Puerto Peñasco is a wonderful place to visit and fly fish. For many folks it’s where you may have had your first saltwater fishing experience. Like everyone else I always am looking for a little more, so when I got another chance to fish the Southern Baja with friends, I jumped at it.

Six old fly-fishing buddies flew into Loreto, Mexico from LAX – it is an hour and a half flight. We used a shuttle to cross the Baja to the Pacific and our lodging at Magdalena Bay. We were staying in a small town with a big name, Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos.

Our long-time fly-fishing guide friend Jeff DeBrown, made arrangements for boats, lodging, guides, and suggested appropriate gear. One thing about the gear, bring plenty, these fish are big, strong, and are a wrecking crew. One or two rods and reels isn’t going to cut it. Most of us had four rods and 8 reels for the trip. I know of two broken rods, three fly lines destroyed, and some reel malfunctions after a big fish took 200 yards of fly line in the blink of an eye. Most everyone expected this and just grabbed the back-up rod and reel. This is not trout fishing with a delicate bamboo fly rod. We are fishing for Marlin, Dorado, Tuna and about 25 other difficult fish to land. Our small rods were 10 weight and our larger rods were 14-18 weight rods. With reels that can slow down a 200-pound Marlin.

This trip we hooked a few Marlin but didn’t land any. We did good on landing Dorado, Snook, Snapper, Grouper and several different Tuna. We had several fresh fish meals from our catch of the day, and our chef kept the menu interesting. We had two travel days and six days of fishing. The weather was great for this trip, but many saltwater trips can be affected by wind and storms, have a backup plan if possible. If this sounds like fun to you Jeff DeBrown can be reached at The Reel Baja and at 1-888-287-4076.

Contact information for Vince Deadmond the retired fly-fishing hardware guy, vince@ajbest.com and 480 818 1796. Fly fishing Puerto Peñasco should remain good through December. Check the tide chart, I prefer the neap tides for fly fishing from my kayak.