Tropical Storm Narda

It hit on Thanksgiving day and boy howdy was it a toad strangler. A new record dump here in Mazatlan was measured at 8.8 inches in about an 18 hour period. It didn't rain continuously but when it did it pelted down. Now retired guide #003 has seen a bit of rain on this quest around the sun. In fact I remember it rained every single day the summer of 73 when I was commercial fishing... or maybe that's just my memory being tricked by how I felt about the job,,,,mmmmm,,,,well that's another story, I'll just say I've never seen anything like this rain. It flooded all the estuaries turning the dredged harbor next door into a muddy mess that discolored the ocean for 3 days. The rain buried cars on the low lining streets in Centro and Slah posted pics on Facebook of his restaurant with water to the door. Here's a 15 second video taken next to our house, make sure your audio is up, very impressive.

It took 4 days for the swimming pool's cleaning and filters to make the water fit for humans again.

So I'm on  Toro patrol a mile or so up the beach when I here a notification on my phone. For some odd reason I actually looked and it was MP with a pic of this fish with the wording  ' Alejandro just now '. So I terminated my Toro binge and went home to find Alejandro giddy with excitement. This Robalo is 12 kilo's and it is not only the biggest Robalo that he has ever caught but it's the biggest fish he has ever caught, how cool is that ? He's caught who knows hundreds of Robalo so to get the champion at his age .....magic. To put it in perspective it would be like me catching the biggest King Salmon I've ever seen after handling literally thousands of them. What we all figure is that this guy is a more rare Black Snook that most likely came out of the harbor / estuary because of the flood and got caught. Unlike the Whites Snook these guys are anadromous like salmon so it makes perfect sense. Alejandro cleaned it up perfectly and froze it whole with the head on for a Christmas fiesta with his familia.

If you remember a couple issues of Mile 14 back I showed you how to NOT fish from an elevated spot and expect to land a fish if you're lucky enough to get bit. That one resulted in me needing help and breaking both the line and an eye on my 200 dollar Lamiglass. So the other day my friend Jesse showed me how it's done...what I picked up on first was ya gotta be coooool, I've always done that in my professional fishing but for some reason down here I'll admit....I get buck fever. Here's Jesse just hooked up.

He works the slimey into the jetty and doesn't really move until it's right below him. Then he asks the gallery for a little room and tightens up as he slowly leads the fish to shore stopping when it wants to run a bit more. This guy is huge and strong so patience is everything. Here's the fish when it's right below him and he's about half way to the shore,

He lets it play out and when he gets to a rock ledge at the water level he tests if he can pull it up and it goes dry without flopping. I ask him if he wants me to hold the rod as he climbs down and he gives me a look like ' why the hell would I do that '. He carefully steps over the rope fence and slackens his line, walla....supper on the way.

And the last pic here is the one where I always say " pictures  will be on sale  in the lobby tomorrow " and every grizzled Team Xer says....." shut the hell up, I've heard that a 100 times".

So the big news here at Mile 14 Southern Bureau is that this morning I committed to going offshore with the legendary Chalio on Monday. Yep, I'm going to slap leather and do what people did for me the last 37 years, it was either that or buy fish rather than buy fishing. In fact we were at the market and I was close to buying a whole Corvina when MP said I should be embarrassed. She also said that if I bought fish she would tell everybody and then she turned around and told everybody anyway...yikes. So I'll take plenty of pics of the offshore adventure and report back by this day next week,,,honest.....so how's a bout a sunrise pic from the Faro Mazatlan looking south to stone Island, It's why guys like me do what we do ya know ....