Four of us made it to the Malaquite Visitor Center parking lot. We made our way down the beach in three vehicles and had made it to the 5 mile mark when we started seeing the dusk anchovies and the birds working like crazy so we started fishing.

As we made our way down the beach the birds continue to work we stopped multiple times.

On our first day we caught a lot of big lady fish on the fly. We also caught some small jacks and the occasional Spanish mackerel.

We made it down to the turtle house about 5:30 in the evening, and set up camp. Tim used a newfangled grill that he has a solid iron rod that he pounds into the ground. We had bratwurst and canned beans with a side order of potato salad for dinner. Stories were swapped as we sat around the campfire until about 10 o’clock.

3:00am we had a light rain come through. It barely got anything wet, however at 4:30am a nice hard rain came in with a bit of wind. This was a soaking rain. Fortunately most of us had put the rain fly up the night before in anticipation. There was that “one guy” that didn’t, and he paid the price, by being completely soaked.

Saturday morning the fishing was pretty good at camp, with a lot of lady fish hooked, and one very nice trout. Eduardo hooked the trout while standing on the shoreline casting into the first cut. He never even got his feet wet. Phil reported that at sunrise, before coffee, the bait and gamefish were on the shore.

After breakfast we decided it was time to run the beach again. “Puck” elected to stay back and watch the camp, allowing folks to get on the beach and go fishing faster, and not having to break down all the camping gear. This worked out fairly well.

Tim and Phil went down to the jetties, took a few pictures, cast in a few reds, but didn’t catch very many fish on Saturday.

Eduardo left a bit later than they did, and went down to about mile 50 or so. He also reported that fishing was slow.

How about 4 o’clock Saturday we decide to gather back at camp, start our grill, as we had foil wrapped sweet potatoes that were going to take a long time to cook. As the sweet potatoes cooked, we settled in camp, washed a few things down, rinse things off, and generally just relaxed.

Once the potatoes were done, steaks were added to the grill. Tim cooked, and once again did very well.

As the sun filled the four of us traded stories around the campfire, with two of our older folks crashing before midnight. I don’t know when the other two finally went down, because I was one of the one sound asleep.

Again very early in the morning a light rain came in. It didn’t get very much wet, as it only lasted for a few minutes.

Before sunrise the coffee was started, and there was a light breeze that kept the vampires down. Two of us were walking the beach before the sun rose, and the fish were already there. Our plan was to have our coffee have our breakfast, and get on the road headed north and off the beach by about 9 o’clock. Not all of us were moving by 9 o’clock, but it was close.

We ran into pods of feeding birds in the surf. But because there was so much bait there was not always feeding fish under them. One of us would run ahead find the birds and wait for the others.

It was very difficult to leave feeding fish, but we knew this was our last day we had to get off the beach.

After hundreds of fish caught, mostly lady fish, We did find a pocket of blue fish working in extremely shallow water, and right in front of us less than a rod length away, making a cast impossible. Four were landed, after multiple break-offs.

We made one last stop around mile seven. This was a flurry of activity in the super clear water, both birds and fish feeding less than a rod length away from shore.

We made it off the beach by about 1230 into the Malaquite parking lot. The Malaquite shower facility is still being reconstructed, and upgraded. The outside rinse off still works so that’s where we parked and that’s what we used.

There were only four of us on this trip, and I thought that was an anomaly, until I realize that on Saturday there were no other anglers down where we were on the beach. What was going on this weekend that kept people off the water in such beautiful weather?