If it hadn't been for that darn.....

Bronco game, I'd of had about a perfect last 24 hours. Of course I also lost the Saints game but I'm used to have my hopes dashed in that deal. At half time time of the Saints game I couldn't stand it....I had to go fishing and schools of toro where everywhere on the beach, I must have caught 40 of them all around 2 to 3 pounds I'd guess. Well right at the end of one cast in the whitewater I hit a fish that feels different, walla, a gift of the best eating fish in Maz, a nice little robalo.

Now I've eaten fresh fish before, lots of it. But I don't think I've ever eaten a fish that I caught one hour and cooked the next. It was magnificent, white flaky fish done with the Minnesota shore lunch batter that my friend Keith Holtan taught me....muey bueno.

So this morning I tell MP I'll stay close to home and we'll have a hand holder when she's had her coffee. Its dark thirty and I throw a rubber swim fish next to the jetty with no results. My friend Alejandro usually fish this spot so I figure I'll cast the rocks in front of the next building with the top water and try to catch a snapper. Having been a salmon guy for so long I just love the top water, to see the fish take it adds so much excitement.....Well, I get to seeing some mullet jumping and theres some big fish after them . So with it being low tide and a pretty good surf break I carefully negotiate rock to rock until I'm 30 feet off shore amongst the boulders. The water splashing up around my waist and I know just to stand still so you don't lose your footing. I see a big boil and make the cast and the fish bites once....twice...and then after still following for 7 or 8 cranks of the reel he's hooked hard on the line. I only wish King salmon would bite a bait this aggressive, my life would be sooooo much easier.  Anyway, I have this hard pulling fish on and in this precarious position that if I can get him through all the rocks I still have no place to land him. So I stay put, 15 minutes in he's at my feet and I grab his tail and then wade him to shore. A dandy toro, soon to be on my wall.

 Thats my friend Alberto, through the years we've spent a lot of time together. Its a funny deal,theres only a hand full of passionate surf casters in Mazatlan so when the bite is on here or there we all converge, kinda like the tide bite in the lower river. The next pic is a close up of the toro so you can see what we're dealing with. They're fast and strong like the roosterfish, one of my friends characterizes them in a cool way....he says they're a 'noble' fish.

So I give the Toro to one of Alberto's friends and MP and I are off on the hike. Its 3 miles to the end of the road and Alberto tells me that theres a mexican outdoor comida where I can get my sunday morning menudo  about half way there. I'd been by this place lots of time and just didn't recognise it as an outdoor restaurant, its perfectly  clean, fresh blue corn tortillas that MP said are the best ever. she has eggs ranchero style and I have my menudo....Its a tripe stew that has a tasty broth and lots of hominy, you sprinkle onion,cilantro and this morning some mint on top. No juice, just this wonderfully sweet fanta pops that remind me the pop machines in the gas station when we traveled as a kid.

 The next pic is the avenue so you get an idea of what its like. After breakfast its approaching 80 degrees, shirts off and the sun on my back...man I like that feel.

Right across the street from the new fancy Riu hotel is a wetland full of ducks we've never seen, Mp says some kind of spoon bill....and these really cool turtles, which reminded me. Thats something I gotta do, track down for myself some turtle soup, you know me,I gotta try it all. I'll report back on the turtle soup....did I ever tell you about the frog legs I had at Pancho's last year?