Just returned from a trip to Loreto, Baja.  I was invited down by Tom Horvath and his buddy Skip Culbert to try some of the infamous summer dorado fishing Loreto has to offer.  I contacted always willing George Stephan to help fill out my boat and off we went.  I hadn’t been down in seven years so I was anxious to feel a dorado tug again.  We used Baja Big Fish, owned by Pam Bolles, as our outfitter as she had always given me great service on previous trips and I knew she had quality flyfishing guides and always put you in quality lodging.  She proved to be still on top of things.  We stayed at the Desert Inn Hotel (the old La Pinta) on the beachfront and our guides picked us up early every morning with a panga loaded with baitfish. 

Pam had explained to us that this was an unusual “La Nina” year and the fishing had been off.  The dorado had not really appeared as normal and just the day before we arrived the sardina finally began showing up for us to use as bait for chumming.  George and I struggled to find fish the first day, with George landing a couple small bonita on one of his hand tied pink squid “Tres Generations”.

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We were run off early by a monsoon that hit with all the force of one of our late summer storms.  Our expectations were a little low at that point but we still had the “it was still nice to be out there” attitude going.  Tom and Skip had found a few dorado and Skip lost a nice one after playing it for 15 minutes.  They came in early also, getting in ahead of the stormfront.  Next morning dawned nice and calm….maybe too calm in my mind.  We headed out in a different direction and found fish at a buoy not too far out.  This was the first day the dorado had come into that buoy all season, so maybe things were changing.  We got into fish right away and landed several.  The fish were smaller than any other previous trip I had been on but at least they were there and ready to play.

After a day of fishing we would head in around 2, cool off some, drink a few cool ones and lounge around the poolside overlooking the ocean.

We tried several of the local restaurants in town and all were good but the best meals we had the whole trip were when we had the hotel cook up some of our day’s catch and serve it will all the trimmings.

It’s tough to beat fresh dorado grilled with garlic and butter, served with rice and beans along with homemade tortillas……mmmmm……..I can still taste it.  It was so good we did it two nights in a row.

Although we didn’t knock them dead as in previous years we all caught enough dorado and each of us lost enough nice fish that it makes you want to get back and give it another try.  It’s not very often that fishing is off in Loreto, two years in a row.  The last “La Nina” was 1998.  So I guess we just know how to pick ‘em.

More pic’s

“El Capitan” Jesus…..quality guide that spoke very good English and had great knowledge of the fish and the area.

Dorado Double

The “Mexican Air Force”

Well, another successful Bighorn trip for another great group of guys/gals.  We had 14 again this season and all had a wonderful trip, as usual.  The extended winter had it’s effect on the river as it has with all the other waters I have fished this year.  Although the banks were loaded with hoppers, most were still too small to fly.  So, the fish weren’t keying into them like last year.  Luckily, because the river has had great flushes the past few years the bugs are rebounding tremendously. 

Mark Stroh and I went up early again this year to do some “scouting for the rest of the group”.   We had some great sight fishing for noses along the banks.  Browns and rainbows were eating PMD spinners and small black caddis in the mornings.  Yellow Sally’s and a pretty big tan caddis (#14-12) were the main fare in the afternoon.  We caught fish in between the stops drifting my foam hoppers along the seams and even in the middle of the river.  We didn’t get into the 20″+ fish this year like last, but had plenty of fish 18″-19″ and several 20″ fish.  The nice part was we never set up a nymph rig.

I was a little tardy with the camera this trip.  It is pretty good fishing when you don’t even take a pic of a 19″-20″ trout.  The best day for me was the next to last day of the trip.  The clouds rolled in and it was dark all day.  It screamed “STREAMERS”.  I had tried it the first day with no takers so pretty much put it away for the trip.  My guide, John Keiser, looked at me in the morning and imitated a streamer tug.  It is always nice to have a guide that knows what’s going on.  I would have left the streamer rig in the room, if he hadn’t reminded me.  I must have landed 40-50 trout that day, with several in the 20″ category. 

This year was different but not uneventful.  It was great to see the bugs coming on as strong as they did.  It bodes well for next year.  We will have two trips next year.  This group is pretty much all coming back for the last week in July.  I have the week prior booked as well.  This year the week before we got there the river had great Yellow Sally, PMD and tan and black caddis hatches.  You just had to figure out which bug they were eating and ”game on”. 

Thanks again to Matt and Keri for a great trip and Chef Keith served up some of the best table fare I have had there in the all the years I’ve been going.   Looking forward to next year.

Well I hope this works, I have not been able to get this thing going. It’s CHIEF, I have been primarily fishing X-Mas with all the dry fly action in the early morning. Both creeks which feed the lake are good and with water off color you have to be able to cast on a moment notice to the rising apaches. Virgil (CHEZZZ) and I were there last week and fished all morning and did very well on dries mainly on terrestrails and did some wet fishing with midges and larves. I sure wish I could post some pictures but it seems to not work for me. The days have been good for the most part of  the morning but when noon hits, its has the chance to really start pouring. I have been fishing X-Mas 2 times per weekend and seem to fish it differently each time. I will be there this weekend again on Friday July 23,  and Saturday July 24, 2010. You will see my Chevy Silverado and look for me in the coves on a green Fish Cat (Panther). What to bring, 3WT Rod, 4X leader 9 foot, 4X - 5X Tippet, and ants, beetles, hoppers, gnats, and larves & damsels if you want to do some micro-indictor fishing. CHIEF

I have been fishing Show-Low lake almost daily and throw in an occasional stop to Fools Hollow. At these two lakes I am targeting small mouth bass of course I hook an errant stocked rainbow now and then. The small mouth like a particular structure and take a fly readily with sometimes vicious top water takes. There are large mouth bass  and pike present in Fools Hollow and both lakes have walleye. If your ever in the area check out these two diverse fisheries.  If you require my services call or email 602-384-0780…..or jackfaulkinbury@yahoo.com

The last two weeks has found me on the creeks of the white mountains and the rim. Its hopper dropper season and the creeks have required my attention.  I have had some disappointment as well as some pleasant surprises.  Hoppers have been working.  If you find the right creek and the right cicada pattern coupled with a nymph imitation you could be in for it. Remember it is also monsoon season and we are seeing clouds, lightning and rain daily so be prepared.

I went up to the White’s Thursday by way of Canyon Creek last week.  Hit the water late around 11 and found people already in the spot I usually start so I moved up and hit water upstream.  Creek is running full and looks awesome.  Lots of fish.  It was pretty much midday so there wasn’t much surface activity.  I wanted to fish my hoppers and ants.  I had made up some variations and I wanted to see how they fished.  The browns liked pretty much everything but seemed to prefer the small hopper the most.  I landed maybe 7-8 browns with the biggest being about 15″s.  I decided to just sit down and watch the stream for awhile in certain areas and found several pools that held big browns.  I had a 20″r eat my hopper but missed him and fished over a fish for the next three hours that probably went close to 24″s.  I never got her to eat but she definitely deserves another visit.

I headed up to Brian Boyer’s place that evening.  His dad, Luke was in town and we planned to spend the next few days trying to find some players in the White’s.  We fished Becker the following morning and I caught fish on damsels and leeches and Brian and Luke caught them on c’mids.  I had not fished Becker in about 15 years and was really surprised to see the big ant hatch on the water.  Problem was the fish weren’t reacting to it much.   That evening we met up with Jack Faulkinbury and hit Show Low lake and caught small rainbows, green sunfish and small smallies. 

Next morning was back to Becker.  Daryl had come up and joined us as well.  No ants that day but we waylayed them on leeches and damsels.  Brian and his dad did the same on c’mids.   We must have landed 20 each that day. 

Biggest fish was 18 with most in the 14-15″ class. The monsoon chased us off as it had the previous day.  It has arrived and the country looks great up there.

Sunday found us back at Becker but this time the ants were back and the fish were eating them.  What a blast!  Luke didn’t make it but all three of us landed fish over 20″s with one going over 3 lbs. 

This one liked the Lady Carpenter foam ant.  If it holds up through the summer this lake should be in prime shape for the new  ”C&R” reg’s going into effect January ‘11.  Water temp’s were already hitting 70.  Hopefully it will be a good Monsoon and help keep the water in good shape .  I can’t wait to see how big these Triploids will get.  

The last few weeks has been more fishing that time at home with the machine so time for a report.  Finally got into Xmas tree with clients who came down from northern Wisconsin, the dynamic duo of Preston and his Grandfather Duane. They traveled all these miles to catch the Apache trout. This would be accomplished in spades of course and with the recent troubles with the hatcheries we were fortunate to get to fish Xmas tree at all. Two days later I would get to help a few Gentleman from Tucson with their Apache trout dreams as well. There may be a tease of some smallie action from the last couple of weeks as well ……….enjoy!

Ron Gonzalez, Mike Lyons, Mitch Vitkovich and myself hit Colorado last week looking for the big trout of Antero.  That was the plan… but as we all have experienced, Antero had its own plan.  Seems the late winter conditions had delayed the shallow water migration of the big trout somewhat.  The weeds weren’t where they were supposed to be and neither were the trout.  We had to fish deep and that changed things a lot for us.  The leech strip bite was pretty slow and the average fish we caught was smaller than ever before.   This seemed to bother me more than the rest of the group.  A slow day on Antero is still a very good day most other places. 

Everyone seemed to catch bigger fish than me….I just assume that is because I was a good host (well, that’s how I see it).  Everyone caught quite a few fish fish in the 3 lb range,  Mike and Ron seemed to catch a lot more of that size fish than I did.   I think Mike had 6 of 7 fish in that size at one point while I was catching 1-1.5 lb fish, which I had never seen before at Antero.  We may have done better with c’mids or leeches under an indicator but the bobber boys didn’t seem to be catching any big fish either and I just don’t have the patience to do it unless I’m hanging some big ones. 

Mitch wade fished a small point of an island and caught several nice fish.  One went 4.5 lbs and turned out to be the big fish of the trip. 

The wind kept us off the lake one whole day and half of another which gave us a little time to explore.  We hit a small, beautiful lake north of Antero called Jefferson that was probably up 11,500 ft and caught lots of small rainbows on dries and nymphs and some smallish lakers as well. 

We also hit Spinney Mtn on the lee side of the lake but didn’t have any luck there at all.  

Another good trip with a good bunch of guys.  I am anxious to see how the group does next month.  There was some talk by the local guys at the boat ramp of some winterkill and complaints of smaller fish than usual.  I marked a lot of big fish on my finder that just didn’t want to play so I hope it is just that the late runoff has delayed the big fish bite some.  I know they were there this past spring because we caught them at iceout.  Oh well, fishing’s fishing.  If everything worked out as planned every time, we’d get bored with it.

I recieved this report from Jack Faulkinbury yesterday.

Well after fishing all weekend with client I had the opportunity to hit some of the local lakes. Since I had been putting clients on trout all weekend I had to switch it up , so monday I hit a local lake in search of smallies. I found smallies around the edges and in the rocks I found a few good sized ones but they averaged 12 inches or so. Tuesday Tramell headed up and we met at the rim in search of smallies once again, this time we would find some larger fish that were willing to play. Wednesday we started thinking trout again and headed to the rez for a few rainbows and one Apache trout. The action was lethargic from the onset so after managing the few trout we did we both had the same idea, head back to the smallie lakes. Besides why waste time with rubber rainbows we will catch a few of those in between smallies anyway. 

Here’s some pic’s

Good job guys.

Went up with Tim Oliver to check out his new place.  We hit Pacheta Sat around 8 am and found the lake looking great, plenty of water and fairly clear.  No surface activity at all so we tried simi’s and streamers.  Picked up a few but pretty slow and the vast majority were small stocker Apaches and a smattering of rainbows.  There were plenty of Carpenter ants on the water and nothing was coming up for them….weird.  Temp’s were in the high 60’s and got up to 72+ by the end of the day.  May have something to do with it.  We finally switched to c’mids and caught quite a few but missed probably 6-1 takes, I think due to the small size of the fish.  Highlight of the day was Charlie Girard’s 20″ 3 1/2 lb brown he caught on a black c’mid.  Fish was healthy and fought him hard.   He landed another 19″r as well and Tim had a 20″ fish too.  I pretty much took pic’s and played net boy.  Didn’t get one of Tim’s fish, sorry Tim.  Lake looked good.  Let’s hope for a good Monsoon to keep it that way.  We marked a lot of big fish but they just didn’t want to cooperate this trip.

Hit X Diamond the following morning and had a ball catching rainbows and browns on hoppers.  None around but the fish didn’t seem to care.  They were all over a hopper.  Creek has plenty of water and should fish well all season.