PHOTO 1: Now at your nearest music store and in concert…the “Get Bent Air Dorado Band!” Standing in the shallows at Balandra Beach, Joey Horvath, Drew Baumgartner, Joe “Pineapple” Caricugan (who is a professional musician) all from the Ventura Ca area, play some sweet music with this trio of mahi they took north of La Paz. I have no idea what the guy is doing behind Joe!
STORM HOVERS OVER US BUT TUNA AND DORADO REFUSE TO SHUT DOWN AND PROVIDE STEADY BITE FOR LAS ARENAS AND LA PAZ!
PHOTO 2: All the way from Ohio, Dave Stroud and Rich White rolled down here for their first visit and spent a few days tangling with dorado, yellowfin tuna and even the great-eating pompano Rich is holding in his left hand. Dorado and tuna were the prevailant species this past week. Nothing spectacular in terms of size, but the decent sized fish provided some solid action and good eating fillets for the freezers. 
PHOTO 3: From Hacienda Heights, CA , John Ford and Bob Gonzalez are here on Arenas beach. John on the left is holding one of the larger tuna of the week. Most of the tuna were football-sized in the 10-20 pound class, but there were a few in the 30-40 pound class that kept things lively.
PHOTO 4: Every year for several years, Jeff Del Dotto and his son Chris come to visit us this time of year. This will be their first time getting their photos in the report! They’re from Tracy CA. The number of dorado that showed up around Las Arenas was surprising since Las Arenas had been “tuna land” for about the last 2 weeks. However, our boats found the fish at the buoys, as well as under a dead whale, a dead turtle and some other floating objects. A few tossed sardines at the object often got the waters boiling as the fish rose.
PHOTO 5: Randall Lee and Bob Holmberg from Los Angeles came down on a charity trip with the Catholic Big Brothers group. Their first day they fished Las Arenas and the two amigos post up several nice dorado and a tuna headed to the dinner table.
PHOTO 6: Glenn Delmendo and Scott OConnor, are from the Los Angeles area. They started off their trip finding a honey hole of dorado in the channel between Cerralvo Island and El Sargento.
PHOTO 7: Mike Alperin and his buddy in the back, Lee Cook, flew out here from the East Coast and I gotta admit…I like their style. Rather than necessarily chase the blue water species, the two amigos kept to light tackle, mostly using 8 pound test and spinning rods. Both are experienced anglers and in 4 days of fishing got over 20 species of fish including big bonito like this one held by Mike. According to Mike this bonito was just short of being a new IGFA record, “if only he had eaten a bigger piece of bait.”
PHOTO 8 : A better rack of mahi you will not see. The boys from Wayne Longs Utah group had never done anything like this but were well on their way to filling up the ice chest with this gerat rack of bull dorado.
PHOTO 9: Wayne Long from Utah brought several families to hang with us for about a week. The tuna were good to them this day. These yellowfin tuna were nice 15-25 pound “footballs.” The tuna bite has been the best in several years. Granted, the fish are not huge, but have been more solid than we’ve seen in many years with an on-again-off-again bite since July. The cool thing about the tuna is that they’re not very far from shore. There are several hot spots with some as close as within 100 yards of the beach. It’s not complicated fishing. Using live bait, just drop it into the water and hold on!
PHOTO 10: For our La Paz fleet, dorado continued to be the mainstay. If you want to specifically target dorado, then 90 percent of the catch for our La Paz boats is dorado. But marlin and big sailfish also appeared in the boat wakes as well.
PHOTO 11: Tim Eng and his son, David, from Rowland Hts. CA rolled in and quickly rolled out’ve La Paz. They got in one day of fishing and spanked the yellowfin tuna. Tim wanted to fish a second day, but David was too worn out from the first day. Tim thought they would only catch one or two fish.
THE FISH REPORT
You know…there are some weeks of fishing that are bad. There are others that are spectacular. But like life, there are some weeks that are just good. Nothing high. Nothing low. Nothing upsetting. Just a good week to cruise through.
That’s how it was this week. We kicked a little fish butt. Everyone got bent. Some folks got more than others. Some got less than others. But everyone had fish to bring home. Some got their first tuna or first dorado or first billfish. Most of the fish were that nice 10-30 pound grade. Certainly nothing that would put your knees, but at the same time a nice grade of fun fish to bend a rod and the fact that there were enough of them to keep you busy, meant that at the end of the day, you had some good fish in the box. At the end of the trip when you were pulling things our’ve the freezer, you realized. “Gosh, I guess I did catch a few fish!”
It was another good week of good yellowfin tuna for our Las Arenas boats. Most were footballs but a few hit into the 25-40 pound class. The bite rolled around a bit. We hit fish along the rock highway south of Cerralvo Island. There was also a good spot just off the Las Arenas lighthouse. Again, that little cove about 1/4 mile off the old Hotel Las Arenas kicked out some good fish as did Punta Perrico. The ticket is to get your bait and get to the spots before too many other boats showed up.
As far as dorado fishing, the best place would have been to fish directly north out’ve La Paz. Several areas were ripe. Around the corner at Las Cruces some of the better grade bulls were found at various times this week. Surprisingly, we even had a nice bite out at the El Bajo Seamount of dorado, some tuna and some billfish. It’s rare, but when the seamount goes off, it can be spectacular.
The cool thing was that as the week went on, dorado fishing also improved for our Las Arenas boats! Hitting spots like the buoys and from Punta Perrico down past Boca de Alama could be very productive. The larger bulls tipped in at 25-40 pounds.
Marlin are still around as are unsually large sailfish up to 150 pounds. Usually, it’s the sailfish that are smaller than the striped marlin, but this year, it’s just the oppositie. Also, yes…there’s still roostefish along the beaches. Either you will tangle with the fun 10 pounders or the big slugger 50-100 pounders will roll up in your chum line.
IF YOU ARE HEADED TO COSTCO
My amigo, Tom Gatch, who is a well-known write rand Baja sage, just completed his book called “Hooked on Baja.” I wanted to give a shout-out that the book is now available at Costco or else online at http://www.google.com/products?q=Hooked+on+Baja,+Tom+Gatch&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=froogle&ct=title
If you go to Chapter 7, Tom has nicely stuck me in there with one of my stories. The book is filled with all kinds of fishing stuff as well as stories about and from some of the top Baja personalities (so I’m puzzled why I’d be in there, but grateful!). Check it out.
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website: www.tailhunter-international.com
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (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 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.”
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