The Baja Pages

Dorado On Poppers!

First printed in California Fly Fisher, Volume 4 Number 4, March-April, 1996

July 1995, Sea of Cortez, Baja

    Dorado were circling our boat in such numbers that fishing buddy Al Smatsky and I could look in any direction and see the long, green silhouettes of fish weighing from 15 to 30 pounds. But getting them to take our flies was proving a major challenge. When we had first cast our Lefty's Deceivers and Clouser Minnows we experienced instant hookups but getting the Dorado to take our flies on subsequent casts was almost impossible.

    To counter this problem we had taken to cutting up mackerel and tossing pieces into the water to get the fish excited. Throwing five or six chunks would produce enough of a frenzy that a fish would peel off and strike one of our flies for a sizzling run. With luck, a lot of bait and many casts, even a third strike might be teased out of a pod of fish. But at the rate we were throwing chum we were going through mackerel faster than a flock of pelicans.It was crazy with activity in the water around the boat - usually, life's excitement comes from racing, a flutter on http://www.thinkbingo.com/ or something more fast-paced than the average fishing trip, but no dice - it truly was a hive of churned, small waves and there were more fish than we could ever hope to catch, catching just two to four Dorado from a school before they got too bored or too smart to play with our flies. It seemed crazy to start the boat and leave 60 fish in search of easier prey but that is exactly what we had been forced to do all this week, putting many miles on the boat every day.

    As I reached for the pull cord on the outboard, I asked al, "Are you ready?" Al, as frustrated as I, said, "Wait, let me try something first."

He reached into his tackle bag and took out one of Leo Gutterres's bass poppers. Leo's poppers are legendary on the West Coast and have been responsible for fooling thousands of smallmouth and largemouth bass. Al picked out a blue and silver popper with a long blue and white tail, pinched down the barb, and tied it to the end of his 10-weight tarpon line.

    The fly hit the water with a plop about fifty feet from the boat, and the fish in the area immediately turned and looked at it. Al gave the popper two strips, and four Dorado shot for the fly simultaneously. One cleared the surface, jumped four feet in the air and took the fly going down. Al's reel screamed as the fish headed for the horizon.

    We both stared at each other with amazement. The violence of the strike had been shocking, incredible. Al was nearly shaking with the suddenness of it all. As the fish ran off over two hundred yards of backing I dived into my tackle bag to find one of the poppers Leo had given me.

    No luck. My poppers were safe at home over 1,000 miles away. I cast my streamer until Al brought his fish to the boat, and then I asked to borrow whatever he had that might work.

    Al gave me a small white popper with a short tail. As I tied it on, he cast his fly toward a school of Dorado, again with the same results. Fish raced each other to the fly, with the winner hitting it so hard that water sprayed five feet in the air. I cast my fly and was ready to hang on. Strip, strip, strip... nothing. Not even a turned head. In the time it took Al to land his second fish I must have made fifteen casts with no results. Al released his fish and cast again, and the fish raced to the fly again, one smashing the popper at attack speed.

    I heard a loud pop, coupled with a "Damn it!" from Al, and saw his line go slack. "The line got wrapped around my shirt tail!"

Al furiously dug into his tackle bag for another fly and grabbed a green, long bodied popper with a short, fluffy tail, tied it to his leader, and made another cast. The fish reacted to his fly like they did mine, with total indifference. After about seven or eight casts, Al dug back into his gear and found another silver and blue fly similar to the first.

    Again there was a savage strike on the first cast. Again, my fly produced nothing. We went on like that for the rest of the day. I finally changed my fly back to a Lefty's Deceiver, but it did not come close to producing the fantastic action Al was having. We figured that it had to be the silver and blue combination on the popper that was responsible. Those colors, in fact, matched the skin of the mackerel we had been tossing as chum.

    The next day we found the fish early. I had tied on the popper Al had given me the day before. Al immediately stuck a fish with a silver and blue Gutterres popper. I gave him my best pitiful, begging look.

    "No! No way am I going to give you my last popper." Al chortled, reaching into his tackle bag while fighting the fish. "Here, try one of these." It was a slider - a foam popper head with a hole through the center. "Slide it on your line and tie on a Deceiver, slide the two together and see if that works."

    I looked at it. It was the right size, but it was white and had red rings around it, not even close to the colors of the popper Al was using. It actually looked a lot more like the one that had produced such poor results for me. I slid it on and tied on a white and blue Lefty's Deceiver abut four inches long.

    I threw the combination out with a lot of doubt. As soon as the fly hit the water, fish turned. Two strips and bang, there was a violent strike and a fish heading out to sea.

    We both looked at each other and yelled simultaneously, "It's the tail!"

    We fished for three more days. During that time Al lost the last of Leo's poppers and started using the slider/streamer combination as well. Fortunately we had plenty of slider heads; the fishing became some of the best we had ever experienced. In the time remaining we also experimented with streamers in different colors, discovering that a combination of the Mexican flag colors, red, green, and white, worked just as well as the silver and blue combo. As long as the tail of the popper was about four inches long, fish raced each other to the fly. More than once fish even smashed flies sitting lifeless in the water while one of us was clearing our line at the bottom of the boat. I even had one fish jump and flop on a fly sideways, trying to stun it.

    The next time you head to Baja, California to fish for Dorado, either take some poppers with long tails or try the slider technique. If you are fishing poppers, I suggest using the silver and blue combination, but maker sure the popper has a full tail, at least four inches long. Some Krystal Flash or Mylar tied in with the feathers also helps.

    If you want to try the slider technique, which is my favorite, just pick up some foam heads at your local fly shop. White heads with the red rings seem to work fine. The body size is about one and a quarter inches. Tie on a Lefty's Deceiver, slide the two together, and hang on!

                                                                                                                    Jerry Neuburger

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Jerry at DeltaStripers.Com