Los Locos: Striped Marlin, Bait Balls, and Adventure near Puerto San Carlos, Mexico

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This article originally appeared in Fly Fisherman's 2025 Destinations special publication.

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Fishing folks tend to find each other. When Rudy Babikian moved to Jackson, Wyoming from Maine in 2013, he started hearing the same name whenever he brought up fly fishing among his new friends. “They kept saying, ‘You gotta meet this fly-fishing guy named George. He’s crazy,’” says Babikian. When Babikian and George VanDercook finally met, they not only bonded through skiing and fishing, but they became fused by a future they hadn’t yet seen.

Picture ten-year-old boys rushing home after school to plan a wild expedition to ride bikes to the edge of town and camp out in the secret hideout they’d been building, testing their mettle and geographic boundaries. That’s essentially what Babikian and VanDercook did as adults. After college, and stints guiding and working in restaurants, they drove their truck to the edge of the continent and camped out on the beach, far from assurances they’d known. They’re still hanging out in their grown-up hideaway, and they’ve invited friends, family, and strangers from around the globe to join them.

Black Pearl

In 2016, VanDercook and a few friends hooked a truck to a 19-foot Boston Whaler called The Black Pearl and journeyed to the Baja Peninsula in northwestern Mexico. Their mission stacked heavily on vision and lightly on tactics. “Our plan was to go catch big fish, surf as much as possible, see new things, and have a good time,” says George. “That was our plan. But that’s not a plan. That’s the point of the trip, but that’s not a plan. So without an actual plan, we had to be super resourceful, creative, and positive, and we really got to know the locals, who helped us out a ton.”

VanDercook learned enough from that first trip to refine the original quest into an actual plan. He returned the following year, this time with Babikian, better prepared and more enthusiastic. They ventured farther along the peninsula to Magdalena Bay, along the western coast of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. VanDercook and Babikian instantly clicked with Puerto San Carlos, Magdalena Bay’s small fishing village, where they built strong relationships with the community, especially Fito Gonzalez and Gabino Zarabia.

Gonzalez is the owner of the beach resort, Mar Y Arena. Zarabia is a local captain credited with bolstering the area’s commercial diving and pelagic fishing cultures. Gabino helped VanDercook and Babikian employ other local captains in the town of 5,742, procure watercraft, and set up a fly-fishing operation based at Mar Y Arena, which they aptly named Los Locos Mag Bay.

Los Locos: The Crazy Ones

“The way the Mexican locals called us loco matched how I remember the locals in Jackson, Wyoming, describing George,” laughs Babikian. “With affection, I think.”

“Because it seemed crazy to fish like this,” says VanDercook. “To catch striped marlin on a fly rod from a small boat without teasers was pretty rare, but that’s how we showed up and did it. That’s how we’re doing it now, successfully. And it’s still crazy. And so great.”

Those familiar with fly fishing for billfish will recognize the common practice of trolling multiple hookless lures, called teasers, behind a sportfishing boat. When a billfish rises to chase the lures, anglers pull the teasers away one by one until one angler casts a large baitfish fly pattern in place of the final teaser, with the boat in neutral. Ideally, the fish turns on the fly, and the fight is on.

It’s quite a different program at Los Locos Mag Bay, as anglers cast flies from the bows of custom, locally crafted pangas, aiming at striped marlin slashing at spherical, fast-moving bait balls. It is a spectacle. Striped marlin are the third-fastest fish in the sea, clocking up to 50 miles per hour. In Mag Bay, they are the belles of the ball for ecotourism. Yet striped marlin are also among the least researched billfish species, thus among the least understood.

In 2022, I traveled to southwest Baja to participate in the history-making Costa Marlin Fly Project to learn more about these captivating speedsters. A group of more than 20 fellow Costa fishing pros, conservation partners, leading fisheries scientists, local boat captains, San Carlos, Mexico community members, and the Los Locos Mag Bay staff teamed up for the world’s first-ever recorded billfish research campaign using exclusively fly-fishing tackle.

Costa and Los Locos collaborated directly with the local community on this project, getting the town’s approval to bring in scientists from The Billfish Foundation, the International Game Fish Association, and the University of Southern Mississippi Center for Fisheries Research and Development.

As my friends and teammates Paula Shearer and Christiaan Pretorius and I loaded onto the panga on my first day of fishing at Magdalena Bay during the Marlin Fly Project, I marveled at the lofty goal of catching 15 striped marlin on the fly in just two days, affixing them with satellite tags, and safely releasing them. But within minutes of launching, I’d nearly forgotten the mission, consumed by sensory overload unlike any I’d experienced.

Just a short distance into our run toward the mouth of the bay, we saw a spout of water go shooting up on the horizon.

“Ballenas!” shouted our Mexican captain, Takon Gabriel, spotting the whales. He slowed the motor a football field from where we’d seen the blow. Suddenly, but slowly, the water parted just 150 yards before us, and a humpback whale breached, coming almost entirely out of the water. I hadn’t finished gasping before another whale surfaced and began a deep dive, its tail flukes following the massive body into the depths. I scrambled for my phone, hoping for an encore. Luckily, several whales continued putting on a show, blowing water, breaching, and waving their flukes.

Mag Bay is well known among whale watchers: In January and February each year, it hosts a seasonal migration of California gray whales that come to the bay to calve.

The whaling history is notable here, as American whaling ships visited the area as early as 1837 to hunt, joined shortly thereafter by French, Dutch, and Russian whalers. Between 1855 and 1865, at least 1,250 gray whales were harvested. Today, gray whales are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Finally, Captain Gabriel put the boat in gear. “Vamos,” he said. How funny, I thought to myself. I’ve never before been disappointed that we have to stop something and go fishing!

The sensory rush continued as the mountainous coastline flew by, dolphins raced and chased our boat, and dots of black frigatebirds appeared on the horizon. Captain Gabriel pointed, excitedly. “Oh yeah, baby!” he exclaimed in English. We sped toward the birds, and Captain Gabriel slowed the boat as we watched the birds diving toward the water, grabbing baitfish from a fast-moving, 6-foot-diameter bait ball.

I shrieked when I first saw the electric blue streaks darting through the bait ball. I almost never shriek. I make plenty of weird sounds when I fish, but the sound I made when I saw the Tron-like colors of the marlin stripes lighting up the water like a cosmic, upside-down lightning storm made my friend and teammate Paula lift her eyes from the light show to make sure I was okay. And then, a marvelous chaos ensued.

Paula already had her line in the air as I peeled mine off my reel like a madwoman. The bait ball moved rapidly but stayed within 50 feet of the boat, corralled by our target species, seals, birds, and us. Paula put her fly down just in front of the bait. Christiaan yelled, “Perfect!” The fluorescent blue streaks darted toward her fly but zagged away at the last second, apparently opting for food with less synthetic fiber.

“Go again!” cried Christiaan. And, “Get in there, Hil!”

Casting from the transom, I landed my fly just behind the bait ball, pissed that I’d missed. The idea is to lead the bait ball, not follow it. But just before I picked up my line to cast again, the ball made a 180-degree turn, swimming right into my fly as a marlin followed suit, and I started my two-hand, underarm retrieve.

The marlin tore at my fly, banking, and I set the hook with both hands on the line before getting my right hand back on the cork. “You’re on, Hil!” shouted Christiaan, then, “Oh my God, Paula, you’re on, too! Double!” The blur that happened next as Paula and I fought our fish together but apart, climbing over, under, and around each other, is melded in my mind along with the bright blue stripes that shoot through my random thoughts, unprovoked, to this day.

Our team’s pride in participating in the science project of a lifetime paid off as we completed the mission. In Costa’s film Marlin Fly Project, I’m quoted saying, “A lot of people say there’s very little pioneering that can still go on in fly fishing. Everything’s been caught, everything’s been seen, but the new pioneering is being able to use your powers for good. It’s not going out and catching the fish for you. The connection with the science behind what we do and why is really the next frontier.”

Information gained from Costa’s Marlin Fly Project is currently helping fill crucial data gaps on the little-studied striped marlin population, which experts say is vital for protecting and managing this migratory species.

In November 2024—two years after the Costa Marlin Fly Project—I returned to Mag Bay with a group of anglers eager to realize the dream I’d been weaving for them through my stories and photos.  On arrival we were met with gale force winds, barring us from the bay. Instead, we headed north with Los Locos employee Quinn Dilts to explore wind-sheltered mangrove swamps, lagoons, and ocean inlets that hold a variety of fish species. We caught snook, jacks, and a big cubera snapper.

The next day, the wind laid down enough that we could go into the bay, and our week became a collection of epic fish stories. I loved sitting around the large dining table in the lodge at night with bellies full of gourmet food, locally sourced and prepared by the celebrated chef Joshua Schwartz from Travel Creel Hospitality, who teams up with the Los Locos crew for several weeks during striped marlin season. [See the author’s story “Travel Creel Hospitality” on page 36 of this issue. The Editor.]

How my guests described their first moments of seeing striped marlin fattening on bait balls just feet from our boat mirrored my experience, but maybe with less shrieking. Everyone caught fish. No one was left unfazed.

Marlin feed aggressively before midwinter, so the Mag Bay window is from October through January. During those four months, the fishery boasts one of the planet’s most incredible striped marlin populations. However, the Los Locos program is by no means confined to a single species or season. From May through July, Los Locos anglers enjoy sight fishing in shallow water for roosterfish and large snappers. The ample bait concentrations draw in immense aggregations of targetable gamefish species, without angling pressure and without the need to venture offshore.

Getting to Puerto San Carlos starts with a flight to Cabo, La Paz, or Loreto, where anglers can rent a car or be met by a Los Locos shuttle driver. The commute to Puerto San Carlos takes five hours from Cabo, three hours from La Paz, or two hours from Loreto.

Guests need not purchase or carry a full quiver of marlin-caliber fly rods. Los Locos rents 12-weight rods, reels, and lines to guests for $50 per day, and provides all terminal tackle. Personal gear is welcome, provided it passes inspection by the guides. They recommend a four-piece, 12-weight fly rod and a matching 12-weight reel with an intermediate line, as well as a 500-grain sinking line. Bring spools of 40- to 100-pound-test leader material.

For effective striped marlin flies, the guides at Los Locos prefer the baitfish patterns tied in-house, which are available for sale. If guests prefer to bring their own, Los Locos recommends contacting them before spending too much time at the vise. For roosterfish, guides recommend size 3/0 to 6/0 Enrico Puglisi mullet patterns in tan and blue and white, and size 2 to 2/0 Clousers in chartreuse and white. For snappers, groupers, and other species, you’ll want a variety of baitfish patterns in tan and white, black, and chartreuse. Poppers work great, too!

I’ll wager that many a ten-year-old, posted up in a stick-made hideout at the edge of town, has vowed to live out his or her life exploring, foraging, and thriving. I certainly did. I remember thinking that my buddies and I could live in our tree house by the river, eating fish we caught and making money selling lures we made out of gathered feathers, cans, and recycled hooks until we made enough money to take the train to the Grand Canyon, or the Yukon, or wherever the train went, anyway. (It turns out it goes to Seattle and Chicago.) When I visit Rudy Babikian, George VanDercook, and the Los Locos team, I experience some aspects of that childhood ideal. I feel the same spirit of adventure, wonder in nature, awe for the wild, and togetherness in teamwork as I did as a kid who fancied herself an explorer. But this time, it’s with enough adults around to dial back the risk, dial up the amenities, respect the investment of the trip, and ensure enough comfort and safety that I can return home to tell the stories, perhaps without the shrieking.

Recommended Gear

Los Locos rents gear to traveling anglers for $50 per day, and they also sell billfish flies on site. If you want to bring your own flies, bring 3/0 to 6/0 Enrico Puglisi mullet flies and Peanut Butter flies 5.5 inches long, Shaughnessy’s Nyacca Baitfish 4/0 to 8/0, chartreuse and white Bob’s Banger 4/0, and Rainy CB Poppin’ Featherheads 4/0.

• Orvis Helios 12-weight / $1,200
• Hardy Fortuna Regent 12000 / $950
• SA Sonar Titan Pelagic Fly Line / $100
• SA Absolute Fluorocarbon Shock Tippet / $30
• Costa Pescador Green Mirror / $248
• Patagonia Tropic Comfort Natural Hoody / $110
• Patagonia Sun Gloves / $40
• Toadfish 7.5" Titanium Pliers / $198

Book your Destination

Getting to Puerto San Carlos starts with a flight to Cabo, La Paz, or Loreto. Anglers can rent a car or choose to be met by a Los Locos shuttle driver. The commute to Puerto San Carlos is five hours (from Cabo), three hours (La Paz), or two hours (Loreto), respectively.

loslocosfishing.com

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Hilary Hutcheson started guiding as a teenager in West Glacier, Montana. Today she guides on the Flathead River system, and owns and operates her fly shop, Lary’s Fly & Supply in Columbia Falls, Montana.

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