PHOTO 1: Tuomas Holmberg from Los Angeles with one of the larger dorado taken this week. We scaled it at 41 pounds taken on a sardine in Bahia Ventana. There were alot of dorado this past week, but very few approaching this trophy sized beast!
DORADO GO ON THE RIP JOINED BY YELLOWFIN TUNA THIS PAST WEEK. BIG ROOSTERS ALSO STEP UP!
La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for the Week of Sept 14-20, 2008
PHOTO 2: Big dorado are the norm in the fall here in La Paz, but this past week, there weren’t many big ones at all. However, Frank Venesca holds a gem taken while fishing with our La Paz fleet north of the city.
PHOTO 3: Some guys just got the luck! Anthony Avila, Jr. came down on his first trip. Not only does he get his first billfish…a sail…but he also gets a wahoo right off the bat on his first day on the water. Go figure! Great fish. Guys come for decades and never get a sniff of one of these. Anthony is gonna get spoiled.
PHOTO 4: Goofy shots are always the best. These guys just had too much fun. From left to right holding dorado at Las Arenas Beach is Wes “Big Kahuna” Howard, Anthony Gallardo, Jorge Villegas and Ruben Gallardo, all from the Los Angeles area.
PHOTO 5: Every few days this past week, the tuna went strong to the baits. These yellowfin were 12-20 pounders. The fish also moved closer just off the old Hotel Las Arenas south to Muertos Bay. Here, Don Nose and Mark Lee heft a few tuna that ended up in their box along with a mystery dorado!
PHOTO 6: Funny thing about the tuna this past week. The smaller your bait, the better the yellowfin tuna liked them! Bigger baits caught dorado. Smaller baits caught tuna. Johnny Wong from Pasadena CA and Stever O’Rourke ripped into the tuna schools with my Las Arenas fleet.
PHOTO 7: It was a good week for roosters. The big boys were right there in the shallow waters. True to it’s reputation, there’s a reason why Las Arenas is known as the “Roosterfish Capital World.” Steve Tomata and Ray Lim were fishing with us for the first time and got a double hookup on these two 35 pounders not too far from the Las Arenas lighthouse close to shore.
PHOTO 8: Randy Lee is from Los Angeles. Bruce Dodge is from another planet. (Gotcha Bruce!) and two of the nicest and funniest guys when they come down here. Bruced hooked this nice sailfish. There were quite a few billfish around feeding in the bait schools and on the samller dorado, tuna and bonito.
PHOTO 9: Hector Chavez from Salinas CA had a good trip with us. Got his first roosterfish as well as his first dorado on his first time fishing…ever. This 40 pound rooster ate a slow trolled live bait off Las Arenas Point.
PHOTO 9: My good buddy, Pablo Bejarano from Rosarito Beach, Baja Norte, made the report this week with this nice dorado. Congratulations, Pablo. This young man can really dance too. We put a few tacos into him one night and he stopped the crowd in the restaurant when he decided to show off his footwork!
PHOTO 10: Gotta love this photo. It’s our Dave Crawford from Texas who dodged Hurricane Ike to come play in La Paz. Along with his amigo, Larry Daniels, they had a great day on the dorado and yellowfin tuna.
PHOTO 11: Shout out from Jorge Villegas showing off one of many schoolie dorado he racked up fishing two day with our Las Arenas fleet. The dorado were sometimes so thick you could “free gaff” them said one of our anglers.
PHOTO 12: Keeping it tight, Mark Avila, Anthony Avila, Manny Avila, Manny Jr. Frank Venesca and Anthony Avila, Jr. gather around a big mess of fish headed to someone’s barbecue.
PHOTO 13: Brad, Jeff and Greg Smith (they’re brothers!) and amigo, Frank Villa all came from northern California and ran into a mess of yellowfin tuna and dorado.
PHOTO 14: Pete Mason had quite a day tangling with the big roosters. Talk about grand slamming! Pete got a 34 pounder, 50 pounder and this 62 pound rooster. All fish released. 
PHOTO 15: Not a big week for wahoo, but Brian Kam from the San Francisco Bay area, busted up this one near the south end of Cerralvo Island. In fact, some guys had some outstanding trips…trips of a lifetime. Many personal best or heaviest fish were caught. Or, many guys got their first tuna, wahoo, marlin, or dorado. It was good to see the smiles. For instance, Patrick Tomyoy fought a 150 pound black marlin close to 4 hours on 25 pound test. Lionel Frailey, Ray Lim, Steve Tomata, Hector Chavez got their first roosters and all of them were trophy fish! Anthony Avila, Jr, got his first wahoo AND his first sailfish. I can’t even name all the guys how pulled on their first tuna this week.
But that’s how it went.
Far and away, the most prevailant catch were the dorado. Some time they were like little punks everywhere. They were some moments they were so close to the boats and so thick, guys were trying to free-gaff them! Both our La Paz and Las Arenas Fleets got into the dorado. There were more fish on the Las Arenas side, but the larger bulls were caught by my La Paz boats.
The biggest problem was actually the lack of larger fish. It seemed like the fish gods put a 10 pound dorado into a copy machine and pressed “copy!” There were so many fish that looked exactly alike! It was rare to get any fish over 20 pounds or even 15 pounds although we did have a few nice bulls to put in the boxes (see the photos). But, I could have used a few more of those. Still, there was no real shortage of the streaky spring-time dorado. Usually, this time of the year, the dorado are more like 20-50 pounders. They must be out here somewhere!
As for other species, we had a nice surprise of tuna for my Las Arenas fleet in the area of Punta Perrico and Bahia de Los Muertos. Not far from shore at all and the fish went 10-20 pounds. A few days every boat had about 5-10 of the fish hooked. A few other days, the tuna went to ground and only a handful of tuna were brought to gaff. However, some boats hooked tuna they COULD NOT STOP!!! So some of the bigger models appear to have moved into the area.
In addition to the tuna and dorado, it was a pretty good week for roosterfish too. Funny thing. Some days we couldn’t get a sniff from the roosters. The next day when no one really wented them, they were THICK!!! Small ones…medium…sized…large models! Just depended where you were fishing. Check out the photos above. These are the ones that were not released. Quite a few others were dropped or let go to get even bigger. The largest of the fish this week were 50-60 pound brutes.
For other stuff…a few wahoo were yanked and spanked ,but more often it was the other way around. The anglers lost the fish! A few billfish were caught while guys were trying to fish dorado or tuna and sierra in the bay indicate to me that there’s some cooler water moving in.
We’ll keep you posted!
That’s our story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
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