BY MIKE BENNETT
Special to Western Outdoor News
CABO SAN LUCAS—We fished hard all week, and the cold/hot water collision pushed up and down the coast by over 30 miles in days. Fishing was tough to say the least. Then on the last full day of my trip, Cabo surf-fishing guide Wesley Brough (CaboSurfCaster.com) pulled out a miracle for us on a guided trip.
He took us to an old beach he knows well, and the morning started off slow like all the other mornings, But then there were signs of life with a few roosterfish coming in on a ball of bait we found. That fizzled out, and at 9:30 part of our group left.
About 15 minutes later we noticed the water had jumped another five degrees warmer, but the low tide had bottomed out. A half hour later we were getting ready to pack up and leave with a plan to come back in the evening. Brough ran to grab a few rods he left down the beach 30 yards and Jesse Acosta and I were rounding up our tackle when we heard Wes yell “roosters!”
Jesse grabbed his rod and turned towards Wes and spots a rooster right in front of him. I turned toward the beach away from Wes to grab my rod and I instantly saw the front end of the madness that was about to ensue. The sun was perfect and the low tide meant I could clearly see the dozen pods of roosters that ranged from 10 to 15 fish per pod spaced out by about 10 yards per pod marching up the beach in very shallow water. The last pod was behind the rest had 30 fish in it and they were noticeably bigger than the rest of the fish in front of them. In my mind it was 20 pounders coming up the beach, and the last school was 40 pounders.
I ran toward Wes and Jesse in the cove screaming that hundreds of roosters were coming up the beach. I look up in the cove and there were already 10 roosters corralling the mullet out of the rocks and pushing them onto the sand in front of us. We began casting and all of us were getting chases but no bites. The wind to the face was making it difficult to cast or work a stick bait. Pod after pod piled around the rock and at this point there are about 40 fish piledriving the mullet ball. We still are getting swirled and splashed on but nothing stuck. I let them know the last pod had the biggest fish and most numbers.
Right then, that pod hit the cove, saw the mullet and bum rushed it. At that point all the mullet were within 10 feet of the shoreline and the show was epic. We all casted on the giant roosters rolling in and we got a triple hook up instantly. Wes’s fish came off during the battle, but Jesse landed a 65-pound class fish. My fish was still ripping off line and settled down about 200 yards offshore. It took just over 25 minutes to get him back to the waves and the whole time (to the best I could count them) there were about 100 roosters in full feed mode in the 40 feet in front of us.
I finally got my fish into a set of big waves and Wes grabbed it as it slid up the beach. He goes to pick it up and had to readjust his body for the lift. This is when I knew I got a dinosaur. We took quick pictures of the estimated 85-pound fish (it felt like 90 plus).
Wes let me know he has guided and fished Cabo for two decades, and it was in the top three biggest fish he has ever seen or caught. The whole fight I was kicking mullet back in the water from the beach and watching more roosters destroy a bait ball than I have ever seen in all my trips combined from going to Cabo for the past nine years chasing these fish. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience
Follow Cabosurfcaster2 on Instagram to hopefully see the video. It will blow your mind. I can’t thank Wes enough, and I now have the holy grail of surfcasting: an 85-pound class rooster from the beach on a 12 foot surf rod to boot! Talk about and ass kicking.
How good is the rooster fishing in Cabo? That last pod of fish were all 65- to 95-pound-plus fish. My fish was in the top three biggest in the pod but there looked to be two other fish that were the same size or a bit bigger that slipped through while all three of us were hooked up. I will never forget the craziest hour of my life at 11 a.m. which is the deadest time of day for fishing on a bottomed-out low tide which also sucks for most fishing.
Neither mattered today. Find the bait and sit on it and see what happens.
