  It was just as beautiful as I hoped.
Everyone was still out fishing for the day, so we had the place to ourselves to explore.















The room was quite adequate with just the bare minimum essentials and the bar was on point overlooking the Sea of Cortez!
We realized we arrived just in time for lunch being served.  Food here was served in 2-hour periods every day when the cooks came in from town, so if you weren't here, you didn't get to eat until the next scheduled meal.  Lol



For us, it was a lentil soup and fresh fish tacos.  Steve doesn't eat fish, but he gobbled down those tacos and was thankful for all of the flavorful toppings that masked the fish for him.  I think he even liked it!  This is only the second time I've seen Steve eat fish!



After some surveying the property and putting down some ice-cold drinks from the bar, the boats started to arrive back from their day of fishing and the quiet ranch was full and vibrant.  We overheard some of the fishing stories from the day and met a few folks we would see all week.



After surveying the ranch, Steve and I made our way down to the surf to get a little casting in.  I was switching up between a cast master and small plastics, but the KM kept getting slammed, but I could never get a hook in them.  Steve started off using small plastics and at first, we were getting bumped all the time but not hooking up.  Finally, Squatch was first to strike with a friggand Lookdown!  Holy crap!  That was one of my lifer fish that I never thought I would see caught!



We followed it up with some Pacific Graysbys and Flag Cabrilla. I get my first weird one and a nice Guineafowl Puffer came rolling up on the sand with my hook in his face.
Steve caught pretty much the same and ended the first day with a big beautiful Coronetfish!









Back to the room for a quick clean up and head out to dinner for another wonderful meal.  After desert, we went back to the room to prep for the boat in the morning!
The boat dock was no longer there, so it was kind of sketchy doing the surf launches, but we got the little green panga.  Apparently, all the boats were reserved, so we got the backup/call boat to take us fishing.



All I can say is thankfully Squatch knows a hell of a lot of Spanish.  I can catch a bunch of words and form a sentence from what I think they are saying, but Steve can also roughly speak it (Pretty friggin good I may add).  The captains do a lot of sh!t talking on the radio and Steve waits just until they feel comfortable saying what they are saying then he rings back some Spanish to them making them whiter than we are.  LOL, he has that talent!





The goal was Roosterfish, even though he just wanted to take us for tuna and dorado.  We went to the fleet to make bait since there wasn't anyone to buy bait from.  The bait here was plenty of new species for us, but also monsters as bait goes.  I should have taken pictures of all the separate baits, but the captain wanted them straight into the tank so we can fish and not take pics of bait.  We got Spanish Jacks, Green Jacks, another type of mystery jack, a small Jack Crevalle (I took a video in the bait tank, and pretty sure I saw one in there), Sardinia, and my first Black Skipjacks!







We drifted and slow trolled all of the local Rooster spots in some of the most beautiful shorelines I've seen.  Around the lighthouse was the apparent go-to spot and it was just fabulous.





After about 3 hours of nothing (no one on the radio looking for roosters were finding anything either), we decided to switch it up and go for dorado.  The funny thing is we only moved about a ½ mile out before putting these small little feathers out for the troll.  Immediately the center rod goes off and Squatch grabs the rod.  Just then a BIG ASS sailfish starts tail-walking 50 feet behind the boat!!!  WTF?!?!?!



Steve played him until the sailfish said "I had enough of this" and threw the feather.  Now my blood was pumping!
We trolled feathers and I kept getting slammed by dodo, but they wouldn't stick.  Steve wound up getting the first onboard with a nice chicken!  Then the Captain had me driving the boat.  I kind of felt right at home. LOL







Our captain then did something really weird.  He cut strips from the filets of the Jacks and put them on hooks like you were going to drop down for rockfish (minus the weights) and proceeded to slow troll these strips of meat literally 25' behind the boat.  Skeptical Tom was in full effect at this point.... Until he wasn't.
It was pretty much dorado on every bait after that or a thrown hook. 







Such a weird way in my head to catch them, but I couldn't argue the success!
I even had one that had a total black head on him.  I took some pics and lifted him in the boat to get some pictures before releasing it and within 30 seconds, the head went green on me.  So weird.



We continued the troll and I get a hug takedown on the outrigger.  I looked to see what I thought was a small sailfish tail walking, but the captain eyeballed it better as a giant needlefish.  These needlefish (Houndfish) out here are just monstrous!



It was getting close to calling it the day when Steve gets whalloped and we had a triple header going.  After releasing them, I pinned on a big green jack as the captain requested so we could hope to find the 50# dorado.  I was almost taken back when my rod doubled over and the line started screaming out!  WTF!?!?



It went from feeling giant to just feeling big and the biggest dorado of the day came up.  I can't believe this fish ate that bait we chucked  out there, but we were stoked.  That was it, we were on our way in bummed we didn't get a Rooster, but super stoked of all the action we had to end the day!
We got back to shower and clean up before hitting the bar and having another great dinner!  I had one of the Mahi cooked up to go along with the Mexican meal they served up and felt like I was going to pop.



After we used some drinks to settle down the food, we looked down to see cows just strolling by the bar on the beach.  Just randon cows walking the beach to nowhere...  That's where I found ut that Squatch is not a fan of cows.


End of Part 1....

[sasquatch]

Like I was back there again.

[KogaHead]

you troll strip baits up here

[jrodda]

Ps if you end up in the Gulf of Mexico, I caught a handful of Atlantic Lookdowns from the Bob Hall Pier, along with similar but different big forehead fish. See if I can dig those pics up later.

Just made the connection now with that pier to the fishing convention, guy got around.

[skrilla]

Great start!

[vdisney]

Great read, awesome pictures

[Latimeria]

Ps if you end up in the Gulf of Mexico, I caught a handful of Atlantic Lookdowns from the Bob Hall Pier, along with similar but different big forehead fish. See if I can dig those pics up later.

I've fished the gulf many times, but never got lucky enough to get one for some reason.  In any case, I'll be there this November so maybe I'll get the Atlantic Species.

[Pinoyfisher]

This is awesome!!! Living the dream guys!!