A Fred Hall Favorite: Rancho Leonero
Stop by the Automobile Club of Southern California booth and get a free quote on your auto or boat insurance and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to win a 5-day trip to Rancho Leonero with a full day of fishing and airfare included. Get the quote, win the trip and see if I'm right about the incredible destination we call the Ranch. If you don't win the trip then just book one...you'll never regret it.

The Fred Hall Crew spends a week together every year at Rancho Leonero. It's unanimous that it's our favorite warm-water fishing destination. There is something magical about driving the 90 minutes from Cabo San Lucas airport, turning off the highway on a desolate sand road and emerging over a hill to see the Sea of Cortez and the giant gateway palapa at the entrance to "the Ranch".

As you walk through the front office out into the enormous interior courtyard I always just take a deep breath and instantly begin to relax. It's warm, it's beautiful and the fish are jumping just offshore. The reef in front of the Ranch teems with fish.

Usually, after we sort out the rooms and unpack, we all assemble in the bar. If we're lucky it's homemade guacamole and homemade chips time, with your beverage of choice. The bar/dining room is really just one giant space with a bar/lounge area at one end and a room full of tables at the other. Usually we just eat breakfast in this room because immediately adjacent to the dining room is an even larger outside eating area. I've never eaten dinner inside the dining room. The view from the patio eating area is one of the most spectacular that you will see anywhere. Raised about 50 feet off the sand you can see forever for 180 degrees in every direction. To the west the mountains rise up in the distance. To the north and east is the Sea of Cortez. As the sun sets over the mountains each night the reflected light gives the entire area a red to purplish glow. The water takes on the most magnificent color. Just thinking about it makes me smile.

And that's the part that never changes. But then the sun comes up and it's time to go fishing. The night before, after dinner, you choose your boat, panga or cruiser, try to choose your skipper and choose your food and drinks. So now it's time to hoist your gear and walk the 100 yards across the sand to the dock, hop about the boat of your choice, buy some bait and go fishin'!

It's always different! No matter how many times I go the results vary widely. There are so many species of fish, depending on the time of year, that each day and trip is an adventure. If you bring your own tackle, like we do, you have to bring a wide variety. I remember one day when we all got back to the Ranch after a day's fishing and we started adding up what we'd caught. The list was long: marlin, sailfish, dorado, rooster fish, African pompano, pargo, cabrilla, giant trigger fish and tuna. That's quite a day!

This last year in 2010 the 50-80 pound tuna had decided to park themselves near the spot called Frailes. The 3 days we fished, they stayed parked right there. I target roosterfish every time I go and the last few years we have caught dozens of roosters in the 30 to 50 pound class. This trip we fished for roosters off this same point about 300 yards off the beach, caught several monsters and then headed out about another half mile and hooked up the tuna. On the way back we caught a couple of more big roosters. For me, and I think most of my crew, this is a fishing paradise. We like light-line fishing and it just doesn't get any better than this.

We come prepared to fish for whatever is biting. We don't pre-determine our species (except for me with my obsession for roosters). We let the skippers tell us what they think would be most productive that day, we pull out the proper tackle and go fishing. We've never had a day here when it didn't work out reasonably well. When we are there we usually catch the most fish. I've had really good days on the water in this area and have come ashore to find other anglers complaining about "what a tough time they had." It usually works out that they were targeting a specific species that just wasn't being cooperative. If you're flexible it's pretty hard to have a bad day fishing at the Ranch. Or course fishing is fishing and anything can happen but I'd rather have the opportunity to fish the variety of species that present themselves in this area.

I love the part of Rancho Leonero that never changes and I'm intrigued by the mystery of the variety of fishing. Rancho Leonero is my favorite warm water fishing resort. It's charming, it's unique and it's affordable. Stop by the Rancho Leonero booth at the Fred Hall Shows and look at some of the pictures. You'll like it too.