San Felipe, Loreto, La Paz, Magdalena Bay, Cabo, East Cape, and San Carlos places I had fished before, but La Ventana is new for me. It is a well-known wind surfing destination, and now being recognized as a good fly-fishing destination. It is on the Sea of Cortes just south of La Paz. Easiest way to get there is fly to Cabo, rent a car and drive the 2.5 hours north to La Ventana.
Of course, the lure of this fishing destination is bigger fish! Roosters, Marlin, Dorado, and Jack Crevalle top the list of big attractive fish. During the trip I used my 10 and 12 weight rod. The popular fly was a Sardine looking bait fish. We would get live bait to chum and encourage our target fish to bite similar looking flies. Our guide boat captain would sling the bait fish out of our boat to create a feeding frenzy. It was complete chaos. Your fly needed to be perfect and stripped fast with a two-handed retrieve or the fish would ignore it. You could make cast after cast and not catch a fish. Having the right color, size, and shape of fly were essential for these very selective fish.
We had 8 fly fishers and most of them caught fish every day for our 4 days of fishing. Our target prize fish was the Rooster Fish. We only caught 5 of those for the trip. Other fish were caught in larger numbers. I caught 5 big Jacks, and those bastards will hurt you, they are fighters that take 20-30 minutes to land. I had one that broke off the handle of my reel, it was spinning out of control and bumped my fish fighting belt. I had to reel in the Jack with the counter weight button opposite of the handle. The group also caught some nice Dorado, Skip Jack, Bonito, and some smaller fish. The best fish caught in our group was a prize 60-pound Rooster fish.
We stayed at Palacio Blanco, a new hotel that opened a year ago, and it is stunning and right on the beach. Gentry Smith with Nomada Fly Fishing organized our trip, arranged for boats, guides, food, transportation, and was the lead cat wrangler for our group.
Contact information for Vince Deadmond: vincehasgonefishing@outlook.com phone 480 818 1796.
