bahia magdelena, baja california, mex?

I saw in the gallery that bsteve(?) and company have been to
bahia magdelena.

My family and I saw the whales there march 2004, on the way back from
6 months in Baja. I learned about kayak fishing later on that same trip
while in the florida keys.

I'm dying to hear from those guys. Anybody know about their trip and
how it went? I didn't see pictures of 50lb grouper like Neil Kelly talks
about in the 'Baja Catch', just the shortfin corbina, but I'm assuming
there were more fish caught than that.

I have had some good shore fishing in baja and surfboard fishing, this
was without really even trying to fish, just doing it as a side diversion.
with 2000 miles of coast, it's not all flying into punta colorado and
fishing for dorado and sailfish! There's a lot of spots probably never
seen a kayak.  I'm 40 now, before I'm 50, I hope to hit it.

Mag Bay was probably my place to fish in Baja when I went this past May.  I imagine if I was there later in the season the Sea of Cortez side would have been better.

Anyway, we spent three days there at the very northern end of the bay.  Paddling in the mangroves is amazing and we didn't encounter any bugs to speak of.

What we caught...

2 halibut (~24")
~10 broomtail grouper (2-15 lbs)
~20 shortfin corvina (4-8 lbs)
-too many spotted sandbass to count and much larger than we caught on the Sea of Cortez side.

-too many bonefish to count
-too many of what we called at the time "big mouth pompano" to count.  These "pompano" turned out to be longjaw leatherjackets.  The Baja Catch book mentions pompano for the area which is why we called them that at first.  Anyway, they are excellent fighters on small tackle and are schooled up near the "bocca" or mouth of the bay along with the bonefish.  Bring a light fly rod and you'll have a blast.

Here's an image of a longjaw letherjacket from http://www.mexfish.com.


We have a lot more photos but I just posted a few from the entire three week baja trip.   If I have time I'll post more here or send me a personal message and I'll send you an invite to my kodak gallery for the trip.

Brian

bsteves, thanks for the reply! I emailed you for invite to your gallery!

The heat can be hard to take on the sea of cortez side.  I don't like it
in the summer for the most part. maybe early summer is okay, I
have been then. I have also driven through loreto in september...
ouch. did see a 30lb jack caught with a handline from the jetty there...

give me the pacific side anytime.  I like it cool and empty! I don't
like the fishing destinations with all the fat drunk rich powerboat fishermen.