Pacific Coast trip - lots of pics

I usually head down to Baja on surf trips, but with the extended flat spell we’ve had I decided to do a surf fishing and longboard fishing expedition in some areas around the central pacific coast that I haven’t had time to explore much. I left home in San Diego around 6:30AM and after a mostly uneventful drive south, I decided to make my first side trip to La Lobera.



Anyone who has been to El Rosario has seen this sign just north of town; I finally decided to go check it out. The road heads west a few miles to the coast in a beautiful area that looks a lot like the coast of La Jolla or Sunset Cliffs:



As I was checking out the collapsed ceiling of a sea cave, a Mexican family showed up; they were the only other visitors I saw. Not many seals or sea lions when I was there.



Moving on, I pulled into El Rosario and fueled up. I was ultimately heading for Bahia Asuncion so at this point I had the choice of heading into the hot desert or taking the road west to Punta Baja and spending a cool evening by the water. I chose the latter and set up camp on the bay south of the point:



There were even some little waves so I was able to get a surf in, then a nice stroll on the beach and a nice sunset.



There was an osprey keeping an eye on my camp:



The next morning I ate, broke camp, and drive straight down to Bahia Asuncion. I made a quick loop through town to check it out then headed NW out of town to Punta Loma, which is about halfway between Asuncion and San Roque. It was a long drive so I set up camp, explored the area around the point and the beach, then ate and went to bed. Here is my camp at Punta Loma:



The following morning I awoke and after some coffee I started casting from the beach in the area where the reef and sand came together, and immediately started catching fish: big corbina and yellowfin croaker on the gulp worms, then corvina on the chrome Krocodile jig. The corvina were thick and aggressive so the action was pretty much nonstop. I picked up a couple of halibut and a few of those weird little greenback needlefish as well, it seemed like everything was biting. I don’t think that beach gets fished very often, if ever. Sorry, no fish pics since I was solo and releasing everything. I would say the corvina were in the 2-5 pound range, super fun on 6# test. This stretch was super productive:



Around 11 or so the wind started coming up and I headed into town and chatted with Shari at La Bufadora. She has this kitten that needs a ride to San Quintin to find a permanent home; unfortunately I wasn’t able to take it because I had a number of other remote destinations on the list before heading up that way.





I decided to stay at Shari & Juan’s campground, Campo Sirena, for a couple days to take advantage of the shower and wi-fi. I met with Lucas, who kind of watches over the place, and we ended up going for dinner at the nearby restaurant.



The next morning I headed southeast out of town to Choros. This is a beautiful beach with a surf break, but there wasn’t much swell so I paddled out on my longboard with my rod and started fishing. Immediately I was into small 1-2 pound class sierra. They were super aggressive and they were fun to catch for a while but then I got bored of them and started targeting calicos. The calicos are thick on the reef and big. I was hooking up almost every cast using rubber swimbaits and these were toad bass. The boiler rocks and inner reefs are too far out for shorecasting but too close in for a boat, so I don’t think this fish ever see a lure and they grow old and fat. I probably caught 20 or so (all released) then had enough and explored the beach. It’s probably one of the nicest beaches in the area:



The fishing co-op has a warning sign to anyone thinking about taking lobsters or abalone:



They also have watch house that looks a little worse for wear:



The reef at Choros:



A little bit later I drove down to Punta Prieta and San Hipolito to check out those areas for surf potential. The prevailing NW wind is offshore at Hipolito and there were some perfect, albeit micro-sized waves peeling off. This place has potential and I would definitely check it out during a swell.

The next day went back over to Shari and Juan’s place and fished off my longboard right out in front. The calicos were biting pretty well, but not quite the quality of fish that I was getting over at Choros. Juan asked me to keep one fish for his uncle who likes cabrilla, and the rest were all released.



After fishing Shari, myself, and her friend Beth went out for lunch at a new mariscos restaurant called Blady’s that just recently opened right on the beach. They had ceviche de pulpo, which is my favorite and it was quite good!

After lunch I decided to head over to San Roque and check that area out. It’s only about 15 minutes or so from Asuncion, and I met up with a guy named John there who has been renting a house there for a few months. There was also a German couple who have been living there for nine months. San Roque is a beautiful place with a big sand beach leading into a Mediterranean looking point. I was going to paddle around the point and see if there were any yellowtail but John explained to me that his kayak got attacked by a large hammerhead shark the day before after he bled out a yellowtail on the water. You could clearly see the upper and lower jaw bite marks on his kayak…so I decided to stick close to the inside rocks. Caught a bunch of calicos that were all released.

San Roque:



Heading back to Asuncion, I stopped at Punta Loma to see if the corvina were still going off. They were! I kept two fish this time and filleted them up right there on the beach. Back at camp I made a batter from flour and water, rolled the battered fillets in panko crumbs, and fried them up. I had plenty of fish so I invited Lucas over and we gorged ourselves on fresh fish tacos.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Asuncion area, but the next morning I packed up and started working my way back north. I decided to head to Punta Rosarito (aka The Wall) to check out the fishing. They gave a pretty comprehensive writeup of the area in The Baja Catch, but I found it less promising than they obviously did. I caught some very small halibut and tiny bass, but considering the bad roads, wind, and overall difficult conditions I wouldn’t make this a fishing destination.

The Wall only breaks in winter so it was entirely devoid of surfers and completely empty. I had my choice of stone fortresses for camping that night



In the morning I kept pressing north along the dirt roads toward Santa Rosalillita, stopping at a particularly nice beach along the way to stop and stretch. I decided to try a couple casts and much to my surprise I hooked up on the biggest fish of the trip, a 15-18 pound class halibut! This was easily the biggest halibut I’ve ever caught in the surf, and was released to fight another day. It was just south of this beach:



I stayed overnight at Cielito Lindo in Santa Maria, which is a cool old resort costing only about 21 USD for a huge room with two beds. I wandered down to the beach and played around in the dunes.





The next day I continued north and took a final side trip out to La Chorera and the surrounding area. The entire area was amazing clean and completely trash-free! La Chorera is a picturesque little village on the pacific where even the chickens get beachfront property...



After that side trip it was straight north and back home. Another great trip!

Loved the write-up and photos - more is better. And I loved the COPS steeker on the sign:

Quote: Originally posted by shari

love your pics man...and really enjoyed our time together. Look forward to your next visit hopefully there will be surf! Pretty cool to have ANOTHER chupacabra in town!!!

AK...you are so right about Peter Chupacabra Pan...delightful in every way! and definitely a fish whisperer! Here he is in all his glory...bringing us lunch from our backyard....

Quote: Originally posted by El Jefe

This is the quality of report I hope to find when I click on Baja Nomad. Thanks so much for giving me something fun to browse with my morning coffee. Well done!

Quote: Originally posted by Charlie Nichols

Just curious, at the spots where you just pitched a tent on the beach, are those pay locations or just random empty stretches of beach? Seriously looking forward to doing something similar in the near future. Great report, thanks.

Great photos and narration. I love the way the trip seemed so care free, yet was so clearly the product of research, planning and organization. Never much of the adventurer myself, I took immense vicarious satisfaction in this trip report. Well done!