Winter fishing, January and February is reliably poor fishing in Peñasco. You may have a day or two where you actually catch a fish, but the smell of skunk permeates the boat often enough. My group of friends, The Over The Hill Gang, saw the tide chart was at a neap tide for the Super Bowl weekend. This looked like a good time to escape our COVID quarantines and fish even if the fishing wasn’t very promising.

Our first fishing day was out at La Pinta the second estuary, the wind was calm, and the fishing wasn’t as bad as I expected. I had actually caught a few small Cabrilla and three larger Cabrilla. When I looked behind me, I spotted two dolphins. Then two more, I would notice a total of 10 dolphins, and I knew that meant trouble for the local fish population. The dolphins worked in unison to rodeo roundup the available fish. When they were done there were small bits of fish flesh, like they had been run through a food processor. The fish catching suddenly stopped and we decided to come back and fish another day.

A good thing about Peñasco is the abundance of wonderful places to eat and drink. Without too much effort I managed to convince my friends to visit Krissy and Rick at Margarita Mermaids on Thursday evening. The once-a-week wine tasting is always a favorite meal of mine, and the Malbec was wonderful. I ordered a small plate of food so I could order the apple tacos for dessert. The live music of Heber Alvarez was well done. We could carry on our conversations and plot our next fishing move. Sadly, the next day was too windy to fish.

Saturday, we fished The Point and had some success fishing deep. Some nice Triggers were caught, and I hooked a Red Snapper. The fish was around 4 pounds and a real scrappy fighter. I was concerned that the fish would break my fly rod. My fishing buddy Joe Staller managed to get a picture of my fish. I have caught Red Snapper before, but they are not common in the fish caught by my group of fishers. We cleaned the fish and dropped them off at Cookiez Cantina. I asked them to make a ceviche appetizer for our dinner. It was delicious!

I was in Peñasco for the fishing, and a little event called the Super Bowl happened to be on TV at the Pit Bar Sunday afternoon. There was some good-natured yelling back and forth early in the game, but it was pretty much over by half-time. I really didn’t care because I didn’t have a dog in this fight.

I enjoyed the commercials, and some of the patrons were talkative and shared some good, but inappropriate jokes. My “Dad Jokes” got the groans and the occasional smile that I expected. So, for a bad fishing weekend where not many fish were caught, it was still a good time. Stay healthy and plan to go fish! Vince Deadmond The Retired Fly Fishing Hardware Guy can be reached at vince@ajbest.com or at (480) 818-1796.