That's My Story

June 21, 2008 by riplipboy

POSTCARD 1: Hi Mom! This is what a 46 pound dorado looks like. I know. I put it in a scale. It dwarfs the angler, Ray Holguin from Los Angeles who fought it for 25 minutes (without and shirt resulting in a horrendous sunburn that made it hard to slap him on the back to congratulate him!) Ray took the fish outside off Las Arenas. Not many dorado this week, but there were a few quality fish like this one!

NOT AS WINDY AS LAST WEEK BUT WATERS STILL STIRRED UP AND GREEN OUTSIDE FORCED MOST ANGLERS TO FISH INSHORE WITH GOOD RESULTS!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for the week of June 22, 2008

POSTCARD 2: Take a look at this photo and the next. Talk about a banner day! Guys come from all over the world to get even one of these babys and they come year after year only to be eluded, frustrated and disillusioned! Well, Makani Fisher from Utah not only gets two big pargo…this one being a pargo liso (mullet snapper), but one of the largest you’ll ever see! It was scaled at 46 pounds! They get bigger, but rarely do you see them landed! Even Captain Victor is straining to lift it off the deck.

POSTCARD 3: Here’s Captain Victor giving Makani Fisher a hand again. Hey…if the kid can horse in TWO of these toads, he can hold up his own fish! Again, a spectacular catch of a pargo. This one is a dog-tooth or cubera snapper. Like a giant goldfish on steroids! A real prize!

POSTCARD 4: Tom Romanello is our forest firefighter amigo from Idaho. We didn’t do too well fishing directly out’ve La Paz this week, but Tom sure had an excellent day with his dad getting several nice dorado including this nice bull. However ,they had to run waaaaaay north going almost 70 miles north of La Paz just to find the cleaner warm water. That’s normally a ridiculous distance to have to run for our fish, but Tom and his dad made the most of it!

POSTCARD 5: Another good week on big roosterfish! This has to be the best year for the big boys we’ve seen in ages. It’s been on now since March. These fish are in relatively shallow waters. Kamika Fisher from Utah (that’s his son in the photos above) holds a big pez gallo. Kamika is a big guy himself! Note the gaff held by Captain Victor. Our captains have been gaffing the roosters in the lip so that they can be released. On this particular day, their smallest rooster was 35 pounds. Their largest was close to 60 pounds.

POSTCARD 6: Montebello, California in the house! June Akike and Julio Cornejo from Montebello CA came down specifically to try for pargo. When I first saw their gear, their artillery was way too light so I beefed them up some 60 pound test and my personal “meat sticks.” They lost their first 4 fish to the rocks, but finally hung these two beauties!

POSTCARD 7: It must have been a good week for pargo judging from all the photos. It wasn’t! There weren’t that many caught. Most kicked the hell out of anglers who simply could not stop the powerful fish. However, it seems that many of the ones that were caught this week were all heavyweight champs…like this pargo liso held by Kamika Fisher from Utah.

POSTCARD 8: PHIL COO from Duarte CA grins with his nice amberjack. We’re seeing more and more of these big cousins to the yellowtail. We got several last year that were over 100 pounds. Great eating and a nasty fighter too! These guys use rocks to their advantage.

POSTCARD 9: This is George Romanello from Duarte CA. George had a great trip nailing this roosterfish held by Captain Archangel (released) but also getting numerous other species as well. I really wanted him to have a good trip. Last year, George was all set , but had to cancel when his passport did not arrive on time! It got there one day late! He made up for it this year.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Check it out! Click this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWJBy7XQ4gs

THE FISHING REPORT

Well, in terms of the pesky winds, it was surely a better week than last week. They finally laid down a bit and gave us a break. You would think that would mean a stellar week of fishing.

NOT!

Well, it was a bit better. In fact, the inshore fishing was very good. However, offshore, after several weeks of winds, there’s alot of dirty water; green water and alot of it is cold as well with upwellings from down deep caused by the winds. Also, I’m not a big believer in the idea that the full moon screws with the fishing, but I’m not going to discount a full moon combined with the winds, the cold water, etc. are going to have a detrimental effect on the fish.

In the span of a few hundred yards, water temps can be all over the board both horizontally as well as in the vertical water column as well. Therefore, while there were flurries of bluewater fish such as dorado, sailfish and marlin, it was nothing to get excited about. The fish are there. They were just lockjawed and you can’t help but feel that it’s about to bust loose if the water temps rise and the winds stay down for a bit.

Probably 95 percent of the better fishing was with our Las Arenas fleet, not my La Paz fleet with many of our anglers opting to stay fishing out of Las Arenas where there was at least alot of action on big pargo, big roosters, bonito, skipjack, cabrilla, snapper, amberjack, big eye jacks, jack crevalle and pompano, among others. Plus there was always the bonus that the occasional dorado or billfish would hookup as well.

Out of La Paz, our boats had to run as far as 60-70 miles north of town just to find the better water and bigger fish. That’s almost unheard of. There’s a school or dorado hanging just outside of Las Cruces that’s alot bigger, but many of those fish are punky 5-10 pounders that are probably best released. The water there sure looks good and given a bit of time, it looks like it’s ready to blow up.

That’s my story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: http://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: , 755 Paseo Obregon, 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.”