Road Trip to BOLA "Bay of los Angeles"

Started by steelfish, August 21, 2019, 07:14:05 PM

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steelfish

do not confuse "Los angeles Bay" in USA with "Bay of los Angeles" in Baja, right in the middle of the Baja Peninsula at the sea of cortez.

this is a place I had on my bucket list for long time, one of the places that are "too close and too far" at the same time, it normally takes 8-10hrs to get there (2hrs freeway and 6-8 hrs dirt road) but now with the current work on the dirt road, they are pavementing the road so, now from my town we only made 4:30hrs to get there, yay!! its placed almost at the middle of the Baja Peninsula by the Sea of Cortez.

this trip was planned for some months with my "old gang" of fishing buddies, really cool dudes, I meet them 12 years ago on a baja fishing online forum (just like this one) and we have become great friends, sometimes we get together on a place with the wives and kids to have a good time outta the water, just like some of the at ohana do from time to time, anyway, back to the story.

this is the place where you can really test your fishing techniques and gear, fish can blown your knots, breack your rods or your line if you are undergunned, imagine just like fishing Cedros which is few more miles south but at the pasific sea

san felipe in black circle, Bay of los Ageles in purple and cedros in red.



we could barely made it to coordinate the schedules of 8 of us to fish together so, we only booked one day of fishing and opted to try to find the big Yellowtails that live there, but you have many places to try different fishing like casting lures to the rocks on the Islands, trolling for groupers, live bait, shore fishing, etc.

we fished 30 minutes passing the big island in the map "angel de la guardia (guardian angel) off-shore, so, not a place for light tackle

the Road trip started the friday 17th at noon, we hit the road with plenty of sun light to have time to arrive not too dark to our destination

1  you have 70 miles of pavemented road right after my town San Felipe, right after that, only Dirt road for many more miles, average 50 miles of dirt, so depending on your car or truck you can drive faster or slower, we had no rush so, we drove slow and enjoyed a nice talk with the compadres.

2  pic with the Gang, just where the Mx1 meets the Mx5 freeway

3  few minutes driving on the Mx1 you find the Turn sign to BOLA, if you keep driving straight for 90 minutes more you get to "Guerrero Negro" which is the town where you go to fly to Cedros Island.

4 Bay of los Angeles Baja, welcomes you with this great scenario
The Baja Guy

steelfish

1   5am of satuday 17th to water we go
2   gettin some Bait by ourselves, I used a light spinning rod I recently rebuilded, man ! what a great feeling cuz it worked really good, light and extremely sensitive
3   bait tank full of Macks and few small pompanos
4   Blue power ranger in action, errr, not really,  yours truly impatient to get to our fishing zone destination
The Baja Guy

steelfish

#2
1.    my superman rod was ready for some action, you better get a gun to a gun fight, right?
2.    my first fish of the day, a small baby mahi mahi or Dorado, we used live bait with circle hooks so, this little fella was not harm at all and it was returned to the water to call his big daddy, that never happened, bummer.
3.    after few minutes of trying this nice YT came aboard, it fought like a mad demon or Im too weak or the fish was too strong I couldnt hold the rod by my left  hand like I normally do, I was using an estimate of 27-30# drag on my Mak15 to avoid getting rocket by those fish, it was a thug of war, you dont want to let them take any line or they are gone in one 10yds run.
4     this was my biggest fish, a fight to remember, I had to use both hands to hold the rod on the foregrip to avoid let him steal my rod from my hands, ooh man!! the rod its a seeker composite 6ft and 130lb line and it got bent on 30# drag pretty good, I though I was overgunned on that rod, but that fish proved me wrong, again, I had a big smile cuz the nice fish and the great figh but also cuz my rod passed the test, I can say I made a good rod and I have the pics to prove it, loved the action and how the rod fought the fish I want another rod but for 80# line and another for 40#... and maybe one fo 20# too.


The Baja Guy

steelfish

#3
1.   this is a 165qt Ice cooler full of "Pig" size YT, we didnt reached our fish limits but thats ok, still plenty of meat for everyone for many good meals for few weeks.
2.   this the same fish than the last pic, liked how the "weapon of choice" is shown in the background.
3.   We stoped fishing that zone and drove back to port but since is a long way to land we got our eyes open looking for "boilings" or kelp pads to try to catch big Dorados/mahi-mahi in our return but no luck, so that was the end of the fishing day
4.   after getting our fish cleaned and filleted (if you choose to) we get together for a nice "carne asada" aka burn some meat and grease on the grill on the hotel
The Baja Guy

Crow

There's nothing wrong with a few "F's" on your record....Food, Fun, Flowers, Fishing, Friends, and Fun....to name just a few !

Hardy Boy

Great fish , looks like fun !! Nice report. I hope to be holding one of those beauty YT myself in under two weeks !!! They sure can pull.


Cheers:

Todd
Todd

steelfish

#6
1.    the Gang on the grill, I mean by the grill, great memories
2.    the next morning before returning home we stopped on a local rest to get some breakfast, man !! the best omellette I had ever tried, word! it was a crab meat omellette, I might return with my family just to try it one more time.
3.    we hit the rod back home, well at least for me, my friends still had 2hrs more drive to Mexicali
4.    my trademark and obligatory picture with the fish and the bubbablade knife, BTW I need a 32" processing filleting board or bigger, do you know where to get any .. cheap?



and thats how the Road trip finished, great time and I can scratch out some "bucket list" items now
- Fish in BOLA
- Catch a Dorado
- fish and catch a big fish with live bait (yep, I havent done it before this weekend)

still plenty of line items on my bucket list but hopefully the Lord get me plenty of time to get one by one scratched out from it.

The Baja Guy

steelfish

Quote from: Hardy Boy on August 21, 2019, 08:13:31 PM
Great fish , looks like fun !! Nice report. I hope to be holding one of those beauty YT myself in under two weeks !!! They sure can pull.
Cheers:
Todd

you surely will have great time at Cedros, buena suerte amigo
take lots of pics
The Baja Guy

Swami805

Nice Alex! What a great place, that's a monster yellow!
Do what you can with that you have where you are

Benni3

Looks like a fantastic trip,,,,, :D and very nice fish too,,,,great job,,,,,,,,, ;D

steelfish

Quote from: Crow on August 21, 2019, 08:11:49 PM
Looks like a great time !!
a day to remember for many reasons, yep, it was a great time



Quote from: Swami805 on August 22, 2019, 01:01:55 AM
Nice Alex! What a great place, that's a monster yellow!

magical place compadre Sheridan, my next stop on my bucket list is Loreto, hopefully can make it in one or two years, by the way that Yellow fought I thought it was going to be bigger like a monster LOL.


Quote from: Benni3 on August 22, 2019, 05:08:12 AM
Looks like a fantastic trip,,,,, :D and very nice fish too,,,,great job,,,,,,,,, ;D
thanks Benny boy, my normal playgrounds has been really slow on Yellows and grouper so, I had to travel a bit more to find them.
The Baja Guy

thorhammer

Hey Alex, great trip and write-up! Bueno!

SoCalAngler

BOLA is going off the hook right now, good call to go.

Alex just head further south and meet me in Loreto. I will be down Oct, 22nd. I know its a long drive for you but it is paved the whole way ;)

Anyway nice report and thanks for sharing it.

Smols

Nice write up, Alex. Thanks for sharing your trip with us. That looks like a great place to fish - I would love to check it out sometime. Congratulations on your biggest live bait catch. Big yellows are fun!

Smols

steelfish

@ JOhn, thanks buddy

@ Mark, yay !! thank for the invitation, really hard to go out on those days, last quarter of each year is really tough on my job, as well as de 1st quarter and 2nd.. and sometimes 3rd one too.  :-\ :-\  but loreto is in my list, so, maybe we can meet someday.

@smols, live bait fishings is nice, but its almost fishing with dead bait, its a waiting game not much techique required BUT strong gear is adviced LOL

The Baja Guy