Los Locos Mag Bay, in southwestern Baja California, is a disruption. Throw out five-star-luxury everything and replace it with dusty roads and loud music and back-of-the-pickup drives to the boat launch. Long run times to the marlin with the possibility of even longer, bumpier rides back to San Carlos are the norm. Once fishing, it can be a balancing act, standing on either the bow or the stern of a rocking panga while throwing the 12-weight of choice with a giant baitfish imitation and a throttle-happy local captain thumping the hybrid panga gas with surges of excitement. Burritos for breakfast. Burritos for lunch. Dinner somewhere, though the day’s fishing will not revolve around getting back for 5 p.m. cocktails.

This all comes, if you’re a guest, after unanswered offseason email after email, yet somehow you’re here. It appears as though everyone, including the Los Locos team, is in the present tense all day and night leaving no time for answering emails. Fun is the biggest element, and for the relatively short season—end of October through January for striped marlin—the energy level is wildly high. Any daily shortcomings have the gaps filled with activity. 

Blue water and the marlin run are the justifications. For this reason alone, yachts and mega yachts have descended on Magdalena Bay waters for decades with their myriad trolled lines, effectively turning captain into de facto angler and angler into human pulley, drawing to stern a heaping volume of tallied catches where numbers outweigh artistry and skillfulness… 

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