PHOTO 1: Just another lovely day in paradise. Paul Sipillian and Leo Avakian from Los Angeles just put in a really tough day of fishing! Yellowfin tuna bit hard all week just outside of Muertos Bay, actually just in front of the old Hotel Las Arenas. Our pangas were coming back to the beach after only 2 0r 3 hours on the water totally plugged with fish. Hey…who’s gonna clean all that tuna?
PHOTO 2: Two of the most prolific anglers we see each year, our amigos Steve Greanias and his dad, Chris, always stick the fish big time. They fished 3 days and spanked the tuna, but on their 3rd day fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet they concentrated on dorado but then went inshore and went after the pargo! They got the fish boiling behind the boat, then Steve started heaving the surface iron and nailed some of these fish that most folks think only bite in the springtime!
PHOTO 3: All the way from Illinois! Bob and Bill Sayre did some fishing and SCUBA with us but on their first day on the water with rain threatening, they fished out’ve Muertos Bay with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet and dog-piled on some really quality dorado and yellowfin tuna.
PHOTO 4: Martha Bell from Hacienda Heights CA wanted me to be sure to tell everyone that by 9:30 a.m. in the morning fishing with Captain Victor, they were completely limited on tuna and dorado like this one with Captain Victor in the background and the south side of Cerralvo Island. This was Martha’s first time fishing in La Paz.
PHOTO 5: Maybe on the of the larger dorado of the week, normally, we get alot of the larger bulls in the fall. However, this year, we’re getting more school-sized fish in the 10-20 pound class. Robert Marganian shows off his nice female mahi on the beach.
PHOTO 6: Naveed Ahmed, our buddy who says “The curse is over!” because he never caught fish did so on his first day on the water with us. Fishing with Captain Archangel and amigo, Dave Asman, from Chicago, they got limits of nice 20-30 pound yellowfin tuna “until our arms hurt” as well as a wahoo.
PHOTO 7: Eddy Bell holds two nice bull dorado from a day of fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz Fleet north of the city around the islands. Eddy is from Hacienda Heights CA.
PHOTO 8: The picture kinda speaks for itself. What a day! Robert and Toros Marganian from Lake Arrowhead CA jumped into a school of tuna that could be seen boiling from the shore in a frenzy. This kind of catch was not unusual this past week in what has been the best bite of the season for our fleet.
PHOTO 9: Every year these two brother get together for a fishing reunion in La Paz. They’re among our favorite Tailhunter amigos. They always get fish! On the left is Rod Brown fron Alaska. His brother, Jeff, on the right, lives in Minnesota! Over almost a week of fishing, the two brothers got an incredible variety of fish.
PHOTO 10: You’ve probably never seen one of these. I had never seen one either except when scuba diving. The locals call is a “mojarra.” It’s better known as a “porgy.” I”m told it’s great eating. Jeff Brown from Minnesota caught it.
PHOTO 11: Check out the quality of these yellowfin tuna we’re getting. Scott Brasier poses at Muertos Bay with these 35–30 pound sluggers that went raging this past week here. Scott was on his first trip with us and came all the way from the midwest.
PHOTO 12: The Sashime Club! The fish are barely in the boat and these guys usually have the wasabi and soy ready to go! Randy Nakayama, Derick Tagawa and Mark Kojima know how to eat them as well as put the tuna into the boat.
POSSIBLY THE BEST TUNA AND DORADO FISHING OF THE YEAR GOES BALLISTIC AS LA PAZ GOES ON HURRICANE WATCH!
What a week! In between sporadic tropical showers, we had perhaps the best fishing of the season. Slugger-sized 25-30 pound tuna blew up on our panga fleet at Las Arenas/ Muertos in such a furious bite that on many days the boats were pulling off the school and headed back to shore at 9:30 or 10 a.m. in the morning or going out looking for something else to do because there was no more room in the panga fish boxes! At one point, I stood on the beach and I could actually see the fish foaming only about 100 yards off the beach with the bite only about 100-200 yards in front of the old Hotel Las Arenas.
The baits are really small and 20-30 pound test fluorocarbon leader with #1 hooks are the ticket using live or dead chunk baits, but you’d better hold onto your socks because a lot of the anglers weren’t ready for some of these fish. As one angler put it, “I’ve caught tuna before, but something about these fish has them ultra aggressive and put them on steroids or something because these fish do NOT quit!” Another angler said, “After two of these fish, I had to sit down, my arms were shaking. Stupid little 30-pound fish pull like no tuna I’ve ever run into.”
If you look at these fish, they’re just MUSCLE fish. Round, fat and feisty! They were fighting to the baits at times as if they hadn’t eaten…EVER! Just a blast!
On top of it, especially later in the week, it seemed that the dorado got tired of being second tier catches and moved right inshore with the tuna and the “dorado rodeo” went off with streaking dorado and hooked dorado surrounding all the boats. “Point-blank fish shooting” was how one of our Denver anglers described it. “I’ve never seen so many dorado flying around a boat. If the boats weren’t plugged with tuna, they were topped off with dorado! (Many were released and the flyfishers really had a blast!)
If anything else was biting, it was hard to know since everyone had jumped on the dorado or tuna schools. However, we did hook a few roosters (released) and three wahoo were hooked and lost.
“What a day !! we had only one day remaining on our vacation with so many things left to see and do. Jonathan went out of his way to “customize” a trip package for us that included fishing in the morning and snorkeling in the afternoon. We knew the weather was calling for rain, but we sucked it up and went anyway. By the time we had our eyes open, thanks to the free morning coffee, we had already loaded up with live bait and had lines in the water. 5 minutes later, bang-bang !! double hook ups on some nice sierra. After playing them in we moved about a half mile to a new location and dropped or live bait rigs over the stern and began slow trolling. Over the next 3 hours we boated 5 nice Dorado, lost 3, and landed numerous bonita. We didnt, even have a chance to notice the rain……………who cares ? Fighting fish is a great way to stay warm !! In fact just as the bite subsided a little, so did the rain. We reluctantly reeled up our gear and headed out to the snorkelling area. As we cruised along we agreed that even if the snorkelling was off due to the morning rain that we had already gotten our moneys worth, man we were blown away……we swam with huge sea lions, (they are very peacefull and non agressive) and their pups are so curious, a massive, mezmerising school of sardines, and spotted several species of large groupers including a rare golden grouper ! Long story short, we are so glad that we got out their despite the weather for a trip of a lifetime ! “
HURRICANE WATCH FOR “RICK”
As I write this, we’re watching Hurricane Rick form off the Baja Peninsula. We thought storm season was all over, but this one surprised us and could be headed our way by Wednesday or Thursday. We feel badly for all the folks who may have to cancel or postpone their fishing trip with us. If there was any way to foresee this or wave a magic wand, we would! For updates, click this: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/ep200920.html
TAILHUNTER VIDEO CLIP
I know I always used to post a weekly video clip, but we’ve had some technical difficulties this season. However, here’s a good roundup of some of our hot bite the last few weeks. Click this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_g-jI-RJ0k
TAILHUNTER GRILL AND FUBAR CANTINA MAKES TRIP ADVISOR
We made Trip Advisor after only 5 months! Check it out: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurants-g150771-La_Paz_Baja_California.html
Have a great week! Hope we stay dry down here!
Jonathan and Jill
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website: http://www.tailhunter-international.com/
Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:
http://www.tailhunter-international.com/fishreport.htm
Tailhunter YouTube Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pangapirate
“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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