Softer Adventure
Nine days in Baja, where the fish are real and the vices don't count.
An international fishing trip that can come together in less than 14 days is a special love language of mine. Kyle and I had been dreaming of white sand beaches for a few years, but had put them off in favor of more challenging destinations and hosting trips for Black Earth Angling. After barely crawling out of a year made up of losing our home of a decade, three months apart, living at my mom's, buying during a historically bad housing market, mental burnout, overhauling our guide business, and very narrowly escaping divorce — we decided it was time to treat ourselves to a softer kind of adventure. Enter Baja.
Baja entered my radar after viewing the cult favorite Running Down the Man early in my fly fishing career. We owned a copy on DVD and frequently threw it on the TV to dream of warmer places during the depths of a Wisconsin winter. It has since resurfaced in the Fly Fishing Film Tour a number of times and rolled through my brain, only pulling strong enough for me to keep one eye on it from a distance.
We chose the small town of Los Barriles to call home for nine days. Located on the Eastern Cape of the Baja Peninsula, it made an ideal base camp. The town itself offered all the needed amenities: great restaurants, well-stocked grocery stores, UTV rental companies, and a laid-back vibe. Being there in mid-April was the sweet spot, as many of the ex-pat snowbirds had begun to fly north, but the anglers targeting the Sea of Cortez had not yet migrated south.
There's something indulgent about believing my vices don't count when I'm not in the country.
Sitting on the rooftop of our rented apartment, savoring a Lucky Strike and an ice cold Corona with a lime, I wondered how in the hell I hadn't ended up here sooner. Baja has most of the best things: fresh seafood, mountainous landscapes, plentiful sunshine, water to explore, and a price tag that won't break the bank.
Catching Dinner
We arrived during Semana Santa (Easter weekend), which, unbeknownst to us, is celebrated as a giant beach camping holiday. During our first two days, the beaches were filled to capacity with cars, trucks, UTVs, tents, pop-up shelters, lawn chairs, blankets, grills, and families celebrating — the vibes were high. By the third day, the beaches were vacant, and the only evidence left behind was a scattering of beer cans in the sand and tire tracks running down the shoreline.
We took the first few days to get our bearings and explore on our own. Whenever I land in a new area, my first priority is a long walk around the neighborhood to nail down the location of some essentials: best stocked grocery store, freshest meat and veggies, coldest beer, closest coffee, and a pharmacy just in case (ask me about the time I got food poisoning abroad when I was 22). We had booked a guide for three full days, but that wouldn't happen until the end of our trip. Typically I would stack guided days at the very beginning, but Kyle had sprained his ankle two days before departure and was seriously laid up — so we delayed to buy us some healing time.
Renting a UTV and packing it full of fishing gear, snorkeling equipment, and a cooler gave us endless options for beach exploration at whatever pace we chose. Mornings were spent snorkeling rocky points before the tide picked up, while afternoons became a mix of beach cruising, watching for Roosters, and seeing what other fish could be caught from the rocks with a fly. The amount of life in the Sea of Cortez is breathtaking: stingrays, urchins, fish of all shapes and sizes, and corals in abundance.
As a team, we decided that "if it looks like you could eat it, you probably can" and agreed that anything bluegill-shaped was fair game. A size 1/0 Orange Gotcha quickly became the ticket and was buttoning into fish left and right. Coronet fish were the most abundant, and least bluegill-shaped, but were eager eaters and a hoot to wrangle in the surf — imagine trying to remove a hook from a slimy laundry hose performing an alligator death roll. After putting a hurtin' on the coronets I connected with two eaters: a Barred Pargo and an unknown snapper. Both gave a good fight over the rocks and a nice bend in the 10wt. After swift dispatch they were neatly tucked into the cooler next to our cold cervezas — every beer tastes a little better with some fish slime on it.
An hour-long cruise back to town down deserted beaches and unmaintained UTV tracks, with stops at the produce market and tortillería, set us up for a rooftop dinner we'd been dreaming of for weeks. Kyle went to work scaling and scoring the fish with knives he brought from home while I lovingly tackled the rest: whole fish on the grill slathered with lime and chile de árbol, freshly made pico de gallo and guacamole, ample grilled vegetables, and a couple of cold beers from the fish cooler. This meal fed much more than our hunger for food that evening.
To the Gills
The final part of our trip was spent with Jeffrey Feczko, owner and operator of To the Gills guide service in Baja. Jeff is a lifelong fishing guide who moves through the world with a wild kindness, enthusiasm for the sport, and passion for the fishery — a rare combination to maintain after 20+ years of guiding in the salt. We were still on the early side of the season, but Jeff worked happily and tirelessly to get us shots at fish.
Day one put me within a rod's length of the largest snook any of us had laid eyes on — a real "junkyard dog" that followed my fly to the rod tip before running out of surf and slipping back into the deeper trough. I spent the next 20 minutes chasing him up and down the beach, but after looking each other in the eye from nine feet away, he was no longer interested in my sexy sardine act. Kyle later missed a shot at a 30-pound Rooster who beached itself running down his fly. A low cloud ceiling moved in by the end of the day, putting the kibosh on any sight fishing. A pod of whales was spotted near the horizon, spraying and happily breaching the sea's surface as we toured back towards town.
Day two, after a few missed encounters and miles of beach covered, under the high-noon sun, a large Dorado chased bait within the very edge of casting distance. With Kyle's bum ankle it was on me to seize the opportunity — I had twenty seconds: run backward 70 yards to cut him off while stripping out line, start the false casts, make the shot.
My cast landed exactly where it needed to be — a 45-degree angle to the fish with a 3-foot lead, not crossing in front of his nose. As I started stripping, the dark shape of the fish turned and followed for 10 feet, then flashed its colors and veered back towards the school of bait. Heart thumping through my chest, I was left both crushed and awestruck — it reminded me of my first botched encounter with a whitetail buck during archery season six years earlier. Lucky for me, this sting wouldn't last nearly as long as that one.
We moved locations and found Roosters — lots of them. This beach was all rocks and boulders, not the sugar sand of our earlier spots. There would be no running them down, especially for Kyle; they'd have to come to us. No sooner had we found barely stable footing than Jeff launched a teaser toward the school with his surf rod. Within the blink of an eye the chaos moved close and I set my fly in the middle of the high-speed frenzy.
The rodeo really started as I connected with one. The slack line around my feet peeled out at lightning speed and wrapped around the butt of my rod. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck" were the only words I could get out, and Jeff jumped in to untangle me. I managed to play the fish with line above my reel, buying us the two precious seconds needed to sort out the wrap and prevent the graphite from exploding in my hands. After making a few good runs I coaxed the Rooster into the shallow surf just in time for a neighbor's dog to wander down. As we stumbled over the rocks and brought my fish to hand, the dog jumped into the salt to investigate the action, becoming hopelessly wrapped in the fly line and my fish.
A freeze frame in time would have shown Jeff grabbing for the Rooster, me stumbling over a rock, the dog blissfully unaware of its tangled state, and Kyle howling in pride. It was the kind of pandemonium you can't manufacture — what we'd call, affectionately, a classic fuck around.
Hannah's Favorite Things
Taqueria La Gaviota — The freshest aguachile and excellent cucumber margaritas.
Tacos Guss — My only regret is not finding this place sooner. Handmade blue corn tortillas and al pastor on a trompo.
Tortillas de Harina Klinton — Daily stop for fresh flour tortillas. Served warm, six for 23 pesos.
Vegetable Market San Ignacio — An open-air produce market with fresh vegetables, fruit, and reasonable prices. The stuff of my dreams.
Green Dot Café — The best smoothies, great food, and a lovely atmosphere. We tried a few cafés and always came back here.
Saturday Market at La Laguna Park — We brought home a print from @adri_gyotaku along with plenty of other treasures.
Playa Palo Banquito — An excellent snorkeling spot with a slightly more rugged beach.
St Croix Evos Salt — Used a 10wt for the majority of this trip and it ‘s awesome
If you want more of this — the fish, the food, the fuck-arounds — we're @blackearthangling on Instagram. Come find us. If you’d like to get on the water with us or join us on a destination trip, visit our website.
