os Locos Mag Bay, in southwestern Baja California, is a disruption. Throw out five-star-luxury everything and replace it with dusty roads and loud music and back-of-the-pickup drives to the boat launch. Long run times to the marlin with the possibility of even longer, bumpier rides back to San Carlos are the norm. Once fish-ing, it can be a balancing act, standing on either the bow or the stern of a rocking panga while throwing the 12-weight of choice with a giant baitfish imita-tion and a throttle-happy local captain thumping the hybrid panga gas with surges of excitement. Burritos for breakfast. Burritos for lunch. Dinner somewhere, though the day’s fishing will not revolve around get-ting back for 5 p.m. cocktails. This all comes, if you’re a guest, after unan-swered offseason email after email, yet somehow you’re here. It appears as though everyone, includ-ing the Los Locos team, is in the present tense all day and night leaving no time for answering emails. Fun is the biggest element, and for the relatively short season—end of October through January for striped marlin—the energy level is wildly high. Any daily shortcomings have the gaps filled with activity. Blue water and the marlin run are the justifi-cations. For this reason alone, yachts and mega yachts have descended on Magdalena Bay waters for decades with their myriad trolled lines, effec-tively turning captain into de facto angler and an-gler into human pulley, drawing to stern a heaping volume of tallied catches where numbers outweigh artistry and skillfulness. Magdalena Bay is also home to the largest man-grove forest in Baja, which is like seeing a cactus in the Amazon. This wild mix of desert-meets-mangroves provides a backdrop for golden trevally, snook, halibut, grouper, snapper and all sorts of other species. There are sand dunes, too, and some stretch for miles and meet the Pacific where roosterfish and snook and jacks hunt like packs of wolves. Some of these dunes are on the rugged barrier islands of Isla Magdalena and Isla Santa Margarita, which L protect Magdalena Bay and the dusty town of San Carlos, Los Locos Mag Bay’s base of operations. LLMB is George VanDercook and Rudy Babikian. Like pulling together ingredients for a great meal, over the last four years the two have cre-ated an exceptional team that incorporates the com-munity in many ways. Pangas built by a local and captained by a local. A restaurant—Lore—jump-started by the pair and frequented by guests and guides, captains in tow. Mar Y Arena, a local hotel and restaurant, that serves as their seaside base. Pa r t of the team a lso inc ludes “deckhands” who, along with the captain, accompany each panga. They spend countless hours tying flies before and during the season; late nights at the vice with piles of chicken feathers, thread and 8/0 hooks that will undoubtedly be tested and even broken. They love being on the water—perhaps even need to be on the water, in the same way a judge needs a courtroom. The deckhands are guides in other parts of the world, and for two or three months each year they come to Mag Bay to put in long days on and off the water and gener-ate camaraderie that is an experience from bell to bell. San Carlos has seen a robust whale-watching industry blossom. From late December into April gray whales and their calves head into the bay. In the blue water outside, feeding marlin crash bait balls of sardines and mackerel. The marlin are generally accompanied by sea lions and sometimes dolphins. Giant schools of dorado are common. Yellowfin and wahoo show up as well. Bryde’s whales hunt the bait balls and lurk like giant submarines. If merely observing the madness that is striped marlin feeding on bait balls isn’t enough, then picking up a fly rod will sate the eager flyfisher. Your bare feet cling to the wet, textured deck, knees slightly bent for balance, a Mexican captain cheers you on, the two-hour morning run to the fishing grounds was eons ago, marlin are tear-ing through the crazy blue Pacific, spraying bait, and everyone is screaming—and you realize you haven’t even cast yet. THE FLYFISH JOURNAL 087
The Flyfish Journal The Flyfish Journal 15.4: Page 85
