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February 2, 2011That halibut we had for dinner last night was so darn good that when Grant started to make a plan for today we all leaned toward dunking flies down deep for full day of halibut fly fishing. Once again, even with the sun up the temps were cold as heck. I brought some warm clothes for this trip but not nearly enough. There was no way we were going to wade the surf yet, so again we had a casual breakfast and let the sun warm us up.
It wasn’t until about 10 AM that we got in Grants truck and drove the short distance to Toms halibut spot where we fished sunset last night. The tide was high so we couldn’t drive the shortcut down the beach so we took the long way on the roads of the desert. I never mind a little extra driving on the desert because we always see roadrunners when in Baja. And we did.
W
e didn’t make first cast until almost noon. When I set foot off the beach to wade, the water was absolutely freezing and the surf was big. Fortunately the wind was out of the east making life easy for casting and the high tide was dropping fast. Gradually the big waves shrunk and rocks that protected Toms halibut lies began to show themselves. Regardless of things looking good however, the four of us cast relentlessly for hours but not even a strike.
At 4 PM the tide was low and we could walk everywhere. There were new rocks showing, logs sticking out of nowhere and you could see the sand that Tom frequently catches halibut. I was just beginning to wonder why we hadn’t had even a hit when suddenly Grant hooked up. Grant was hucking flies today so the hook up got Sammy’s and my attention fast. We ran over to him and sure enough it was our first halibut of the day. After a few photos Sammy and I went into serious fish mode.
From that moment until sunset we had steady good fishing. While Sammy, Grant and I caught the occasional halibut, barred sand bass and corvina on flies, Tom put on a clinic with his bait caster. Tom is not yet a fly fisherman and judging by how many more fish he caught then we did tonight, he may never learn. I watched Tom land about four halibut, ten sand bass and a few corvina. It was incredible. However, I wouldn’t trade the challenge of fly fishing for halibut for anything!
When we finished up our fishing we were all freezing to death. Grants truck showed a mere 53°’s! No wonder we were cold. We whacked one halibut for dinner tonight. It was so good last night we had to do it again. We made it into fish tacos and it was the best fish tacos I ever had in my life. Absolutely the finest! Thank you Mr. halibut. Now its time for a good night sleep because we are headed for Magdalena Bay in the morning – very early.
(One quick note. Incase you didn’t notice, the picture here that looks like nothing is actually a halibut we released. You have to look carefully as his ability to camouflage himself with the bottom is incredible)
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