PHOTO 1: Big man with big bull dorado! Mike Cramer holds up a legit 36 pound mahi. (See the scale in his hands). There weren’t alot of dorado this week, but there were surely some nice quality dorado caught this week. Mike got this bad guy fishing with our Las Arenas fleet.
TUNA STILL FRONT AND CENTER MOVING CLOSER BUT DORADO AND BILLFISH STILL IN THE RING AS WELL!
La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for the week of Aug. 10-17, 2008
PHOTO 2: Our buddy, Joey Fuschetti from Irvine CA rocked with this huge bull dorado that could easily have been a 50 pound class fish. Joey always does well fishing here at least once-a-year and got this dorado fishing with our La Paz fleet.
PHOTO 3: No shortage of sashime and sushi meat! Two of the nicest guys, Leo Dunn and Mitch Kawamoto, hold up just a few of the football tuna they popped south of Las Arenas. The fish got a little bigger with most now over 10 pounds. Small sardine baits were the key as well as light line and flurocarbon leaders.
PHOTO 4: Like I said…there were som brute dorado around this week. Mark Azaiwa, holds the head of a trophy bull helped by Captain Pancho with our Las Arenas fleet.
PHOTO 5: Las Vegas in the house! Eric Jones. Rob Manke, Sean Maes and Dave Jones started off their trip with a load of fillets. They hold up just a few of the tuna and dorado they whacked fishing with our Tailhunter Fleet out of Las Arenas. 
PHOTO 6: Two of our best friends and darned good anglers, John Dunne and Gina Dunne from the Sierra Madre area of Los Angeles, come to visit every year. They also stack up the ice chests. This year it was full of dorado and here, some of the yellowfin footballs they scored south of Las Arenas. As the week went on, the fish got bigger and closer to the island.
PHOTO 7: First timers from Oregon, Chris and Julie Groth came down from the Portland area where Chris is a commercial fisherman who traded in his rain slickers for some shorts and t-shirts. They got so much fish they were giving it away to whoever wanted at the hotel. 
PHOTO 8: Check this out. We all know what needlefish are. They are a curse to those of us who fish these waters. We have some big ones here. Well, check out Danny Wong’s needlefish! I put it on a scale and it measure 17 pounds! By contrast, the tuna this week were only about 12 pounders.
PHOTO 9: It’s soooo cool when people catch their fish fish. Here, Sharon Aurand from the S.Francisco bay area holds up her very first yellowfin tuna aided by Captain Jorge
PHOTO 10: Nice day! Tom Aurand and his son, T.J. pose with their first day of fishing. A nice rack of yellowfin tuna and a dorado in the sand. It was their first time down here to Baja and they probably caught about 9 different species of fish over the course of a week plus had billfish rising, but not quite taking their lures.
PHOTO 11: CAUGHT in the act! When you have fresh tuna you might as well make sashime while it’s fresh! Ray Quon is caught with all the essential ingredients making sashime in his hotel room!
PHOTO 12: All smiles, Captain Jacobo holds up a dorado caught off Espiritu Santo Island picked up by Leonard Kam who was on his first trip down to see us.
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
If you can put aside the weird tropical weather, it was a pretty darned interesting week of fishing…actually it was pretty good! Tuna kept up their charge and for our anglers that fished the Las Arenas area, that was what kept most of the focus. For our La Paz anglers, I’ll be honest, it was hit-or-miss. Most of the fish were dorado. Frankly, there weren’t many, but there were a few real trophy fish.
But let’s talk about the tuna first. The primary spot had been south of the Muertos Bay area. OK, so these were football sized, fish, but ya gotta admit, catching 5-10 footballs a day, plus add in a few dorado, some roosters, a bunch of bonito, a couple of jacks and way too many needlefish and it adds up to an action packed day. There were a few scratchy days when the bait wasn’t quite right (smaller the bait the better!), but over all, it was all good.
The thing about the tuna is that they seemed to be getting bigger. The 8 pounds of two weeks ago became 10 pounds. This week there were more 12 and 14 pounders. By the end of the week, there were a few 18 and 20 pounders and although we didn’t catch any, there were reports of 30, 40 and 50 pound breezers on the perimeter. Even moreso, the spot of fish has moved so that they are in spitting distance now just south of Cerralvo Island.
Not only is that a shorter boat ride, but that’s also a great area for wahoo and billfish. Sure enough, we did hang a few sails, marlin and hooked few wahoo this week as well.
For our La Paz boats, it was so-so. Not sure what’s up. One boat would hit limits of dorado. The next boat would get 2 fish. The boat 50 yards away would take 4 dorado. No rhyme or reason. The hot boat one day could go ice-cold the next. It’s fishing! There are some big billfish eating the small dorado. Paul Romano got a 300 plus-pound blue marlin at mid-week.
I’m writing this and it’ full moon. Last full moon, all heck broke out with great fishing. We’ll keep you posted!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
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