DORADO EVERYWHERE!!!

This morning my boat for the first time all week was the first one out and on the lookout for dorado. Just a short distance from shore we saw a sailfish so stopped to see if we could entice him to the fly rod but to no avail so on we went. We managed to find a nice big piece of floating sargasso (seaweed) and tons and I do mean lots and lots of dorado. They were all over the place and we had them all to ourselves! We had several hookups and landed several fish each before 7am even, I've never seen anything like it. You didn't even need to cast the fly, there were so many, they hit the fly just the second it hit the water. It wasn't too long before we were found out and all the other boats converged onto the spot we'd found first but before that happened, I'd hooked up with a monster bull dorado and was well into my backing before the hoards moved in. It took me a good 45 + minutes to land this fish which was so big it didn't even register on our Bogagrip scale. The guide figures it went well over 40 pounds! Just one day of fishing left.
(all the fish in today's post were caught by me) I seem to be the only person on the boat who knows how to take a decent photo so not many photos of me!

Marine Wildlife Abounds

Finback Whales, porpoises, turtles, manta rays, sharks, sailfish, marlin, dorado, flying fish...

First Day of Fishing

Everyone had a great day today fishing. The dorado as usual are a long way from Loreto to the north but people managed to find them so that was all that counted.

We have 6 boats out each day fishing and the rest of the gang are not fishing and have rented a car so they can go exploring.

Loreto Baja California Sur 2009

I’m leading a group of anglers down to Loreto on the Sea of Cortez to do some fly-fishing for dorado, sailfish and marlin. Most of the group, are coming from the greater Seattle area and will all be on the same plane together. I am departing from Montana so I will meet up with them all in Los Angeles. So far all is going perfectly.

I opted to drive to Bozeman (hour drive) and spend the night since my flight was to depart at 6:30 am and I’d need to do an international check-in. The mere thought of getting up at 3 am to drive to the airport in the dark dodging deer along the way was not something I wanted to attempt. So, I left Saturday and headed to Bozeman to spend the night and checked in this morning allowing myself an extra hour of sleep.

Bozeman airport (Gallatin Field) has gone entirely “self serve” pretty much forcing people to have to use a computer to access their flight information and do their own boarding passes. Since I am flying on two different airlines to get to Loreto, the kiosk machine didn’t recognize my confirmation number for some reason so I had to go to the “special services” line which was mostly made up of unaccompanied minors traveling. No problem, the attendant at the counter got me taken care of and then it was off to the x-ray machines so I could explain to everyone that I had a bionic knee and would set off the machine…which in fact, I did. Then after a thorough wanding by the TSA agent I was finally good to go get a cup of coffee and wait to board my flight.

The flight was a peace of cake and we actually arrived 20 minutes early if you can believe that. I will also mention that on both of my flights this morning, Delta has given us complimentary beverages and snacks and I didn’t have to pay to check my bag. Next stop is LAX and meeting up with the group.

Well, everyone is here and the flight has been held up in Vancouver, BC due to mechanical problems, so we wait, and wait and wait. Finally around 2:30 pm (flight was supposed to have left at 11:30 am) we take off and arrive in Loreto around 5 pm local time. It's hot but not as hot as I've seen it here in the past. For the first time in ages, I manage to skip right through customs and immigration and get a green light instead of the dreaded red light so we're off to the hotel.

The hotel is lovely! La Mision Loreto has been totally redone and reopened in November. The rooms or gorgeous and huge and I think the group is very happy with this choice of accommodations. Tomorrow we go fishing.