Yes, the roosterfish are still here and they’re off the Las Arenas lighthouse in what has to be the best roosterfish season we’ve had in awhile. The only problem is that there’s also so many jacks that they zoom in a hit the baits before the big pez gallo can slam in. Cesar Carillo is one of our great amigos and comes down every year from the Modesto CA area. He was intent on getting his first rooster and nailed this bad boy right off the beach. The fish was revived to released. Cesar also got wahoo; pargo; dorado; and one day had 4 marlin hook ups and releases this past week.
PHOTO 11: Our amigo, Len Atkinson and his wife came down to celebrate 39 years of marriage. They also brought me the gift of gifts…3 vacuum sealed In-N-Out double double animal-style burgers that I had been craving! They were soooo delicious! Anyway, here Len hefts a nice female dorado with the help of Captain Jorge. They also nailed some nice amberjack and spent most of their time handing out free fillets to whoever wanted fish!
PHOTO 12: Check out the smiles. Check out the big amberjack “pez fuerte.” These nice fish are bigger cousins to yellowtail and much better eating. Rajer Choobek and Paul Castellano from Los Angeles had a nice week of fishing with us getting pargo, jacks, ambers, and dorado.
PHOTO 12: Despite the hot weather, there’s still some big pargo here which are usually associated more with the cooler waters. Check out this bad boy…the fish that is…not Mitch Kiuharski from Denver CO who had his hands full pulling this guy out’ve the rocks. The larger pargo are still there in the rocks near the SE end of Cerralvo Island as well as off Espiritu Santo although the amberjack are doing their best to steal the spotlight. Bigger the baits, the bigger the fish!
PHOTO 13: Dr. Pek Chu from Northern CA is a dentist. His son, Derek, is in his dental residency in Philadelphia PA. They took a break to check out the teeth on some of our rock fish and got an incredible amout of great-eating variety including, pargo mulatto, red snapper, yellow snapper, pargo liso, pargo perro, pompano and a few others I can’t remember over two days fishing the islands.
PHOTO 14: I have no idea where Chad Theis lives. He wouldn’t tell me. He wanted me to go find a basketball and play him hoops (Why?). His friends think he’s sometimes from outer space! But he sure did well with these two big pargo.
PHOTO 15: “Scuba” Steve is prison guard by day and a dorado fisherman when he comes to Baja. Steve is here on the beach at Las Arenas with one of a number of dorado he caught.
THE FISHING REPORT
I guess this is another week when I can just let the photos do the talking! If you read the captions, it gives you and idea of what kind of week we had. The winds finally slowed down and both Las Arenas and (finally) La Paz started to kick out the dorado. Las Arenas had the larger fish, but La Paz had the most fish (although lots of them were smaller 1-5 pound fish we encouraged releasing). However, there were still 20-40 pound bulls that were nothing to sneeze at. Sargasso weed paddies are starting to build around that area between Cerralvo and Espiritu Santo Island. As long as winds don’t blow it all apart again, we hope the dorado bite just gets stronger. These little fish if left to live will be 10 pounders in a month and 20 pounders by the end of summer or fall.
Because there’s so many little dorado around, so were the marlin. Still many were reluctant to eat our baits, but there were still a good number of hook-ups, bust-offs, and releases. Striped marlin in the 100 pound class and blue marlin in the 200-300 pound class were the mainstays. Most were released by anglers.
Inshore, still super action on pargo (lisa, dog, red, yellow and barred) with lots of fish still taking guys into the rocks. However check the photos and some guys just have a knack for doing better than others! The nice addition were the influx of big amberjack that moved into the same spots. Ambers like the rocks too, but the difference is that they’ll come up and out of the rocks so they can be fought easier. There’s still big roosters along the beaches as well as jack crevalle and pompano too!
SOCIAL HAPPENINGS WITH THE TAILHUNTER FAMILY- MILESTONES AND CONGRATULATIONS!
PHOTO 16: I met Spike Ivins years ago when he was a deckhand on the long-range boat “Red Rooster” out of San Diego. One of the best fishermen we’ve ever had down here. He’s standing with his wife Jamie and both of them live in San Clemente CA. Just before coming down, they found out they were pregnant and the doctor told them to still come down and have some fun. They did pretty darned good!

PHOTO 17 and 18 : “Intimidator” Mike Gravert from Sacramento CA came down this week for 10 days of rod bending. But, he also had another agenda. Somewhere during the week he was intent on asking his long-time lady, Kelee the “big question!” It was quite an adventure, but he finally just pulled her out on the pier behind La Concha Beach Resort at sunset and took a knee. We were hiding with our cameras and captured the moment!
Oh…by the way…during the week, they caught 2 blue marlin, numerous dorado, wahoo, and a bunch of other species releasing most of their fish. Good folks!
PHOTO 19 – UNSUNG HEROES – I cannot say enough about these guys. Strange picture? Well, on their last day, Chris Silva in red, James Booth behind him and their buddies Mike Booth and Bill Sharp from Riverside CA, told me they wanted to bring all the fish they had caught to the old folks home at St. Vincente here in La Paz. Wow…that was great. They must have had 2 full ice chests of fish. On the way to the home, they wanted to stop at the market to “buy a few things.” Well, each guy got a full basket and like kids in a toy store threw just about everything into these 4 carts…eggs, hams, chickens, tortillas, canned goods, rice, flour, vegetables, milk, juices, soap…things were flying! I think I even saw Mike Booth sneak a bottle of tequila into his basket. “They’re old…they’re not dead!” he said with a wink!
They bought over 500 bucks of groceries. What a great great gift when we arrived at St. Vincents. Thanks guys. You rock!
LUGGAGE WARNING AND ADVICE
Over the past week it seems that we’re seeing more and more luggage misplaced by the airlines coming down here. Delta seems to be the worst. I don’t know what’s up with them. It’s getting worse. I don’t know if they just hit a bad patch or what, but here’s some advice:
1. Board your plane EARLY. People who come on last stand the great chance of luggage not making it.
2. Label your gear
3. Do NOT put your medications or parts for your PAP machines in your check-in luggage. Carry it on!!! PLEASE. We’ve had several vacations almost turn to disaster when critical medications were left in check-in luggage that did not arrive until a day or two later. Bring an extra copy of your prescription so that if your meds do get lost you can take the prescription to a local pharmacy.
4. There seems to be no problem with line on reels.
That’s my story!
Happy Fathers Day everyone!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: Carr. a Pichilingue KM 5, Numero 205, La Paz, Baja Cal 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.”
Leave a Reply