Shore_Fisher
Guest
Set off from Tucson at around 5:30 AM Monday for a quick day trip to the water. It was wet and a little rainy, with Kitt Peak smothered in thick clouds.
Avoiding quite a few 'free range' cows on the first part of the trip, I fueled up in Why and grabbed a tasty burrito for breakfast before pushing on. The sun started pushing through a little on the way down to the border at Lukeville, but still looked like perfect fishing weather to me. This unfortunate beast did not have a good day. But the birds did.
Crossed the border without incident, although they have a US checkpoint before the Mexican one now on the way into Mexico. The border agents thought I was mad going for a day trip as they were predicting big delays on the way back later. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.... Plain sailing down to the Caborca road turnoff, and for the first time ever I saw a train running along that line parallel to the road!
Pulled off onto the La Pinta dirt road - Which is in pretty good shape, then crested the ridge to my first sight of the water! There were a lot more panga's there than I had seen before, but the guys there seemed pretty friendly. Passed a few words with one of them and pulled down onto the beach and took a left. 9:30 AM. Now where to stop.....
Picked my spot a couple of hundred yards to the left, in line with the calciferous reef area, and sorted out my gear. Lure road (1/2 oz casting optimized, with 10 lb braid to an 8 lb fluoro leader, 1/2 oz Kastmaster or Rattler) and bait rod (1 oz casting optimized, with same line and dropper setup with a 1/0 circle hook about 12 inches above a 3/4 oz lead). Shoulder pouch and fishing vest with spare tackle and fluoro, and cooler with some ice, bait and water.
As I dragged my gear (a long way!) down to the water, I could see the tide was very low, giving the best view of these reefs I've ever had. I've only ever been down with less tidal range than this, and only ever saw the flatter part of this reef visible near the sand line. I can see why I lose so much tackle if I let my gear hit bottom in this area....
As I normally do, I started fishing with some bait and quickly started hooking bass and triggers every cast. There were a lot of small bait fish around and now and again a couple of larger mullet jumping. As the tide started moving in and rising up over the edge of the reef dropoff, I saw this large boil right in front of me as something came up and grabbed a baitfish. Looked dark-backed to me - Maybe a juvenile grouper of some sort?
As the tide rose, I started getting some bigger bass, which would have given me a taco or two, but I released them all on the basis of 'catching a few corvina later'.... I caught the fish below, which was either a very oddly colored bass, or some sort of juvenile grouper. Sorry the picture is so bad, but I was wading and taking the picture with a double-bagged iPhone.
Once the tide had covered part of the reef, I started lure fishing over the reef itself, getting a lot more bass and moving some other fish also. I got one huge hit, but the fish (slab-sided, silver, maybe 18-24 inches?) immediately leapt out of the water, shook its head and gained its freedom. It was amazing what a fish can do to your terminal tackle in about half a second...
Once the tide came up over the reef I was hoping for some corvina action, but alas, no takers this day. But once the tide advanced so far that I was no longer fishing over the reef, but over the sand above, I switched back to my bait rod and the action really started. I had both whole shrimp and smelt (from Lee-Lee's) for bait. Both frozen, as I find it helps keep the bait on better. The smelt were a disaster, and fell off every other cast. But the shrimp worked well.
I would cast at about 45 degrees upstream and keep the slack to a minimum without continually reeling in (I only had a 3/4 oz weight remember) as the weight rolled around to about 45 degrees downstream, when I would reel in, re-bait and cast again. But the bait didn't often get around that far, as I was being hit by bonefish within a few seconds of each cast. These were in the 10-12 inch range, but good sport on my lightish tackle. They took some line and were a 50/50 on the strike, but I must have caught dozens of them on the later part of the rising tide. A couple of puffers also liked the look of my bait.
By now it had passed high tide and it was getting near my must-leave time of about 5:30, so I had 3 or 4 'last casts', caught a couple more bonefish and pulled my stuff up the couple of yards of beach that were left between the water and my car. I hadn't seen one other person on that beach all day. I'd heard that PP was booked pretty solid over the holiday weekend, but nobody was down at La Pinta, I can assure you of that!
The roads seemed pretty empty to me as I got back up to Lukeville. I thought I had lucked out when there were only about 6 cars in the line to get back into the US, but I made a bad decision in lane choice and it took me nearly an hour to get through. How can one line go at about a car a minute and another go at one car every 20 minutes? I could accept the odd car taking longer than average, but 50 cars must have gone through the lane next to me, and all of the three cars ahead of me took 20 minutes. Luckily I got through in a few minutes, but I was a little annoyed at it all.
Anyway, met my goal of being back in the US before nightfall, and got back to Tucson around 10:30 PM, well satisfied with my little day trip to Mexico. It wasn't too hot, I managed to avoid sunburn (Except for my hands - How do you avoid that?) and I didn't get shot or kidnapped. A great day all round!
Ed
Avoiding quite a few 'free range' cows on the first part of the trip, I fueled up in Why and grabbed a tasty burrito for breakfast before pushing on. The sun started pushing through a little on the way down to the border at Lukeville, but still looked like perfect fishing weather to me. This unfortunate beast did not have a good day. But the birds did.
Crossed the border without incident, although they have a US checkpoint before the Mexican one now on the way into Mexico. The border agents thought I was mad going for a day trip as they were predicting big delays on the way back later. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.... Plain sailing down to the Caborca road turnoff, and for the first time ever I saw a train running along that line parallel to the road!
Pulled off onto the La Pinta dirt road - Which is in pretty good shape, then crested the ridge to my first sight of the water! There were a lot more panga's there than I had seen before, but the guys there seemed pretty friendly. Passed a few words with one of them and pulled down onto the beach and took a left. 9:30 AM. Now where to stop.....
Picked my spot a couple of hundred yards to the left, in line with the calciferous reef area, and sorted out my gear. Lure road (1/2 oz casting optimized, with 10 lb braid to an 8 lb fluoro leader, 1/2 oz Kastmaster or Rattler) and bait rod (1 oz casting optimized, with same line and dropper setup with a 1/0 circle hook about 12 inches above a 3/4 oz lead). Shoulder pouch and fishing vest with spare tackle and fluoro, and cooler with some ice, bait and water.
As I dragged my gear (a long way!) down to the water, I could see the tide was very low, giving the best view of these reefs I've ever had. I've only ever been down with less tidal range than this, and only ever saw the flatter part of this reef visible near the sand line. I can see why I lose so much tackle if I let my gear hit bottom in this area....
As I normally do, I started fishing with some bait and quickly started hooking bass and triggers every cast. There were a lot of small bait fish around and now and again a couple of larger mullet jumping. As the tide started moving in and rising up over the edge of the reef dropoff, I saw this large boil right in front of me as something came up and grabbed a baitfish. Looked dark-backed to me - Maybe a juvenile grouper of some sort?
As the tide rose, I started getting some bigger bass, which would have given me a taco or two, but I released them all on the basis of 'catching a few corvina later'.... I caught the fish below, which was either a very oddly colored bass, or some sort of juvenile grouper. Sorry the picture is so bad, but I was wading and taking the picture with a double-bagged iPhone.
Once the tide had covered part of the reef, I started lure fishing over the reef itself, getting a lot more bass and moving some other fish also. I got one huge hit, but the fish (slab-sided, silver, maybe 18-24 inches?) immediately leapt out of the water, shook its head and gained its freedom. It was amazing what a fish can do to your terminal tackle in about half a second...
Once the tide came up over the reef I was hoping for some corvina action, but alas, no takers this day. But once the tide advanced so far that I was no longer fishing over the reef, but over the sand above, I switched back to my bait rod and the action really started. I had both whole shrimp and smelt (from Lee-Lee's) for bait. Both frozen, as I find it helps keep the bait on better. The smelt were a disaster, and fell off every other cast. But the shrimp worked well.
I would cast at about 45 degrees upstream and keep the slack to a minimum without continually reeling in (I only had a 3/4 oz weight remember) as the weight rolled around to about 45 degrees downstream, when I would reel in, re-bait and cast again. But the bait didn't often get around that far, as I was being hit by bonefish within a few seconds of each cast. These were in the 10-12 inch range, but good sport on my lightish tackle. They took some line and were a 50/50 on the strike, but I must have caught dozens of them on the later part of the rising tide. A couple of puffers also liked the look of my bait.
By now it had passed high tide and it was getting near my must-leave time of about 5:30, so I had 3 or 4 'last casts', caught a couple more bonefish and pulled my stuff up the couple of yards of beach that were left between the water and my car. I hadn't seen one other person on that beach all day. I'd heard that PP was booked pretty solid over the holiday weekend, but nobody was down at La Pinta, I can assure you of that!
The roads seemed pretty empty to me as I got back up to Lukeville. I thought I had lucked out when there were only about 6 cars in the line to get back into the US, but I made a bad decision in lane choice and it took me nearly an hour to get through. How can one line go at about a car a minute and another go at one car every 20 minutes? I could accept the odd car taking longer than average, but 50 cars must have gone through the lane next to me, and all of the three cars ahead of me took 20 minutes. Luckily I got through in a few minutes, but I was a little annoyed at it all.
Anyway, met my goal of being back in the US before nightfall, and got back to Tucson around 10:30 PM, well satisfied with my little day trip to Mexico. It wasn't too hot, I managed to avoid sunburn (Except for my hands - How do you avoid that?) and I didn't get shot or kidnapped. A great day all round!
Ed
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