It all makes cents

A few years ago I had a gold and black K-16 Kwikfish that was catching 80 % of our King Salmon for a period of three or four days. When I finally lost it on the bottom it was a bummer but of course we know where they sell them and can always get more....Well, you see that lure on my rod between all those gorgeous fish, its a Surface Tension 1 1/2 ouncer that cast like a bullet and drives those toros to suicide...and I lost it because I didn't re tie after that many nice fish...and....I'm embarrassed to say, I only bought one and the only place to get em is N.O.B. as we say, north of the border.

My friend Craig Kokeman and I had them surrounded the other morning. The toro chase your lure and just as often as you catch one he might miss the bait or whack it 2 feet into the air. Its flat exciting and now I know the allure of dry fly fishing, to see the fish take the hook is adds a whole new dimension to the deal.

So in the course of just 24 hours I lost my toro magnet, then a 12 dollar Krocodile 2 1/2 ouncer and then as Ern would say I had a schamoozle that cost me 20 bucks worth of power pro. All just to catch those fish...I was reminded of a customer one time who's fishing buddy told him that the King he'd just caught must have cost him over 2 grand....he said "man, I;m sure glad I didn't catch one". And Oh....the bee sting I got was an extra bonus....So we decided to drop the fishing and off to the Carnaval Parade, its something we never miss .

The city of Mazatlan might as well be sponsored by Pacifico beer. It starts the parade and it ends the parade as well as fuels the parade. Pacifico has always made a wonderful tasty beer and just recently started to produce a light beer...and, well frankly it stinks. So, they gotta convince us otherwise and Pacifico light is all the rage for the pretty people of Pacifico.

This year Pacifico broke out a new promotional device that's tried and proven in the USA, a blimp. It might not be a manned GoodYear of MetLife blimp but  this remote control unit was pretty darn cool. It would hoover over the crowd and then periodically set down on the float with a touch and go. 

Through the years I've taken maybe hundreds of Carnaval Pictures, the one of the lit up Palm tree that I posted last year is a favorite but the one below rates right up there...If you really want a good view of the parade you can rent Malecon side Hotel suite or you can buy a table at a Malecon side bar or you can even buy a seat in the grandstands. But the best thing to do is buy one of these cool hand crafted stools for 50 pesos and tower over the crowd. A few years ago I got one for the girls we were with and half way through the parade and of course a few Pacificos I started wondering how smart that really was.

There were lots of cool floats but if I had to pick a favorite, well two favorites, here they are. Of course the Thinker was a shoe in, I mean I've been thinking a lot lately and that float was just a cosmic convergence for me. It really made me think that what I've been thinking is pretty simple stuff I think, and no need to hunker down without your clothes on like The Thinker, is what I think. And of course this statue gal caught mine and everybody else's attention. She definitely won the most photographed person award at Carnaval 2012.

With as many as 150,00 people along the Malecon one of the big industries for Carnaval is the banos. For 5 pesos you can have your choice of a restaurant, hotel, public porta potty but ours is the basement of the local Bingo hall where a couple of enterprising young people were set up a bit off the malecon.

So it was another great event here Maz Land. MP and I hiked a mile or two to the gold zone and finished the night off with a couple pork tacos with pineapple, soooo good. This is one great place and as you can see at the parade, at the beach, at the building, at the market....the dress is always casual.