baja report nov 3-9
 

Made it to Coyote Estero, south of Pta. Abreojos, last week for great yak fishing. Left SD sat afternoon, slept a while near Catavina, and made to Coyote with plenty o fishing time sunday. Easy drive down with no road, authority, live stock, or trucker issues. Weather was perfect the whole time. We camped right at the estuary with the yaks on the beach right in front. We fished near the mangoves with crocs and plastics for the usual suspects; bass, grouper, corvina, damn puffer fish, and a few trigger fish. The numbers of fish were down but the size was up. There were huge schools of sardinas in the estero that might have influenced the fishing. Loads of small sierra were all over the dines and biting off crocs. My favorite fishing there is throwing big jerkbaits right in to the mangove roots for grouper. Its tough to get them out but the strikes are explosive. The real surprise was I hooked a huge snook on the jerk the first day. It staighted out the freshwater bass hook i was using. Grrrr. Been going there for 25 years and never seen a snook. I vowed revenge and fished hard after dark for the rest of the trip and succeded in landing 2 snook. Beautiful and crazy hard fighting fish. The ones i caught were smaller the one i lost but still nice fish. Great trip with some old friends to my favorite place in the world. mike

I'm lovin it, looks like a blast.
:cheers1:

Beautiful!

Love the van. Is it a diesel? Ultimate road warrior.

Congrats on the snook Mike! High on my wish list! :luxhello:

Looks so fun.........time to start planning :D

Sweet!

Cabrilla sure are pretty! One of my favorite fish to hunt underwater and fish for from above as well. Little brutes! Thanks for sharing. Love the vehicle too!

Awesome!!:D

nice broomtail grouper!!!!

THAT's a Baja rig. Thanks for sharing!

looks like very peacefull and nice place to fish,nice photos,how far is this place from san diego.:cheers1::luxhello:

Man that looks fun. Good job.

I love that place! Do they still have the tent-cabins for rent there? I flew down there one time with a pilot friend and we stayed on the Estero, what a fantastic time, never forget it. We didn't have kayaks , but we caught lots of fish in the mangroves from a small boat that our friends had brought down. This is the real "old Mexico" people talk about. The locals were INCREDIBLY nice to us, complete strangers and it was like we had known everyone for years. When we landed the plane on the salt flat next to town we were greeted and set up with a ride to the Estero and all the info we needed, like they were expecting us or something. If you bring a kayak there go offshore right outside of town, insane yellowtail fishing, plus big grouper and calicos and everything else. The southernmost kelp bed can be found near here and it is untouched(at least it was 15 years ago). I've been to many spots in Baja, this might be my favorite.

I agree, right in front of the lighthouse off the reef is great yt and grouper fishing. Got a 38# yt off the reef in 20ft. of water. Another good spot is Gringo Point for yt.

Dammit...:cheers1:

Very Nice Mike:cheers1:

What an awesome trip. I like the variety, a bunch of true exotics. Definitely makes me want to take a trip down. Thanks for he report :cheers1:

Some answers. Not much has changed since I started going there years ago on surf trips. Campo Rene's has the same little cabins and palapas for rent. 15-20 bucks a night. They do have nice resaurant there now though. The oyster shack and compound is a bit bigger but no other activities or developements have been allowed. All nets were banned a few years ago and the co-op enforces it. The rumor that the place is fished out are just that, rumors.

The van is my buddy Steve's sports mobile diesal 4x4. The trailer is by sports mobile too. Way Baja ready.

The locals are still amazingly nice.

The biggest change about getting there is the road is paved all the way from the highway to town. That used to be 65miles of nasty washboard.

It depends on how hard you want to drive but its 10-12 hours away.The highway is better and fuel availability is no longer an issue. I made 4 trips last year and The military check points are professional and brief.

We wanted to get the yaks in the ocean but the locals said most of the fish were north. Plus the estuery fishing was hard to leave. And Andy, the snook we saw were maybe 3-4 times bigger than the ones I caught. The one I lost was pulling drag on buttoned down drag with thumb down on 40lb and pulling a 16 foot adventure side ways. NEVER felt power like that. Mike

Very cool :cheers1:

Sounds like paradise Mike. Cool stuff!