| Rancho Leonero 2002
published in the May, 2002 issue of Southcoast Sportfishing
- by W. Roecker
This place truly has it all.
You can fight blue marlin from a cruiser’s chair, or
stand up to a big yellowfin or striped marlin. Fly fish
for pargo and roosterfish from the beach, or get close
up and personal with the fish from a kayak. Bend your
light rod on dorado or sailfish from a skiff. Super
pangas with shade can take you flying over the cobalt
Cortez after anything from albacora (yellowfin tuna)
to yellowtail, and the family is sure to love the white
sand beach, the pool, backcountry trails and scenery
you can only get at the East Cape.
Perched safely on a low headland, with a good supply
of pure underground water, John Ireland’s Rancho Leonero
gets the most from cooling sea breezes, with incredible
views of jagged mountains and sloping green coastal
plains. The late Ray Cannon (author of the famous "Sea
of Cortez" Sunset Book) thought this was the best
part of Baja, the "Region of Buena Vista,"
with the best year-round fishing.
Cannon’s discovery was so long before 1982 that some
rural folk there were still hand-grinding their corn,
but East Cape fishing remains the best Baja can offer,
as does the climate. Over the last 20 years, the hotel
has become a resort with roomy thatched bungalows, a
pool and an impressive exercise gym. It’s more than
a fisherman’s place, now. It’s also a family place.
If you like it here as much as I do, you’ll be hard
tempted to buy a lot in the adjacent planned development.
And it’s close, but not too close, to Cabo San Lucas
and La Paz.
"Just three hours after you get on the airplane,"
Ireland is fond of saying, "you can be relaxing
in your room near the beach and pool at Rancho Leonero."
Swimming in the sea here is safe, without strong tidal
currents or big waves. The water is clear, clean and
warm, and there’s no spear fishing allowed on the reefs
in front of the hotel, so snorkel and scuba-equipped
divers can get right up to the tropical fish living
there. Kayaks can be rented, for fishing, sightseeing
or just plain old fun. Beach walking is superb for several
miles in either direction, and ospreys and pelicans
can be seen diving for fish as close as the beach in
front of the resort dining room.
Fishing on the beach is good, good as anyplace I’ve
ever been. When I fished with kayak guru Dennis Spike
from a super panga last April; I took a dozen species
on a single Crippled Herring jig on the same day. They
varied from a two-pound gold spotted sand bass to 25-pound
jack crevalle, including some large sierra and three
kinds of snapper. Fishing with live sardinas, we had
great success when we cast the baits directly over the
many rock piles that dot the shallows.
Offshore fishing begins only a few hundred yards from
your bungalow door. There are only a few places in this
world where top-quality fishing is so close to the beach.
Sailfish, a quartet of marlin species, tuna, yellowtail,
snapper, dorado or pompano are here, feeding on bait
from pinhead stuff you can barely see up to jumbo squid
of five or ten pounds. You may have to run a few miles
to get to where the bite is going off. Your choice of
fishing from a cruiser or a panga may be determined
by factors of speed, comfort and weather. Methods include
trolling lures and live baits, jig casting to feeders
or fly lining mackerel or sardinas near congregations
of gamefish.
Comfort is prime at the Ranch. Your resort stay includes
your meals, served three times a day in the dining room
or out on the patio overlooking the sea. If you’re fishing
in a cruiser or a panga your lunch and iced drinks will
go out there with you. The constant seabreeze on the
point and air conditioning in the rooms mean that the
heat won’t be oppressive. The rooms are large and airy,
with bathrooms the size of many hotel bedrooms. You
can leave your wallet or purse on the table and the
door to your room open, because theft just doesn’t happen
here.
"The word is service," John Ireland told
me while he was at a fishing show in San Mateo. "That’s
what we’re working on hardest right now. The food is
good, but we’re making it better.
"I bought a couple of little paddle boats recently.
Light line fishing is big here. I added another cruiser,
and put all new Yamaha 4-strokes on the super pangas.
We’ve got a new booking office, at 1560 N. Highway One
in Leucadia. Call us at 760-634-4336 or 800-646-2252.
My daughter Genie works in there, with two other people
answering phones full-time Monday to Friday, and from
8:30 to 1:30 Saturdays.
"Last year we had two tuna over 200 pounds and
30 or 40 over 100 pounds. Tuna and dorado were consistently
available all year. Fishing was good into December.
We have some mid-week specials this season, with up
to 30% off on the rooms.
"Gary and I lost three 50 wide Internationals
on a big, big fish last June. It was a huge black or
blue marlin, and I had him to the boat and he just sounded.
We put buoys on each of the two first rods. He went
straight down. We never saw anything again. The fish
was way over 1,000 pounds. He was a big-time freight
train; he stayed on top first 40 minutes. It was all
Gary’s (foreman Gary Barnes-Webb) equipment."
Gary Barnes-Webb, a former professional hunter from
South Africa, is the Ranch foreman. He oversees everything,
but his toughest job is seeing that all the boats requested
show up on the beach at the proper time each morning.
He sees that the right gear is in the boats, from sack
lunches to coolers and tackle. If something goes wrong,
Gary makes it right. The hunter has become a proficient
angler; maybe that’s not surprising when you consider
how much marlin and big tuna fishing is like hunting.
"Most of the fishermen come here after marlin,"
noted Ireland. "We have figures to indicate about
a 76% success rate on striped marlin annually. That’s
per boat. In fact, we have about a 74% rate on all billfish.
"It peaks at 1.4 fish per trip in March,"
he added. "You seem surprised. Of course, these
numbers would be typical of the whole region. Everybody
fishes the same areas. The last two weeks in March is
when we have the absolute highest success rate for marlin.
Most fishermen know it’s good in summer and fall."
The pangas are 22 to 25 feet long, with shade. The
cruisers are 28 and 32-footers made by Luhrs, functional
and equipped for tourists who arrive with no tackle.
They have heads, and can make 15 to 20 knots when needed.
Ireland opened The Ranch with five rooms in 1985. This
year marks the 20th anniversary of his purchase.
"It’s been a long haul," he told me. "There
weren’t any palm trees at all on this point when I came.
I planted them all myself. I just stumbled on this place.
I saw it, and it was all over from there on. I knew
this is where I belong.
"We have pretty much every blue water species,
the widest variety of fish of any destination in the
world, maybe, with all the marlin species. We get about
one marlin per year over 1,000 pounds. Most of the blues
average over 300 pounds. But the inshore fishing is
good because it’s calm inside.
"This is probably the best rooster fishing anywhere,"
noted John. "I’d say the average roosterfish was
25 pounds, during the last couple of seasons. The largest
was 87 pounds, but it wasn’t uncommon to see 50, 60-pounders.
And pargo, cabrilla, a lot of jacks working inside.
Snorkeling right in front of the hotel here is awesome.
"The drop-off outside is very abrupt, and that
brings the pelagic fish inside, too. The bait changes
seasonally, with early bait being green mackerel and
sardines, just like up in San Diego. After the water
warms we get caballito and Lisa, which is a mullet."
"Of all the fish here, what are the best for eating?"
I asked Ireland. "My favorites for eating are dorado,
wahoo and pargo, or snapper. Sierra and triggerfish
are great for ceviche."
Ceviche is marinated chipped or flaked fish, soaked
in limejuice, with tomatoes, onions, salsa and the cook’s
choice. The limejuice "cooks" the fish, making
it safe to eat. Most people love ceviche, served with
tortilla chips and ice-cold Mexican beer like Pacifico,
Bohemia or Negra Modelo, going from light to dark. Sierra
is generally acknowledged to be the most desirable fish
for ceviche.
What if you don’t have fish for ceviche, but you’d
like something fresh for dinner? Just give your fish
to the cook, and it will be served piping hot for your
dinner, cooked American of Mexican style, your choice.
It doesn’t come any fresher, or any better, than the
fish you caught that day.
To make a reservation or for more information about
Ranchero Leonero, call toll-free: (800) 646-2252.
Comments from Dennis Spike of Coastal Kayak Fishing
-
"We’ve been doing these kayak trips to the Ranch
for over five years," Spike told me. This year,
we’ve got five scheduled trips: in April, June, August
and October. What we do is unique, and very productive.
"In the morning, we get up and eat breakfast.
There’ll be 12 or 14 of us. Then we go down to the beach
to meet our "mother ships," a pair of big
pangas. We tow six kayaks behind each panga, and we
make it out to the deep blue water, the fishing grounds
for tuna and marlin, in about 20 minutes.
"By the time other boats get out there, the kayaks
are already dispersed and fishing. The tow pangas bring
out live bait and ice, so you can take care of any fish
you want to keep. It’s a great way to get out there
where the big fish live, and fish them from a kayak.
It’s a beautiful thing."
Spike can be reached at 818-345-5824.
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