Loreto ¡Toros!

Fishing from the marina break wall in Loreto is hit or miss. Normally I only catch trumpet fish but on occasion a school of something interesting shows up. In the spring I have seen good sized Cortez halibut in the marina, in the summer barracuda cruise the outer wall and in the past sierra have showed up before sunrise. The sierra haven't been around in a while lost to the pervasive gill nets - hopefully better park management will bring them back.

One August me and Dave found a school of large Toro (Jack Crevalle) off the tip of the break wall. It was a classic bad luck turns out to be good luck story. A day that started in disappointment turned into an outstanding day.

We had been hitting a hot dorado bite offshore but one morning we got up to hard rain. I heard it roll in during the night. Before first light we drove down to the marina through the flooded streets.



Disappointed we consulted our guide and decided not to go out given the poor and possibly dangerous conditions created by the remnants of a tropical storm. It was warm so we ended up hanging out at the marina for a while before heading to breakfast.

Without much to do, in the August heat we weren't going for a hike in the desert, we ended up wandering back to the marina. There a couple of young guys had found the Toro and were catching them with live Jurelitos (baby yellowtail) that they snagged. The Toro were so abundant that getting bait was more difficult than catching Toro. There must have been hundreds of them because a live Jurelito drew an immediate, explosive hit when cast to the school.

We spent a great afternoon hanging out with the local kids and catching Toro and I ended up buying a round of popsicles from the paleta cart.

Be careful when flyfishing at the marina as the locals don't expect that long back cast over the walkway and tourists can be distracted - I'd hate to hook someone with a 2/0 clouser minnow!!!

As you can see from the photos the weather cleared. We ended up taking an afternoon run out to the dorado spots and found some amazing fishing along with a little tequila drinking but I'll save that story for another day.