• E-mail

The Hotel Oasis is sandwiched on a spit of sand between stark desert mountains and the azure Sea of Cortez. Also called the Gulf of California, this body of water is a vast, deep bay opening into the Pacific Ocean.

Loreto is about a fourth of the way up the Baja peninsula from Cabo San Lucas, which guards the tip. Dan Blanton calls the Sea of Cortez a fish trap, and Blanton should know. The California saltwater fly fishing pioneer was sampling this action before Mexico Highway 1 south of the California border was completely paved.

It remains a narrow, two-lane asphalt ribbon that winds 1,000 miles and inspired an endurance race called the Baja 500. Blanton used to load a 14-foot aluminum boat on top of his truck and lead a caravan south along Baja. In 1970, his California buddy Ron Dong, famous for inventing Ron's Crease Fly, burned out a clutch traveling the dusty road.

"We left Ron's rig with a mechanic, who had no clutch and no way to get one," recalled Blanton. "A couple of days later, we were at our fishing camp when we saw a cloud of dust headed our way. A guy roared up in a souped-up off-road vehicle and said he was on a racing crew with the Baja 500 and heard we were having mechanical problems.

"He wrote down the parts number for Ron's clutch and had the parts flown in on the racing team's next plane from California. The truck was repaired when we headed for home. It was a true adventure in those days before commercial air service."

The Oasis Hotel's dining patio served as an unofficial conclave site for one of the most eclectic groups of anglers assembled outside a fly fishing convention.

There was Blanton, the barrel-chested, red-faced, opinionated veteran who's fished throughout the world and returns to Loreto each summer as unerringly as the swallows home in on Capistrano.

There was George Smith, 72, arguably the smartest man to use genius-level brainpower to outsmart fish. Smith is a New Zealand-born physicist whose inventions include the optical computer mouse. It's an everyday product that seems simple, until Smith explains how it works.

He took up fly fishing as a release from the stresses of California's high-tech business world, but he often carries a notebook in which he jots mathematical formulas as they occur to him. To me, they look like hieroglyphics.

"I plan to fish for the big saltwater bruisers as long as I have the muscle power to do so," declares Smith in his clipped New Zealand accent. "Then I suppose I will have to learn trout fishing."

The eccentric angler once said that he had resisted trout fishing thus far because there are 200 species of mayfly, and he felt he would have to learn them all to truly master the sport. It's good to stay busy in retirement.

That's part of the West Coast contingent. There's also an Eastern crowd that includes Ed Jaworowsky of Philadelphia. Jaworowsky retired as head of Villanova's classic studies in Latin. He studied classic voice for 25 years and can be enticed by Jose Cuervo or his American counterpart, Johnny Walker, into singing the Polish national athem. Lefty Kreh, one of the legendary characters missing from this conclave, calls Jaworowsky the best fly fishing instructor alive today, though some anglers would argue the title belongs to Kreh, himself.

"Ed has a true passion for teaching people to fly fish," says Rick Pope of Dallas. In his younger days, Pope was one of the world's top competitive shotgunners. He founded Temple Fork Outfitters, a Dallas-based company dedicated to bringing the fly fishing market high-quality products at reasonable prices.

Pope is a smart guy in his own right, a student of all things that interest him, from the ultimate pattern of a No. 9 skeet load to the ultimate flex in a 9-foot fly rod. It's a powerful consortium that's gathered to target dorado at a scenic Mexican port.