YELLOWFIN TUNA FINALLY BOIL FOR OUR LAS ARENAS BOATS AT END OF WEEK BUT VARIETY OF SPECIES PACES THE BITE FOR LA PAZ/LAS ARENAS AREA
Photo 1: Ryan Rogers of San Diego hefts a trophy-sized cabrilla (Mexican seabass) taken off the Las Arenas area. Considering how late in the year it is, we’re getting some super cabrilla right now.
Photo 2: Larry Rogers of San Diego (Ryan’s Dad) holds a toad of a bull dorado taken on the La Paz side near Espiritu Santo Island. Is this a big dorado or what? Larry and Ryan got several major league dorado.
Photo 3: Ryan Rogers holds one of several species of pargo you can catch right now. This particular one is a great-eating barred pargo (pargo mullato).
Photo 4: John Drucker came all the way down from Oregon and tagged this great bull dorado.
Photo 5: Robert and Cindi Bourque from Utah had a banner day fishing Las Arenas. Bob commented that he wished he had brought his fly rod as they took a number of different species including bonito, dorado, pargo and jacks.
TUNA COME TO CHEW AND BIG DORADO HIGHLIGHT INTERESTING WEEK
Folks, in the last 8 hours, I’ve had to re-write this fishing report 3 different times because things changed so rapidly! Basically it was kind of a s0-so week where you could really rip into some fish…or not… but some things happened late week that really got things fired up…
LA PAZ
Typical late summer fishing with big dorado pacing things. It was hardly wide-open, but for our La Paz anglers, having mackerel as baits got some of the bigger dorado to bite as well as marlin, but it could be a long lethargic day that suddenly erupts when a big dorado hits. Our boats worked far north of Espiritu Santo or on the West side of the island near Isla Ballena. There’s definitely a lot of dorado around, but often wouldn’t eat as we found many had a lot of squid in their stomachs. Several 60-70 pound dorado were caught. It really depended on boats. You could have a really slow day one day then the next be the king boat of the day.
The secret is to fish more than one day. Put time at the rail. Bring your best game. There were so many times where guys would come back looking disapointed and not have good fish counts. However, upon talking to them, I’d find out that they hooked some large fish but then they lost the fish due to lack of experience; not being ready; or simply dumb luck. I had three different guys this week tell me they had dorado over 60 pounds on the line but two of the guys told me “their hooks came untied (pigtailed!!!) which is just inexcusable. If you don’t know how to tie a proper hook don’t be embarrassed to have the captain tie the darned thing. Another guy said he thought it was a small dorado so he didn’t want to “put down his beer.” Well, the big dorado not only took his beer but ate his lunch too. You don’t get many chances!
LAS ARENAS
For Las Arenas, the buzz late in the week went out as 40 pound tuna breezed through the area in front of the Las Arenas lighthouse, but moved fast and wouldn’t eat the baits then 40-60 pound tuna crashed commercial boats south at Punta Pescadero, but were also moving too fast by the time sport pangas moved in. That was on Saturday!
Well, on Sunday, the fleets went full bore to the area to see if the tuna would come up and sure enough…yea! The summer tuna bite was on. No way to know how long this will last, but according to anglers, fish were “boiling all over.” The key was to get fish early. As more boats joined in the fish went to ground. Smarter anglers used flurocarbon and weights and got more of the YFT’s. These were a nice grade of 20-30 pound tuna! The other trick was to simply move off the spot and wait until other boats moved in then ninja back in and stealth fish as the only boat and throw bait…and watch the tuna come to par-TAY!
We’ll be exploring both areas more. In the meantime, debris lines from recent rains kept small to medium dorado in the area and inshore rooster and pargo fishing kept light tackle anglers going. It’s HOT and HUMID down here!
I was out several times this week with clients and I’m surprised at how different things are from one place to another and how it seems there’s nothing consistent right now. One day there’s only big mackerel or caballitos for bait. Another day, there’s only sardines. Another day the sardines are hard to find. Likewise, even the water and climate seem to be all over the place. Some mornings it’s gusty and bumpy and folks are feeling ill then an hour later, you’re praying for a breeze as the waters go so calm that you can’t tell where the sky ends and the water begins because there’s not a ripple on the water and sea and sky are the same color.
DESERT LIT UP WITH BLOOMS
Tell you one thing, the desert is probably as beautiful right now as you will ever see it. There’s been a lot of rain either in gentle showers or sporadic torrents all month and the desert is in full bloom. It doesn’t even look like the same country! Imagine Mexico being GREEN! Flowers are popping up all over. Grass is growing. The hills and mountains are a virtual carpet of green. Cactus are all puffed up from soaking up so much water and even the desert cattle are looking a little chubby! Great time to be in the countryside.
Oh…also tons of dolphin, whales and manta rays out here right now. Great show!
PROMISING STUFF HAPPENING
As we fished Las Arenas, there’s some debris lines building from stuff that washed out of the arroyos. It’s starting to gather up and form more distinct lines with wood and dried grass and parts of trees floating around out there. I think given a few days, these could be some great spots for dorado in the coming week or so.
Likewise for the tuna. It was right about this time the last two years that tuna popped up off Las Arenas. On Sunday they finally came to chew to the south of us and we got into some nice grade of fish. Will they stick around? Will the continue to move north? My captains seem to think so! Fingers crossed. We’ve been waiting for tuna all season.
FULL OF FRUIT?
Lastly, Joe Fuschetti has been a long time Tailhunter client and amigo. Joe INSISTS that he has found the latest and greatest thing to get dorado to burn the drags. Joe and his buddies Ken and Tim were off Espiritu Santo Island and fishing was slow. They were dragging both live and dead bait. Joe had some chopped fruit for breakfast and had also brought some fresh papaya on board. Tossing the green skins and orange-colored peels into the chum line, Joey tells me that suddenly fish started boiling. Bonito came to the rods and bird started diving. In quick succession they nailed a dorado. Joey tossed other fruit (watermelon and mango into the chum and nothing happened). He then fired off more papaya into the chumline and the fish boiled again and they got two more dorado as well as bonito! He thinks the orange color of the papaya did it, although the fish would not boil on sliced mango! Go figure. Anyway, Joe is so insistent that this works that he was even willing to put up or shut up and said I could post his e-mail address (He’s a coach for the San Diego School Dist). It’s JFuschetti@NMUSD.US. Don’t write me. Write him! I warned him, but he says this is his new secret weapon for dorado.
TRAVEL NOTES
Travel restrictions seem to have eased up a bit coming down here. No one is reporting any big problems with security but give yourself some extra time just-in-case. Also, I’ve had a number of clients coming through Tijuana now that Aero Cal and Avolar Air are flying to La Paz from there and all of them are raving at how easy it is.
Finally…Check your internet. Delta Air starts flying down here in December!
CALL WWW.DRUGLORDCHARTERS.COM!
Lastly, the notorious druglord cartel bad guy from Tijuana Javier Arrellano Felix was not one our of OUR boats! Thanks to all of you who e-mailed me during the week. The cartel king is alleged to have been responsible for all kinds of nasty things in TJ and other areas from assassinations to mass murder. He was busted early this week by the U.S. Coast Guard on a charter boat called “Dock Time” with 8 others while fishing. According to reports, they were fishing 15 miles outside of La Paz.
I had newspapers and magazines asking me for interviews or asking if I could find out who owned the boat. Everyone was buzzing trying to find out about the boat. Well, we’ve never even heard of that boat down here and it must be a big one to have 8 anglers on it as well as crew. Hope he was pre-paid and doesn’t ask for a refund!
HEAVEN IN A BUN
Muchisimas gracias to Marianne Suguwara and Jeff Sakuda who brought me two In-N-Out double-double animal style burgers this week. You have no idea how good those tasted. Marianne let them cool then wrapped each one carefully in wax paper then into a small zip lock bag and then into a larger zip lock bag. They were virtualy perfect when they arrived. I zapped one in my microwave to put a little heat on it and the second one I took out on the panga and savored every single bite. THAT’s what I’m talking about!!! I LOVE Mexican food, but after a whole season, things with salsa start to wear pretty thin. Chomping double double burgers was food of the gods!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s Tailhunter International
Website: www.tailhunter-international.com
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115
E-Mail: Riplipboy@aol.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico office: Carr. a Pichlingue KM5; Numero 205, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”
That's My Story 
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