Carl Blackledge
07-20-2017, 01:04 PM
This year I flew down to Loreto, Mexico, on June 22nd for my annual fishing adventure and stayed for three weeks. Those of us that traveled together and stayed roughly the same time shared a great deal of anticipation of great things that we hoped would happen during our early summer excursion. Loreto was blessed with tons of Sardines and piles of Sargasso patties and warm water temperatures, which taken together add up to an ideal recipe for great Dorado fishing.
But Mother Nature is often fickle and we arrived right after a giant wind storm had gone through the area and really stirred things up. It sunk the Sargasso, scattered the fish and cooled off the sea temperature. During the first few days, things were slow and we had to troll our locator flies (Chickens) to find the fish. We caught a couple of Dorado here and a couple there, and occasionally a Marlin or a Sailfish would cruise along and inhale our Chicken flies as well.
Conditions improved later in the first week when we heard that somebody had found lots of Dorado the day before, so we headed in that direction. We began trolling with our fly rods using the Chicken flies and got a double hook-up right off the bat with Dorado. And as we pulled the hooked fish closer to the boat, we were very blessed to see what we thought were at least 75-100 other fish following our hooked fish right up to the boat! So we immediately handed those rods to our guide, grabbed our other fly rods with Crease flies already attached and it was on! No matter which direction we looked all we could see were Dorado. We were on an island of fish. A hundred fish quickly turned into at least a few thousand, and our boat was the only one in the area tossing flies!
After we caught a few dozen each and started to get tired we played with different colored Sardina and Crease fly patterns. We soon discovered that the tan Sardina and the new gray Sardina were the absolute favorites as was the tan/rusty colored Crease fly. Those same colors continued to work extremely well during the entire trip. When trolling, it was either the pink Chicken or the Dorado-colored Chicken fly that ruled the roost.
For the next three days after sailing into this fishing paradise we didn't even bother to buy Sardines for chum because we didn't need any chum to get the fish to bite. We cast flies with either the RIO OBS tropical floating lines or the RIO 26-foot sink tips with Sardine patterns and had terrific results. Around the middle of the third day and after netting easily 500-600 Dorado, these fish seemed to split up into lots of smaller packs. They were still easy to find with the trolled Chicken flies but they began to look battle-worn, and soon after the weather began to turn windy and we finally lost touch with the scattered, smaller groups.
In the following days we got reports of lots of Marlin spotted in a different area, so we decided to go after them and also search for more Sargasso and new pods of Dorado while we were at it. Another friend flew in and joined me for our last week of fishing, and my first boat partner was joined by his wife who arrived around the same time. My boat partner and I hooked lots of Marlin and each landed a few, and I also landed one really good-looking Sailfish while trolling. We also hooked a few 8-10 pound Dorado (our "standard") and found some smaller packs, but only about a half dozen here and there. My friend's wife caught a really nice big Dorado, maybe 35 pounds. She happened to catch this fish during the annual Loreto fishing tournament for charity and had she entered it she likely would have won! And another lucky fisherman in the area landed a 57-pound bull Dorado on bait (but not during the tournament).
My new boat partner suggested exploring some new areas and we also decided to go hunt for Roosterfish since the seas had turned rough. The Rooster honey holes are located in an island area with protected coves away from the wind, and it took us a few days before we found them. We had lots of shots and missed a few, but we didn't miss all of them, and we had to use bait trolled with our fly rods. We seemed to catch little Roosters in the 10-15 pound range and also the giant Roosters, and not much in between. And the big ones, this year, were the biggest ones my boat partner and I have ever caught. It was a shame we couldn't get the big Roosters on cast flies, but we couldn't see them until we were on top of them. These fish weren't crashing bait like they do in other parts of Baja. Everybody knows that crashing, hungry and lit-up fish eat flies a lot easier than spooked fish do. We have caught our share of Roosters on cast flies, just not this year. Lots of times we could have cast to Roosters if we had Sardines to fire them up, however it seemed that when we found Roosters before they discovered us we didn't have any chum, and we when we did have chum, we didn't find the Roosters, Oh well, maybe next year.
When I think back over the three weeks I really enjoyed the big numbers of Dorado we caught on cast flies the best. We figured we caught maybe less than 30 on trolled flies and these while we were searching for the big packs. And the billfish are always a special treat when you find them by accident while looking for Dorado. Catching the Roosters, both big and small was a blast, and we also got a few Jack Crevalle, which was really cool, too. All in all, this was the best fishing year we had in about the last six, and I hope this will bode well for us next summer.
Many of the same people have fished Loreto in the early summer for years. I always enjoy the camaraderie of the group and everyone always has good things to say about the hospitality of the Oasis Hotel. The guides are experienced and professional and to some of us they feel like family. And even though Loreto is a quiet little town, there are lots of restaurants with different types of cuisine for those who want to go out in the evening.
Here's a list of the equipment I used:
Rods:
Sage Xi3 12-weight, 4 piece
Best rod for casting the Sardina and Crease flies. I take three and one is a back-up.
Sage Xi3 14-weight, 4 piece
This is the rod I use to troll the Chicken flies.
Reels:
Abel Super 12: This reel on the 12-weight fly rods with 500 yards of Power Pro backing accommodates any fly line I want with plenty of clearance.
For trolling I use the Tibor Pacific QC reel with 500 yards of Power Pro backing, 125 feet of 60-pound clear mono. running line, and a 30-foot, 550 grain sinking shooting head. I prefer the RIO billfish line, because it has a breaking strength in excess of 72 pounds.
Lines:
For casting floating lines it's pretty much impossible to buy a better fly line then the RIO OBS tropical floating line in 12-weight. On a Sage
12-weight rod, that line tosses the big Crease flies around like they are nothing.
For casting the Sardina patterns I use the RIO integrated 26-foot sink tips in 500 grains. This is the best sink tip on the market and casts the Sardina flies brilliantly.
Flies:
The flies we used were the deer hair Sardina flies with the tan or olive backs, and this year it seemed that gray with silver Mylar was a great choice for Dorado. We used olive and rusty-colored Crease flies in 2/0 and 4/0, the rusty-colored turning out to be the most popular choice. The best trolling flies (locator) were the pink Chicken or the Dorado-colored Chicken flies with a slight edge to the Dorado, and the blue ones took third place this year.
Post Script:
If anyone would like more information about Loreto please feel free to send me an email. I'm not selling any thing; I just love to talk about my favorite fishing destination.
Carl Blackledge
[click here to display pictures]131121311313114131151311613123131241312513126
But Mother Nature is often fickle and we arrived right after a giant wind storm had gone through the area and really stirred things up. It sunk the Sargasso, scattered the fish and cooled off the sea temperature. During the first few days, things were slow and we had to troll our locator flies (Chickens) to find the fish. We caught a couple of Dorado here and a couple there, and occasionally a Marlin or a Sailfish would cruise along and inhale our Chicken flies as well.
Conditions improved later in the first week when we heard that somebody had found lots of Dorado the day before, so we headed in that direction. We began trolling with our fly rods using the Chicken flies and got a double hook-up right off the bat with Dorado. And as we pulled the hooked fish closer to the boat, we were very blessed to see what we thought were at least 75-100 other fish following our hooked fish right up to the boat! So we immediately handed those rods to our guide, grabbed our other fly rods with Crease flies already attached and it was on! No matter which direction we looked all we could see were Dorado. We were on an island of fish. A hundred fish quickly turned into at least a few thousand, and our boat was the only one in the area tossing flies!
After we caught a few dozen each and started to get tired we played with different colored Sardina and Crease fly patterns. We soon discovered that the tan Sardina and the new gray Sardina were the absolute favorites as was the tan/rusty colored Crease fly. Those same colors continued to work extremely well during the entire trip. When trolling, it was either the pink Chicken or the Dorado-colored Chicken fly that ruled the roost.
For the next three days after sailing into this fishing paradise we didn't even bother to buy Sardines for chum because we didn't need any chum to get the fish to bite. We cast flies with either the RIO OBS tropical floating lines or the RIO 26-foot sink tips with Sardine patterns and had terrific results. Around the middle of the third day and after netting easily 500-600 Dorado, these fish seemed to split up into lots of smaller packs. They were still easy to find with the trolled Chicken flies but they began to look battle-worn, and soon after the weather began to turn windy and we finally lost touch with the scattered, smaller groups.
In the following days we got reports of lots of Marlin spotted in a different area, so we decided to go after them and also search for more Sargasso and new pods of Dorado while we were at it. Another friend flew in and joined me for our last week of fishing, and my first boat partner was joined by his wife who arrived around the same time. My boat partner and I hooked lots of Marlin and each landed a few, and I also landed one really good-looking Sailfish while trolling. We also hooked a few 8-10 pound Dorado (our "standard") and found some smaller packs, but only about a half dozen here and there. My friend's wife caught a really nice big Dorado, maybe 35 pounds. She happened to catch this fish during the annual Loreto fishing tournament for charity and had she entered it she likely would have won! And another lucky fisherman in the area landed a 57-pound bull Dorado on bait (but not during the tournament).
My new boat partner suggested exploring some new areas and we also decided to go hunt for Roosterfish since the seas had turned rough. The Rooster honey holes are located in an island area with protected coves away from the wind, and it took us a few days before we found them. We had lots of shots and missed a few, but we didn't miss all of them, and we had to use bait trolled with our fly rods. We seemed to catch little Roosters in the 10-15 pound range and also the giant Roosters, and not much in between. And the big ones, this year, were the biggest ones my boat partner and I have ever caught. It was a shame we couldn't get the big Roosters on cast flies, but we couldn't see them until we were on top of them. These fish weren't crashing bait like they do in other parts of Baja. Everybody knows that crashing, hungry and lit-up fish eat flies a lot easier than spooked fish do. We have caught our share of Roosters on cast flies, just not this year. Lots of times we could have cast to Roosters if we had Sardines to fire them up, however it seemed that when we found Roosters before they discovered us we didn't have any chum, and we when we did have chum, we didn't find the Roosters, Oh well, maybe next year.
When I think back over the three weeks I really enjoyed the big numbers of Dorado we caught on cast flies the best. We figured we caught maybe less than 30 on trolled flies and these while we were searching for the big packs. And the billfish are always a special treat when you find them by accident while looking for Dorado. Catching the Roosters, both big and small was a blast, and we also got a few Jack Crevalle, which was really cool, too. All in all, this was the best fishing year we had in about the last six, and I hope this will bode well for us next summer.
Many of the same people have fished Loreto in the early summer for years. I always enjoy the camaraderie of the group and everyone always has good things to say about the hospitality of the Oasis Hotel. The guides are experienced and professional and to some of us they feel like family. And even though Loreto is a quiet little town, there are lots of restaurants with different types of cuisine for those who want to go out in the evening.
Here's a list of the equipment I used:
Rods:
Sage Xi3 12-weight, 4 piece
Best rod for casting the Sardina and Crease flies. I take three and one is a back-up.
Sage Xi3 14-weight, 4 piece
This is the rod I use to troll the Chicken flies.
Reels:
Abel Super 12: This reel on the 12-weight fly rods with 500 yards of Power Pro backing accommodates any fly line I want with plenty of clearance.
For trolling I use the Tibor Pacific QC reel with 500 yards of Power Pro backing, 125 feet of 60-pound clear mono. running line, and a 30-foot, 550 grain sinking shooting head. I prefer the RIO billfish line, because it has a breaking strength in excess of 72 pounds.
Lines:
For casting floating lines it's pretty much impossible to buy a better fly line then the RIO OBS tropical floating line in 12-weight. On a Sage
12-weight rod, that line tosses the big Crease flies around like they are nothing.
For casting the Sardina patterns I use the RIO integrated 26-foot sink tips in 500 grains. This is the best sink tip on the market and casts the Sardina flies brilliantly.
Flies:
The flies we used were the deer hair Sardina flies with the tan or olive backs, and this year it seemed that gray with silver Mylar was a great choice for Dorado. We used olive and rusty-colored Crease flies in 2/0 and 4/0, the rusty-colored turning out to be the most popular choice. The best trolling flies (locator) were the pink Chicken or the Dorado-colored Chicken flies with a slight edge to the Dorado, and the blue ones took third place this year.
Post Script:
If anyone would like more information about Loreto please feel free to send me an email. I'm not selling any thing; I just love to talk about my favorite fishing destination.
Carl Blackledge
[click here to display pictures]131121311313114131151311613123131241312513126