Sea of Cortez variety and 600 pound mako on fly hookup.

Randy Richter

Went to Loreto for the first time. Traveled with my wife and can't tell you how much we loved it. The plan was to focus on dorado and striped marlin. But cold water foiled that plan and we didn't see a dorado or a billfish the entire week. Didn't matter. At Loreto, plans,B,C, and D are pretty awesome. We caught good numbers of roosterfish, will never forget them chasing the fly and pushing that comb up. I won a battle with a big pargo, and lost quite a few other battles with them. We cast to breezing schools of black skipjack that did their best to pull our arms off. Between my wife and I we caught 22 species of fish, have pics of quite a few. On the way home, we stopped in San Diego to fish sharks. I'm kind of a shark fanatic, and have wanted to do makos for some time. We were lined up with Conway, and unfortunately, his father passed away, and he referred us to Dave Trimble. I'll just say it here, Dave was amazing. He has put so much time and thought into this fishery, and as a plus, he's super fun to spend the day with. Which is good, because I booked two extended days, and on the first day, we didn't see a fish for nine hours. Then, heading into hour ten, a fish zipped by the transform, a small mako of 50 pounds or so. It ate immediately, and did lots of mako things, quick runs, three jumps ten feet or so out of the water. Super cool. And then, just as I was putting the rod away, Dave said, here comes a big one. And it was!. I've done a lot of shark fishing and have never seen a creature like that. It was an amazing animal. I asked Dave how much it weighed, he said, 600 easy. I tossed the fly, the fish garbaged it, ran hundred yards in a couple seconds, jumped 15 out of the water, and repeated this four times, except on the fourth jump, it caught a little extra air and might have been 20 feet out. But by then it was at least a quarter mile away, and it fell on the leader on the fourth jump and broke it. I woke up at 2:30 that morning, started thinking about it and couldn't go back to sleep. The next day, my wife caught two small ones right away, and I hooked fish late in the day of 600 and 400 pounds. I have a pic of the 400 pound fish eating on top of the water with it's head and top jaw out of the water. Loreto was outstanding, mako shark fishing was outstanding and I couldn't be happier.

kcque

Looks like you had a great trip.

tarponhunter

Wow absolutely awesome! I love seeing all the exotic species you can get at a new location and it looks like you did just that, thanks for sharing! I can only imagine what hooking a shark that big would be like.

sunflower

Sounds amazing.
Both Mako's and roosterfish on fly are total bucket-list fish.
Congrats on a great experience.
How was all this affected by the coronavirus?

gogittum

What a trip, eh ??  I'm envious, to put it mildly.  The only Cortez fishing I was able to get to was at Puertocitos in 2004, but I've read and lusted after the fishing you had all my life....same as FL fishing.  Had just a small tin boat and it was pretty rough, so stayed close to the campground and caught a bucket full of Spotted Bay Bass.



We only kept the bigger ones and let these little guys go, but there were hordes of them.  They turned out to be the best eating fish I've ever tried.  Maybe one day I'll get to find out if Tripletail are as good or better.....hard to picture, that.

MikeGonz

sunflower said:

Sounds amazing.
Both Mako's and roosterfish on fly are total bucket-list fish.
Congrats on a great experience.
How was all this affected by the coronavirus?

Corona affects fishing? 

Randy Richter

tarponhunter said:

Wow absolutely awesome! I love seeing all the exotic species you can get at a new location and it looks like you did just that, thanks for sharing! I can only imagine what hooking a shark that big would be like.

I love shark fishing on fly.  Lemons, bulls, black tips, spinners are all a ton of fun, and I've landed fish in the 300 range.  But looking at that mako 20 feet in the air, and just how fast they are, and how hot they come in to the boat, it was wonderful.

Randy Richter

gogittum said:

What a trip, eh ??  I'm envious, to put it mildly.  The only Cortez fishing I was able to get to was at Puertocitos in 2004, but I've read and lusted after the fishing you had all my life....same as FL fishing.  Had just a small tin boat and it was pretty rough, so stayed close to the campground and caught a bucket full of Spotted Bay Bass.



We only kept the bigger ones and let these little guys go, but there were hordes of them.  They turned out to be the best eating fish I've ever tried.  Maybe one day I'll get to find out if Tripletail are as good or better.....hard to picture, that.

Triple tail are my favorite.  Hope you get to the Sea of Cortez.  Incredibly cheap trip.  

Randy Richter

sunflower said:

Sounds amazing.
Both Mako's and roosterfish on fly are total bucket-list fish.
Congrats on a great experience.
How was all this affected by the coronavirus?

Already planning my dates next year.  Loved it.  Coronavirus saved us about a thousand dollars in airfare, we had to wear masks in the airports and on the planes, which is fine by me.  In Mexico, they had protocals at the marina, some of which made sense, some which didn't ( no open toed shoes, no shorts)  San Diego was pretty much shut down.  In Mexico, were apparently usually 30 boats would be out, there were three. Locals were not allowed to fish, only guided boats with "tourists"

Alex from GA

Your Baja trip sounds like the ones I used to make.  Usually we drove but have flown into Loreto twice and Los Cabos three times.  We lived in Glendale, CA and drove our slide-in camper with a boat behind and camped on a beach.  This was from the mid 70s through the 90s.

Randy Richter

Alex from GA said:

Your Baja trip sounds like the ones I used to make.  Usually we drove but have flown into Loreto twice and Los Cabos three times.  We lived in Glendale, CA and drove our slide-in camper with a boat behind and camped on a beach.  This was from the mid 70s through the 90s.

It's an amazing place.  Can't believe it took me this long to get there.  Can't wait to get back.  It's going to cut into my Florida time a little bit though.