MAGDALENA BAY

MEXICO

YOU HAVE TO SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT

I feel like I say this about a lot of places, but Mag Bay really is a bucket list trip. It is one of those fisheries you can explain to somebody over and over again and they still will not really believe you.

Tell someone you can catch 100 peacock bass in a day and it blows their mind. Tell them you can catch 100 dorado and they think you are exaggerating. Then you tell them that in Magdalena Bay you can honestly catch more than 100 striped marlin in a single day. Sometimes more than 200. There have even been extraordinary days when boats have reported more than 300 releases.

It just does not compute until you actually see it.

The first day I ever fished Mag Bay was aboard a liveaboard. We released more than 125 striped marlin that day. We had already caught 20 before breakfast.

Actually, nobody ate breakfast.

We were catching so many marlin that nobody wanted to stop fishing long enough to eat. At some point we were just giggling. I remember FaceTiming friends from the boat and telling them, “Watch this.” We would hook a striped marlin while I was on the call, fight it, release it and then do it again. I did that with multiple people because I knew they were not going to believe me otherwise.

And the numbers are only part of it. The ocean itself is completely alive. There are bait balls everywhere. Sea lions diving through them. Dorado and wahoo crashing the bait. Striped marlin coming from every direction. Humpback whales feeding right beside the boat.

I have had humpbacks so close while they were feeding that I felt like I could touch them with the tip of my fly rod. It feels like you have somehow driven the boat straight into a National Geographic documentary.

We stopped counting free-jumping striped marlin at around 50. Then, in the afternoon, you are heading back with a drink in your hand and everywhere you look there are fins. Another striped marlin. Then another. Then another one free jumping.

I have fished all over the world and I have never seen anything quite like Magdalena Bay. You can watch the videos. You can look at the photographs. You can listen to me ramble on about catching more than 100 marlin in a day.

None of it puts Mag Bay into context until you are actually standing there watching it happen.

Two Completely Different Ways To Fish Mag Bay

There are two very different ways I like to experience Magdalena Bay. One is aboard a proper liveaboard

sportfisher, where the trip is about comfort, camaraderie and ridiculous numbers of striped marlin. The other is Los Locos, where the whole game becomes much more intimate: a panga, a fly rod, a moving bait ball and a free-swimming marlin.

I have taken some of the same guests on both trips. They loved both. They are just different ends of the same incredible fishery.

The Liveaboard Experience

Start In Cabo

If you are going to do the liveaboard, I love starting with a few days in Cabo. There are phenomenal resorts, excellent restaurants, great golf, pools, spas and nightlife. You can make the fishing the centerpiece of the trip without making it the only thing you do.

Then, in the afternoon, you step aboard your sportfisher. On the boats I like for this trip, we generally keep the group to a maximum of six guests. This is a proper sportfishing boat, not a mega yacht, so you are living aboard and sharing space, but on the right boat it is extremely comfortable. You have a professional crew, a private chef and everything you need to fish hard while still eating and living very well.

Around four o’clock, someone puts a cocktail in your hand, you motor past the famous Cabo Arch and start heading north. You have dinner aboard, head to bed, and the boat keeps running through the night.

When you wake up the next morning, you are in the land of plenty.

I sometimes describe Mag Bay as the land that Neptune forgot to tell things had changed. It feels prehistoric. Like the land before time. There is simply more life packed into that piece of ocean than almost anywhere I have ever seen.

Then The Madness Starts

The fishing from the liveaboard is mostly light tackle. Twenty-pound stand-up tackle is an absolute blast, there are spinning outfits, and if somebody needs the chair we can do that too.

There are several ways to catch them, but for pure consistency I love live bait. My favorite place to fish is from the bow. You find a bait ball, the captain eases the boat into position, and you throw a live bait into the chaos.

Sometimes it takes seconds. You are hooked up. Then your buddy is hooked up. Then somebody else hooks up. Before you really know what has happened, there can be five striped marlin jumping in five different directions and everyone on the boat is shouting and laughing while trying desperately not to get tangled.

It is complete pandemonium. And it is unbelievably good fun.

Breakfast Can Wait

Eventually you wander toward the stern to tell everyone what just happened. Then somebody starts shouting for you to get back to the bow because the marlin are still there. Somewhere in between all of this, you notice the chef has put breakfast out. And this is not a muffin and a cup of coffee. On one of our trips we had fresh fruit, croissants, bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon, fresh tuna, bacon, sausages, poached eggs, fried eggs and just about anything else you could want.

It looked incredible. On our first morning almost nobody ate it. We were catching too many marlin.

Eventually we moved the Turtlebox speaker onto the bow, dragged a beanbag up there, kept a supply of cold beers close by and basically set up camp. Music playing. Beer in hand. Friends laughing. And every few minutes somebody throwing another live bait at a striped marlin.

By Sunset, You Are Done

By late afternoon your arms hurt. Your back hurts. You are exhausted and completely worked from catching fish. Eventually everyone collectively decides they have had enough. That sounds ridiculous, but in Mag Bay it happens.

You sit back with a sundowner and watch the sun fall over an ocean still full of marlin, whales and birds. Then the chef puts another great meal on the table. You eat with the crew, have a few drinks and talk absolute nonsense about everything that happened that day.

If your group is anything like mine, there is a lot of laughter and probably one or two too many sundowners. You do not stay up particularly late because tomorrow morning you wake up and do the whole thing again.

How Long Should You Go?

For the liveaboard, I recommend four nights aboard with three full days of fishing. Fishing is still fishing, and even somewhere as extraordinary as Mag Bay you can have a slower day. Give yourself three days and you have a proper chance to see what this place can really do.

By the end of it, those striped marlin are going to work you. You will be tired. Your arms will be sore. And you will probably be sitting there wondering how on earth catching marlin became physically exhausting. That is a pretty good problem to have.

The Other Side Of Mag Bay: Los Locos

Marlin are my favorite fish in the world. And catching one on fly is incredibly special.

There are plenty of places where you can tease a marlin behind the boat, pull the teaser away and make the cast. That is great fishing. But for me, nothing compares to free casting a fly at a free-swimming marlin.

That is what makes Los Locos so special.

A Salty Fisherman’s Paradise

You drive north from Cabo and eventually arrive at this little hotel in the middle of nowhere. There are Mexican dogs wandering around. You walk into the restaurant and the walls are covered in stickers from fishermen who have come from all over the world.

Everything feels salty. Everything feels fishy. It is one of those places where you immediately know you have arrived somewhere built by fishermen, for fishermen.

The people behind Los Locos came down years ago, towing a boat behind them, found this extraordinary fishery and basically never left. They built the operation from scratch. Their passion for the place is infectious, and they are some of the most genuine fishing people I have ever met.

The guides are phenomenal. The kind of fly guides who have chased fish all over the world want to spend time there because the fishery is simply that good.

You can catch roosterfish, snapper, wahoo and other species, but there is really one reason I go: striped marlin on fly.

No Teasers. No Bait And Switch.

This is what makes it different. You climb into a panga and go looking for bait balls. When you find one, you can actually see the marlin hunting.

Sometimes the bait ball might only be 30 or 40 little baitfish desperately trying to stay alive, with striped marlin circling and attacking them from every direction.

You are low to the water in a panga. There is no giant cockpit between you and the fish. You are right there. You can see the bait. The marlin. The dorsal fins. The shoulders of the fish pushing through the water.

And now you have to make the cast.

The bait balls move quickly, so you do not get all day to think about it. Maybe one false cast. Maybe two. Then you see a marlin coming through and the guide tells you where to put the fly.

Suddenly your heart is trying to climb out of your chest.

Bad Richie

My guides spent a fair amount of time telling me, “Bad Richie. Bad Richie” Usually because I had messed up a cast, or because I stopped fishing the fly before it was all the way back to the boat.

That last few feet matters. You think the opportunity is over. You start getting ready to make another cast. Then suddenly a striped marlin comes flying out of nowhere and absolutely destroys the fly right beside the panga.

It is an incredibly aggressive bite. There is no subtlety about it. A marlin wants that fly. And when everything comes together and you actually hook one, it is one of the greatest feelings in fishing.

Fly Fishing Does Not Get Much More Personal Than This

To me, fly fishing is probably the most personal way you can catch a fish. You make the cast. You work the fly. You see the fish. You see the eat. You feel everything happen.

Now put yourself in a little panga, almost at water level, with a striped marlin swimming a few yards away from you. It is about as connected to a marlin as you can possibly be.

And it is difficult. It took me three hours one day to get my first proper bite. Eventually I handed the rod to my guide. He hooked one in about three minutes. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

These guys are unbelievably good. But more importantly, they are patient. They want you to get it. They keep teaching you. They keep putting you in position. Eventually it comes together.

If you already love fly fishing, you need to do this trip. If you only think you might love fly fishing, this might be the trip that ruins you forever.

Then There Are The Whales

Because apparently striped marlin on fly is not enough, you are fishing around humpback whales.

I have had whales feeding so close to the panga that I felt like I could touch them with the tip of my fly rod. At one point we were chasing a humpback that was following a bait ball. The whale was on the bait. The marlin were on the same bait. And we were running beside it trying to throw flies into the chaos.

We have drone footage of it. Watching it back still does not really make sense. It completely discombobulates your brain. There is so much happening around you that you struggle to process all of it.

Mag Bay is not just fishing. It is a natural phenomenon.

And Then You Go Home

Eventually you head back toward town. You climb into the back of the truck, sometimes with giant shark jaws strapped to the front, and everyone starts talking at once.

Who missed what. Who hooked what. Who completely blew a cast. Who had a marlin eat at their feet.

Then everyone sits down for dinner and does it all again. You fish hard. You laugh hard. You eat together. You tell stories. Then the next morning you get back in the panga and go looking for another bait ball.

Almost everyone I know who has been there wants to go back. Everyone I have taken there wants to go back. I want to go back.

For me, this is right at the top of the pile.

Which Mag Bay Trip Is Right For You?

Choose The Liveaboard If...

• You want world-class marlin fishing with a comfortable sportfishing experience.

• You want to combine Cabo resorts, restaurants, golf, pools or nightlife with the fishing.

• You are bringing your wife, kids, couples or a close group of friends.

• You have never caught a marlin and want a place where you can learn to hook and fight fish.

• You are an experienced marlin angler who simply wants to see how outrageous the numbers can get.

I have done the liveaboard with four guys and had an unbelievable time. I have also done it with three couples and, if anything, we had even more fun. The bonding and camaraderie on the boat are a huge part of the experience.

Choose Los Locos If...

• You are a serious fly fisherman or want to become one.

• You would rather have a panga, a great guide and a moving bait ball than a luxury suite.

• You want to free cast at striped marlin instead of teasing them to the boat.

• You love salty fishing camps, guides, stories, tequila and being surrounded by people who are there purely to fish.

Los Locos is not five star. It might be two star. But the fishing is five star. The crews are ten star. The camaraderie is ten star. And the stories around the dinner table might be even better.

In Cabo you might be drinking Don Julio 1942. At Los Locos, you are drinking Don Julio. No years attached. You are probably going to have just as good a night.

Neither trip is better. They are simply two completely different ways to experience one of the most extraordinary fisheries on the planet. And if you cannot decide, we can always do both.

When Should You Fish Mag Bay?

You can see the season begin building at the end of September, but if you ask me when I personally want to be there, my answer is simple: late October and November.

That is my favorite window. I have fished Mag Bay over Thanksgiving and around New Year and had fantastic trips at both ends of the season, but if I am choosing the dates myself, I want to be there from the end of October through November.

For clients, I generally recommend October 1 through December 15. Could you go at the end of September? Yes. Could you still have great fishing later in December? Absolutely. But I would not personally push a trip much beyond December 15 if we had a choice.

As with any wild fishery, bait and ocean conditions ultimately decide what happens. That is fishing. But if somebody calls me and says, “Richard, give me your best Mag Bay dates,” I am looking first at late October and November.

Make Cabo Part Of The Trip

Cabo is one of the easiest places in the world to turn a serious fishing trip into a great vacation. There are exceptional resorts at the high end and plenty of options at every level below that. We can recommend the right hotel for your group and your budget.

For a boys trip, I love the idea of a couple of days of golf, a night out, a pool day, then three days of Mag Bay fishing before coming back to Cabo for one last night. For couples or families, the resorts, restaurants, pools, spas and beaches give everybody something to enjoy before and after the fishing.

You can make Mag Bay completely fishing mad, or you can build it into a broader Baja vacation. That part is up to you.

We Can Handle As Much Or As Little As You Want

One of the things I always tell people about Fishing the Planet is that we do not just book you a boat and send you a confirmation.

We want to actually talk to you. Every trip starts with a phone call so we can understand who is going, how you like to travel, how serious you are about the fishing and what kind of experience you want around it.

Then we build from there.

• Hotel recommendations in Cabo at the level and price range you want.

• Flight recommendations.

• Private airport transfers and drivers.

• VIP airport assistance in Cabo if you want it.

• Transportation north for Los Locos.

• Fishing licenses and trip logistics.

• Tackle guidance and pre-trip advice.

• Restaurant and taco recommendations.

• The right boat, crew and fishing format for your group.

Basically, we can handle the trip from A to Z. How involved you want us to be is completely up to you. Some clients want us to arrange absolutely everything. Others simply want the right boat, the right guides and some advice about where to stay. Both are fine with us.

Want Me To Come With You?

I love these trips. That is one of the reasons Fishing the Planet exists in the first place.

If you want me there, I am always happy to host a private trip for you and your friends or family. Or you can join me on one of our Fishing the Planet hosted trips when we have dates available.

Either way, give me a call. Tell me how you want to experience Mag Bay and who you want to bring. We will figure out whether the liveaboard or Los Locos is right for you, choose the dates, build the trip around you and take care of everything you want us to take care of.

Then all you really have to worry about is making the cast — and trying to explain to your friends back home that, yes, you really did catch that many marlin.