That's My Story

PHOTO 1: Over these, many seasons, some of the best photos, some of the best catches, some of the best times have come from these two guys. Mitch Chavira and and Charlie “Stix” McGee both from Encinitas CA. Usually, they are with Mitch’s son, Cole, who lately has a habit of outfishing both of them, but this past week, the two amigos came solo and slammed big dorado and tuna. Both guys have caught just about every fish in the area except the elusive wahoo. Well, this past week, Charlie got his north of Cerralvo Island. Mitch will have to wait! Check out Bob Marley looking at the catch!

EARLY WEEK HIGH WINDS KICK IT UP BUT THE HOT BITE FOR TUNA AND DORADO CONTINUES TO RIP FOR MUERTOS BAY ANGLERS!

The La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 27, 2008

PHOTO 2: Landon Frazier is ust 10-years-old from northern CA, just about outfished dad and the rest of the group this week with some of the biggest fish almost daily. He had never done this before, but over 3 days he now has “the bug!” Here he’s standing on the beach at Muertos Bay holding his biggest bull dorado. Along with the tuna bite we’ve had for over a month, dorado have now moved in with some fairly significant numbers with most fish running 10-30 pounds.

PHOTO 3: I know, I have Mitch’s photo above with the wahoo, this is such a well-taken photo, I just had to put it in the report. Mitch is a regular poster boy. For our La Paz boats, it was literally impossible to fish early in the week with the strong winds, but as the winds abated, the dorado bite came back nicely with fish back at the SE end of Espiritu Santo Island.

PHOTO 4: This is how a day SHOULD be…all smiles and bent rods! That’s Sergio up at the bow and Bob amidships both with tuna at the ends of their lines. They are fishing just yards offshore at San Juan near Muertos Bay. They had limits of tuna in a short time! It’s not rocket science. The tuna have grown larger up to about 20-25 pounds and are just around the corner from where we launch the boats. Basically, if you pin a sardine on the hook, toss it overboard and wait to get bit! Easy!

PHOTO 5: Ray and Otha show off a few of their nice yellowfin tuna on the beach. This is a nicer grade of football tuna. Undoubtedly, this is the best tuna bite we’ve had in years with a tuna bite ongoing now since about August but seeming getting better and better!

PHOTO 6: Derick Tagawa, Mark Kojima and Randy Nakayama pose here with favorite captain Adolfo “Yofo” next to a nice day of fishing. Lots of talk of sashime on the beach! They had two days like this and came back early to the beach each day plugged.

PHOTO 7: One of our long-time best amigos, Roland “Wink” Winkler made it back to see us after many years. Wink is in the middle flanked by Sergio and Bob. Wink’s never lets his wheelchair get in the way of a good day fishing and is one of the most fanatic of fishermen. He fished until his “arms were tired.”

PHOTO 8: Like I said, the tuna are getting bigger. Some qualify as something a bit more than “football” status. Duffy Shropshire holds up one of the larger sluggers from this week. These fish are literally minutes or yards in front of the beach. Live or dead bait does the trick. Baits are really small so if you’re coming down, small hooks are preferred. This week, I was using #1 and even #2 size live bait hooks. The only problem was when dorado came plowing through, the small hooks sometimes didn’t set well in the dorado’s mouth and we lost a few fish!

PHOTO 9: Scott Torney came down with mom, Virginia and dad, Jack long enough to squeeze in a day of fishing and shows off this nice bull dorado. We never really got the huge bulls we got last season, but there’s not shortage of mahi either! I’d say the average bull right now is about 20 pounds.

PHOTO: 10: Captain Jorge stands here with our Alaska amigo, Rod Brown, who makes the pilgrimage each year from Wrangell, AK! According to Rod, he and his brother Jeff had one of their best trips ever with more tuna and dorado than they knew what to do with so they were really popular with captains, and everyone else giving away much of their fish.

PHOTOS 11 and 12: Marty Johnson of Atascadero CA has been on these pages many times as well as the other publications that I write for. He’s one of the most enthusiastic fishermen you will ever see. Marty can fish with the best of ’em even though he hasn’t been fishing many years. He took one day off this past week to use his flyrod and fish inshore in La Paz Bay. This is just a sample of what he did with his flyrod and spinning rod. It was literally a fish a cast…sometimes more as one fish would spit the fly and another would quickly grab it up. Marty described it as one of his best fishing days ever. Originally he thought the fish he is holding was a snook. However, when we checked, it’s a rare weakfish, a species that is rarely caught. In the rack of fish in the photo below, you will see weakfish, barracuda, triggers, jacks and sierra.

THE FISHING REPORT

I guess I could just let the photos above do the talking. We sent alot of amigos home this week with stuffed ice chests! The week didn’t start like that. Those winds that hammered S.California also had an effect on us as well.

Heck…talk about winds…for those of you who have visited us in the past imagine waves big enough to surf on in La Paz Bay! Coming from the north, the waves were large enough to get the malecon (waterfront road in town) pretty wet! Obviously, we weren’t going to send anyone out in that junk.

So, we moved all our La Paz folks to fish with our guys who were already reserved t fish out’ve Muertos Bay. As you can see from the photos, it was a pretty good move. No one lost any days of fishing and not only did the fish cooperate, but on most days they exploded! Some days boats were back on the beach with anglers too tired or too plugged with fish to continue on.

The tuna bite is the mainstay, but the fish are getting a few pound larger every week. I put a few on the scale this week that went 25-32 pounds which is a nice grade of yellowfin…hardly a monter, but hardly a football either and strong enough and stubborn enough to make for a great drag screaming fight! I had alot of guys on light tackle this week who reported worrying about getting spooled on the smaller equipment! The tuna are inching their way south to an area near and in front of the friut loop house on the hill outside of Muertos to just outside the mouth of the bay.

Sometimes, it’s one-stop shopping. As you fish the tuna, here come the dorado! Good numbers of dorado are now mixing it up with the tuna also! In fact, if you only wanted to pull on dorado and nix the tuna that is entirely possible right now. The dorado aren’t huge either, but a 20-30 pound bull can put the hurt on just about anyone!

If you’re coming down, bring small live bait hooks as smal, as a #1 or #2. The sardines are eenie-meenie! They still work great, but if your hook is too big, you’ll impale your bait and kill it before it has a chance to get eaten!

Also, bring flurocarbon leader…25 and 30 pound fluro is about right!

As for other species, they’re here too. Just no one is fishing for them. I’m writing this from the Giggling Marlin Restaurant at Muertos Bay waiting for our boats to come back and as I look down on the waters only about 20 yards from my table, 30 pound roosterfish are crushing and tormenting a school of sardines. As well, we’ve had marlin, sailfish and wahoo hookups this week.

That’s my story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International La Paz

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.”

I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!

Originally published the week of Oct. 22, 2007 in Western Outdoor News

Whenever you go to another country or immerse in another culture even for a few days like on a fishing trip, there are certain things that you just would never know unless someone told you. This is even more true if they speak a language different than your own.

I’ve been down here almost 15 years now and there are so many things that I learn that I would never have figured out.

So, let’s me put some things under the category of “Did You Know?” Whether true or not, I’ve been told by enough of my local friends that there’s some validity to them. For instance…

When you drive down a Baja road and come up behind a slow driver. He puts on his LEFT turn signal. It blink and blinks. Drives you nuts. The first time this happened to me I was behind an old bus on some mountains roads south of Ensenada. I was cursing the driver, his relatives and his whole family lineage for making me think he was making a right turn. As I was to find out later, whenever the driver in front of you does that, it means, it’s OK to pass! Of course check to make sure, but it’s an awful nice gesture! I DIDN”T KNOW THAT!

This could well be urban myth, but when you drive through most Mexican cities, almost every building has re-bar sticking out of it. The whole suburban skyline looks like it has a punk rock haircut of rebar poking out of roofs and walls.

Well, I was told that you do not have to pay property tax on buildings until they are completed. As I understand, the re-bar poking out is evidence that your 50-year-old building still has a bit more construction coming. So, stay away Mr. Taxman. Never mind that the building was built when Pancho Villa rode the streets. They surely do intend to add a second story floor! Honest! An archaic law leads to a blighted skyline. I DIDN”T KNOW THAT!

Americans on vacation like to walk around without shirts. We go to markets. We walk in bars. We go right into restaurants. We like to show off our bodies-by-Bally Fitness. Or NOT. We have no problem pulling off ours shirts anytime, anyplace. Well, walking around shirtless in public places is right up there with walking down the street in a speedo. Just not done. It’s bad form. It’s bad manners. Americans are good at that. I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!

Speaking of bad manners here’s one that causes my local friends to chuckle a bit. When Americans gesture to someone to come over we loosely extend arm with our hands palm-up and motion towards ourselves by rapidly bending the fingers towards ourselves to say, “Come here!”Bruce Lee was famous for doing it before he nailed someone with a kick to the head.

Well, in Mexico, doing that gesture, especially with the right hand is the one you use for uh…sanitary purposes. It’s just not done among proper people. I got my first lesson when I was driving and gestured for someone at an intersection to give them the right-of-way. My passenger explained to me why the occupants of the other car were laughing at me.

The proper way isto partially extend your arm and to turn the palm down. Make a motion with the fingers bent towards you and pulled towards your palm like a cat pawing the litter box. I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!

Tipping is good. Tipping with American coins is worthless. Dropping a handful of quarters on your bellman at the hotel doesn’t do him any good. I know. I live in a hotel and whenever the staff gets coins, they come to me to give them paper money. I’m the Bank of Jonathan and because Mexican banks do not accept American coins, local merchants do not accept them so your bellman or taxi driver can’t do anything with it. You might as well have given him or her a rock. I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!

Finally…At the end of a great meal, Amercans tend to lean back, pat their tummies and say, “I’m full. “ (Estoy lleno.) In Mexico, I’m told that’s not quite right. The comment begs the question. Full of what? Gas? Should we exit the room? Are ya gonna blow?

You could get away with saying this after pounding down some bean burritos with the boys or your fishing captains, but best not said in mixed company or anyplace in Mexico where they have real napkins and a tablecloth.

The proper Ms Manners Mexico dining guest says, “I am satisfied” (Estoy satisfecho). Or, “That was tasty!” (Era muy sabrosa) while patting their tummies. I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!

I’ll pass on more in another column. Have a good week!

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.

PHOTO 1: Wahoo showed up again this past week. Quite a few bites. Some got to the boat and were lost. Others were fought and lost. This is one 50 pound class ‘Hoo that didn’t get away! Our amigo, Gama “King” Flores from California was fishing in the tuna schools off Punta Perrico. He wasn’t even fishing for wahoo. He had a live sardine on the hook. No wire! This big skinny bit his 30 pound string and the fight was on! Gama won. Other fish this week hit black and purple CD 18 size Rapalas as well as a few of the dark Marauders.

MUERTOS BAY AND SOUTH CERRALVO EXPLODE WITH TUNA AND DORADO AS THE GREAT FALL BITE OF 2007 CONTINUES!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 20, 2007

PHOTO 2: Shane Vroman was here in May and was all over the big roosterfish. He came back this week and spanked the dorado and tuna. Shown here with some of the fish he and his amigo, Mike Berkowitch caught at Muertos Bay. The waters have been teeming with fish now for several weeks and no idea how long it will last, but bait has been close, then within minutes you could be in the middle of foaming fish. Shane and Mike said that several times they were in thick schools of tuna and dorado.

PHOTO 3: We had a bunch of great folks from Utah this past week. Dr. Bob Gray on the left stands on the beach with some of his yellowfin tuna. On the far side is his daughter, 22-year-old Tiffany Gray on her first salt water fishing trip. Steve Davis is next to her and Grant Glather is next to Dr. Bob. There was no shortage of tuna with most fish in the “football” category of 10 to 20 pounds, but just alot of fun to catch as fish were often coming out of the water and boiling around the boats.

PHOTO 4: Unlike previous weeks when Muertos Bay and Las Arenas were almost 90 percent yellowfin tuna, more dorado were taken like this nice bull held up by Tiffany Gray who came with her dad and amigos from Utah and Alaska. It was almost one-stop shopping some days. If you went to one spot, it was non-stop tuna. When you had your fill you simply moved the panga and caught dorado or roosterfish or went hunting for wahoo or billfish.

PHOTO 5: Santiago (“My friends call me Jim”) Garcia from Orange Co., California is given an assist from popular Captain Manuel Archangel. Santiago sent two day fishing for tuna and two days chasing only dorado and were not disappointed. Most of the doroad were in the 10-20 pound class like the tuna, but great fighters. However, there were larger bulls seen and lost. With everyone concentrating on the tuna, often the buoys…popular dorado hangouts were unmolested by boat traffic and were just waiting for someone to throw a bait in the water.

PHOTO 6: Dr. Blaine Austin from Utah is one of our frequent amigos and always does well. He was another of our Utah friends who came to visit this past week. He fished La Paz one windy day and then fished Las Arenas/Muertos with his daughter Jan and Sara where they had a banner time on the tuna and came in early.

PHOTO 7: Dave “Poolman” Baker from Huntington Beach CA (The O.C.), stuff an ice chest or two with his fish fillets after spending 4 days hammering the fish at Muertos Bay with Captain Victor. One day as he was on his way in, only minutes from the beach, this nice dorado whacked his line and was taken. The fish is so fresh, check out the incredible blue colors on it’s flank that were still shimmering.

PHOTO 8 – It’s a long way from Canada to Baja, Mexico, but Andrew Fitzel made the trek to find out what it’s like to fish in shorts and a t-shirt! Weather this week was perfect with daytime temps in the low to mid-90’s with very little humidity and water temps right about 85!

PHOTO 9; Callie Petersen has been visiting us since our earliet days here. She and her husband, Bruce, have been good friends of Tailhunter for many years. They used to live in Orange Co. California but now own a big spread in S. Dakota (or is it North Dakota?). Callie always does well with her fishing holding up a big-time bull dorado she got that blew up a sardine next to the boat.

PHOTO 10: As the week went on some of the tuna got a bit bigger, but size didn’t matter to some anglers. One of the neatest guys you will encounter, Roger Kunz, on the left is a good as they come. A Korean War Vet, he came with his cane and an attitude that he was gonna go out and hang fish like everyone else. What a gamer! Here, his nephew Marlon Kunz, gives a hand in holding up a nice grade yellowfin tuna. By the end of the week, some 30 and 40 pound fish were showing up.
PHOTO 11: You’ve been waiting for them! Yes, the big squid showed up this week briefly and it remains to be seen if this is going to be the start of a run! Several of the hug squigglies were hung and they were big ranging from 50-70 pounds! This one is being held by Santa Barbara resident Mark Trafelski.

PHOTO 12: We had friends from all over this week. Jeff Brown has fished with us before and its always a pleasure havng this amigo from chilly Minnesota come see us and have hm enjoy the sun. Here with Captain Marcos from our La Paz fleet, Jeff holds up several dorado. The fishing on the La Paz side was largely dependent on how strong the north winds were blowing, but the smaller dorado seem to be moving out and larger dorado coming in stronger.

PHOTO 13: Self-explanatory!

THE FISH REPORT

What another incredible week of fishing, especially for our anglers that fished out of Muertos Bay/ Las Arenas. Undoubtedly, this is a late season bite to remember!

It has been ages since I have seen tuna fishing like this around here. Talk about “fishy waters!” I think there must be a line of tuna and other species stretching from the channel between Cerralvo Island past the Arenas lighthouse; over to Muertos Bay then down to Los Frailes on the lower East Cape because the area is just plugged with fish.

The cool thing is that some of these gamefish are literally only casting distance from shore. Imagine going out 100 yards fronm the beach and tuna are coming out’ve the water for the chummed baits! Imagine motoring 5 minutes off the beach and finding yourself in the middle of a school of hungry dorado that are slashing each other trying to get anything thrown in the water!

That’s the way it has been the last few weeks and this past week, it only seemed to get better!

In addition to the packs of football tuna, dorado started moving in as well as sailfish and marlin. You never had to go far or you could literally pick a species then when you were tired go find something else to catch.

This isn’t rocket science either. Take your rod. Get a hook. Put a bait on it. Put it in the water. BOOM! You’re on. Just don’t drop the rod in the water like several guys did this week.

Fish are numerous, but not really really big, but nonetheless if you’re on light tackle can mean hours of mayhem. However, as the week progressed, the tuna started to eat steroids or something. The ten pounders turned to 25’s and 30’s. Same with the dorado. The larger bulls were getting hooked.

Several of our guys fought sailfish on light tackle and got beat up. When the sails came around again, they pulled their baits out’ve the water and were having one of that!

Quite a few or our anglers would get limits of fish so fast this past week that the biggest issue becaue what to do with the rest of the day. Many came right up onto the beaches where the roosterfish have again shown up and offered some great light tackle site fishing where you could see the big dorsal fins slash the surface.

Lastly, looks like the big sqiud have finally shown up! I don’t know how long they will be here, but if you are coming down you might want to pack one of those big heavy squid jigs in your pack. The squid were 50-70 pounds.

For those of our anglers who fished La Paz, it was good. Not great, but good. Some days there were problems with bait but the biggest issue was the north winds making things choppy and uncomfortable. The seasons are changing and no way to tell if we’ll be in winter mode fishing soon. Dorado were the mainstay and how you did depended on whether you found the school or not in the chop. If you found the school it could be crazy. If not, then you dinked for 3-5 dorad per day. But…the nice thing was that the mahi are growing bigger so more larger fish hit the fish boxes!

Looks like another nice week on the way!

That’s my story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International La Paz

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: 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.”

DON”T RUB YOUR EYES OR SCRATCH YOURSELF AFTER USING!

Originally Published in Western Outdoor News the Week of Oct. 16

OK, don’t start sending me e-mails and letters telling me I’m Mr. Bad Guy or calling me an animal hater. Especially since you’re the one reading this column in a huting and fishing newspaper.

However, like a lot of fishermen, I have a problem with pelicans, seagulls, sealions and other critters that take my bait and my fish.

Yes, even here in Mexico, they are a pain in the nalgas. It’s even worse when they start to take the baits and fish from my fishing clients. Personally, I can tolerate the banditos most of the time and can fish around them, but when they start hammering my clients, it becomes a personal thing!

By golly and por los santos, we can’t let that happen!

Lest you think otherwise, I grew up like any other kid of my day. Dirty face and fingernails; pants torn at the knees; and a wrinkled t-shirt were the uniform de jure in my neighborhood and I was never far from my pile of rocks and dirt clods; BB-gun or slingshot.

There’s something comforting in having your hand rest on the plastic feux-wooden stock of a Daisy Rough Rider BB-gun and having a tube of fresh BB’s in your pocket or a handy-dandy wristrocket slingshot and some marbles in a bag.

I will admit too that I took deadly aim at pretty much anything that moved. Fortunately, I was better at shooting immobile targets than living things. Although I did hit an occasional crow, but most projectiles just bounce off those tough birds and the crows just look at you.

Later on, I did learn to do some hunting, but looking back as a youngster, I probably shouldn’t have been shooting at neighborhood wildlife that was merely minding it’s own business. But, especially 50 years ago, that’s what little boys did and I was every bit a little boy like many of you reading this.

But, fast forward to my fishing days and there are certain critters out there that do NOT mind their own business. It’s one thing to be a little sparrow sitting in my backyard harming no one.

It’ quite another to be a sealion that steals a tuna and then has the nerve to wave it in my face and toss it in the air with glee! It’s another thing to be a pelican or seagull and repeatedly dive bomb my precious bait.

The hunter-gatherer returns!

In the day, I rarely left on a fishing trip without a hunting slingshot and some ball bearings ready to beat away the marauding hordes! Again, it’s fortunate I have bad eyes and never actually hit anything, but at least I felt armed and I could shake my fist at the little buggers and rage against their dastardly habits.

In truth, I never really wanted to hurt them. It just felt better shooting something in their vicinity like a warship firing a warning shot across the bow! I just wanted them to go away. I wanted them to leave my fishing alone and go bother someone else’s boat!

It was one of those days when a kindly and remarkable captain in San Jose del Cabo showed me a secret many many years ago. I say “remarkable” because most captains you run into, especially years ago, would just as soon kill anything that became a pest.

I had fished with Captain Jesus before and he knows that I always carry some pretty potent hot sauce with me in my tackle box or ice chest. A couple of drops of habanero sauce could do wonders for fruit, potato chips, ham sandwiches and boxed-lunch burritos!

On this particular day it was the Battle of the Gordo Banks. We were being hit from above and below. Birds everywhere. A sealion seemed to shadow us no matter where we moved. Our baits barely hit the water before a horde of squawking seabirds descended on it.

Captain Jesus took out my little bottle of fire salsa. He took some dead sardines and coated several of them with the green condiment and tossed them as he would dead chum. The birds did what birds do. They couldn’t gobble them down fast enough!

I have to admit it was pretty entertaining to watch them shimmy and shake and flutter as the spice hit them. Some just sat in the water quivering not sure what to do! Some tried to take off with a bait but half-way in the air nose dived into the water. Some did what some people do. They stopped and pooped…massively! Most of them backed off!

Next came the sealion. Captain Jesus took a slab off a discarded bonito he kept on the deck. Again, a generous coating of super-duper habanero sauce! Nex time Mr. Sealion came by, the bonito slab was tossed. The big dog immediately turned and gobbled it as it lay on the surface.

It didn’t take long!

Fire in! Fire out! It came flying up yelping and flipping around the ocean and porpoising through the waves and as far away from our panga as it could get. That’ll learn ya! No more problem!

And it surely beat using more drastic measures with no one getting permanently hurt. No guns. No nets. No slingshots. No sealbombs. No poison. Just a 75 cent bottle of Mexico’s best habanero sauce!

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.

PHOTO 1: The week started off nervously as strong north winds came barreling down on us forcing us to cancel some boats, but with each passing day, the fishing came back stronger. Las Arenas continued to kick out the tuna. Here, Mark Stoller from N. California holds a 25 pound class yellowfin off Muertos Bay.

HIGH WINDS GIVE US A SCARE BUT TUNA COME RAGING BACK ALONG WITH DORADO AS WINDS CALM DOWN FOR GREAT WEATHER AND GREAT FISHING!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 14, 2007

PHOTO 2: Jillene Steven formerly of San Diego, but now living in La Paz fished for about 2 hours putting limits of yellowfin tuna aboard in short order with all fish between 10 and 20 pounds. It wasn’t complicated fishing as the fish were more than willing to eat a sardine on a hook sometimes as soon as it hit the water! Jill also got a few pargo as well.

PHOTO 3: Lest you think that we only have tuna hitting, Johnny Drucker, who just moved from Oregon to Redondo Beach CA was on his first trip down this past week and surely did get tuna, but he also got this nice bull dorado. Dorado are definitely in the area but so much focus has been on the tuna. However, refusing to be left out, the dorado schools sometimes maraud right through the tuna schools wacking everything in sight!

PHOTO 4: Hiding behind the nice bull dorado being held up by Captain Archangel, Steve Laurentis was also on his first trip and could not have done any better. He slayed fish daily, but this nice bull off Punta Perrico was the topper.

PHOTO 5: Seal Beach resident Lloyd Layne has been with us many many times since our first days here in La Paz. He never fails to do well. Many folks think there’s no roosters this late in the season, but it’s mostly because no one is fishing for them! Lloyd took a day off from tuna and dorado and went after roosters all day in Muertos Bay. He caught and released 15 roosters of varying sizes!

PHOTO 6: Ray Chow and his son, Nathan, are also old amigos of ours. I lost count of how many tuna they caught over 4 days of fishing, but the fish they hold here are a good example of the type of football yellowfin we’re getting right now. The fish are in a wide arc between the Arenas lighthouse and the mouth of Muertos so you could literally be in fish 3 minutes from leaving the beach once y0u have bait!

PHOTO 7: These are some special friends, Gary and Sheila Olsen from Utah. I could not get Sheila from smiling from ear-to-ear. She had never done anything like this but spent 10 days with us taking in just about everything La Paz had to offer. However, she also fished for 4 days and simply hammered the fish. Here, Gary, Sheila and I pose next to a day’s fishing in Muertos Bay.

PHOTO 8: OK…you know they’re here! This is a shot of a mako shark off the transom of skipper Juan Chuy’s boat. It was hooked by Tracy Maybank of S.California who must have hooked just about every pelgaic species we had to offer during 2 days of fishing. That’s quite a feat. However, even better was the fact that Tracy released almost all his fish including this shark! Good for him.

PHOTO 9 – Al Tesoro and his son-in-law Troy were with us for 3 days of fishing this week. They hoiste a few of their yellowfin tuna as well. Like so many others this week, it was easy to lose count of the fish but I know we sure put alot in the freezer for them. Using a little 25 pound flurocarbon was a nice tip and when the fish went down, changing to dead bait or live bait with a small rubber core sinker kept the fish biting.

THE FISHING REPORT

Well, amigos…what started with me cringing and standing on the Las Arenas Beach watching 6 foot breakers crashing down turned into a pretty good week after all!

I thought surely the fish gods were out to get me by sending in strong north winds many weeks too early and forcing me to cancel about 20 boats we had going out not to mention disappointing alot of anglers who had counted on going out. When the winds are that strong, it simply is not safe to put the small pangas out and try to get them out through the surf. So, we turned and drove back to La Paz. Looking at the weather forecast showed nothing but north wind all week. Not good!

Well, as it turned out yes…the winds blew, but with each passing day, it got better and better. So did the fishing!

By the end of the week we were praying for a little breeze and some guys laughing grumbled that the fishing was “too good” and we were done “too fast!”

Seriously, the best tuna bite in years continued right off Muertos Bay. I’m not kidding that withing minutes of leaving the beach, you could be thick into the yellowfin tuna. This has been on-going now for over a month! The fish are only “football grade” 10-20 pounders, but alot of fun on light tackle and voracious at times so that boats were limited by mid-morning and looking for something else to chase! Sardines fished live or dead were the hot ticket.

Looking for other fish, dorado would sometimes scoot through the tuna schools as well as sailfish. Inshore, chumming along the beaches often brought roosters or jacks that could be alot of fun for a few hours.

For La Paz, as well, once the winds died down, it was business as usual. The fish weren’t big, but if you hit the right spots, the dorado bite as fairly solid. Most boats hooked 4-10 dorado per day, releasing the smaller fish then chasing around to find others. A few times, dead seal and whale carcasses were found floating between the islands and swimming beneath were all the dorado you could want.

The hardest thing is keeping our La Paz anglers interested. Sometimes you could nick and plink all day and get discouraged, but I keep telling the folks that, “you’re just one bait away from the next big fish!” Well, so often, right at the end, the boat and skipper find the spot and it’s pandemonium!

Looking forward to another good week! You have one too!

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.”

PRESENTATION IS HALF THE BATTLE!

Originally published in Western Outdoor News week of Oct. 9 , 2007

Maybe you’ve heard a fishing pal yank your chain a bit and tell you, “To catch a fish you have to think like a fish!”

Easy to say. Funny to hear. Ridiculous to apply…or is it?

It’s not so far-fetched if you give it some thought into getting into a fish’s head. You would think that with our fat craniums that can put a man on the moon we’d have the advantage over our piscatorial quarries who have brains the size of a splitshot sinker. The fish are surely overmatched! Ha!

Still, they seem to outsmart the majority of us more often than not. So kicking up your success rate with fishing means figuring out what’s going on in the fish’s grey matter!

Presentation is half the battle.

Consider your own eating habits. Good food is good food Bad food is bad food, but food that looks good, even if mediocre sure helps! That’s probably why fast food and coffee shop food is so popular. It’s not the best chow on the planet but put in the correct surroundings with a little garnish; a pleasant waitress; clean plate; some crayons on the table; good fragrances emanating from the kitchen; and a cook that doesn’t look like he also picked up the garbage in the alley goes a long way towards enticing us to eat!

Same with fish.

It’s not just the taste. It’s the whole sensory package so your presentation is often the critical issue, especially if the fish are touchy. If the bite is WFO and they’re eating everything except the paint off the boat, no need to read further! But enhancing the presentation can give you an edge when the bite is tougher, touchier or you just want to catch more fish than the next guy.

Take your hook size. For example, all you have for bait is a 6 inch sardine. All of a sudden, several striped marlin appear. Sure, you should probably use a big forged 8/0 hook, but if you stab your little sardine with a huge hook, that little ‘dine probably isn’t going to swim so well. Use the largest hook you think you can get away with but still keep your boat looking like something Mr. Billfish wants to eat.

Likewise with line. Again, there are trade-offs to be made.
Remember that your small bait already has a hook stuck in him. Now he’s on the end of yards and yards of line that you feed out. Line is heavy. Line is stiff. Try pulling a bunch of wet rope through the water. It’s tiring.

As you feed more line and the longer that little bait stays out there, the more tired it gets. It’s not swimming so well anymore. He doesn’t look so good anymore to a gamefish compared to another bait nearby that’s lively and energized. Go with the lightest line you can get away with , but be careful of using line that’s so heavy your bait might as well be pulling a chain. Change your bait often. Keep your bait looking good.

How you pin your bait also affects it’s attractiveness.

Several things to consider. Fish, generally always swims forward. So, pinning a bait in the butt or on it’s backside then slow trolling it drags it backwards. Quite an unnatural swimming motion, not to mention you’ll kill the bait. Same with putting a lead on the line. Except for a few exceptions, the lead will also drag your bait backwards or keep it swimming irregularly. Best on both occasions to pin your bait through the nose. In both situations, a nose hooked bait swims better and looks better.

Finally, let’s talk about smell. Again, this is an important part of your presentation. You know yourself, that food that smells good sure goes a long way to getting those neurons in your brain saying…EAT! EAT! EAT! Conversely, when food smells bad, it can be perfectly good, but you surely don’t want to fork it into your mouth. In fact, usually if it smells bad, it is bad.

Old timers will tell you that smell is just as important to fish. These days they make all kinds of scents to put on your baits and lures. Some actually add a “fragrance” like shrimp or anchovy or somesuch. Others “mask” the human odors we just normally impart to everything we touch either because we pick it up or else it comes with our human oils.

But, I was taught long ago, that even being careful about what you touch can go a long way. My hand that touches bait does not touch my burger. It does not touch other oily things like motor parts. I do not scratch my face with it or use that hand to apply sunscreen.

If I do touch something, I immediately “re-stink it” by crushing a dead bait in my hands or washing it with soap and water (if available) then getting the soap scent off with whatever is handy like an old bait or some commercial scent. The point is, I get the unnatural man-made scents off my hands and do not touch anything that might affect the fish’s appetite!

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.

PHOTO 1: Just another day on the beach. This was typical of catches thist past week with a good batch of fun football tuna and a smattering of breezing dorado. Jeff Sakuda and Marianne Sugawara from S. California come down 2 or 3 times a year and were worried they would not catch enough tuna. This rack of fish came in about 90 minutes of actual fishing! Las Arenas was red hot most of the week until Northern winds kicked in and shut things down late.

TUNA BITE IS EPIC AS RODS BEND AT LAS ARENAS WITH DORADO HIGHLIGHTS BUT NORTHERN WINDS LATE IN WEEK THREATEN TO TURN OFF BEST BITE OF THE YEAR!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 7, 2007

PHOTO 2: Zach Smith and Dave Deter strike the pose! Yellow”fun” tuna again took up residence in a spot just off the beach between the Arenas lighthouse and Punta Perrico. You had to be REALLY bad not to catch fish this past week. The fish would go like maddogs on the flylined sardines simply dropped over the side!

PHOTO 3: Pete Eby from Cleveland holds up his first-ever fish…a nice grade yellowfin tuna. You didn’t have to be a vet to land fish this week. The basic requirement was just don’t drop the rod into the water. These yellowfin would go on just about any boat tossed in the water and best of all, the fish were literally only about 100 yards from shore!

PHOTO 4: Speaking of veterans, two San Diegans, Don Melucci and Mike Foster come down every year. Their first day, they got hit by the tuna as well. Here they are standing on Las Arenas beach with the first day catch. If you had a bait in the water, you were bit. Most of the fish were football sized yellowfin between 10 and 20 pounds this week.

PHOTO: 5: Vern Maxwell from Pittsburgh PA holds up his first ocean fish. It’s a bull dorado. Fluries of dorado would often jet through the tuna schools and were a highlight of the good tuna fishing with most boats getting a shot at dorado without having to move off the tuna honey-hole!

PHOTO 6 : John Pastorello of Fullerton CA surveys some of his dorado catch taken on the La Paz side. Dorado continued to be the general catch for our La Paz fleet, but there were also some wahoo taken again as well as striped marlin, blue marlin and sailfish. The dorado this year are not nearly as big as the toads we got last year but the fish are still a fun 10-30 pounds on the average with lots of smaller ones surprisingly still around.

PHOTO 7: Even THIS guy can catch fish sometimes! They let all kinds of crazy people on the beach when the fish are biting.

PHOTO 8 : Frequent La Paz angler, Eric Zimbler holds up one of the larger tuna caught this week of about 25 pounds.

THE FISH REPORT

KILL THE BAIT CATCH THE FISH!

Originally published the week of Oct. 2, 2007 in Western Outdoor News

If you’ve spent anytime fishing the ocean from boat or other watercraft, you understand the concept of “live bait.” It’s priceless.

If you fish a party boat or fish from a private vessel, you’ve been in the lineup patiently waiting for live bait from the bait boat, bait receiver or bait barge. Those are scoops of gold going into your bait tank, as important or more important than the fishing gear, the fried chicken and the beer in the cooler…well, Ok, not the beer.

However, without the live bait, there’s almost no point in going. If the quality of the live bait isn’t good, it’s not much better. Listless, bloody-nosed and tired bait with scales falling off or swimming erratically is about as good as no bait as well.

It’s in our collective fishing psyche. Live bait good. Dead bait bad.

But whoa. Hold on, Jose…

The first time I saw a Mexican skipper do it, I was besides myself. We were fishing off San Jose.

What the…? Hey! That’s my bait!!! He was killing my precious live bait. Bait that I had just paid 20 bucks for, he was scooping it out into his bucket and killing it! He took a handful of the wiggling sardines and threw it forcefully against the side of the boat stunning and killing it. It fell to the water in a scattered heap and started to sink away

“Wait, amigo…don’t…!”.I attempted to say.

He smiled. Held a finger to his lips to politely tell me to shut up and took another handful of bait and smacked it against the gunwale.

The captain then took my rod; pulled off some line and pinned a dead sardine on the hook. He stripped off many yards and tossed the whole mess of slack line into the other sinking bits of chum.

I looked at him questioningly as he put the rod into my hands and put on the clicker. I watched helplessly as my precious bait drifted in the current and gently settled out of sight below the boat in the blue Cortez waters. He kept smiling very smugly at me.

This is nuts. What an idiot I have for a cap….suddenly my clicker went off in a hum. So did my heart. The captain deftly reached over, threw the reel out’ve freespool and I was hooked up! The rod gave a mighty bend! I was bit!

“Tuna!” he grinned. He pointed to his head and gave me a sly wink! He sat back near his outboard smiling

As I fought the fish, it occurred to me what he had done. East Coast and long range sportfishers had been doing it for years. In many variations, the captain had “chunk” fished.

It’s a variation on chumming, e.g, tossing bait into the water to attract fish. When the fish come, you then bait a hook and cast to the fish.

With chumming, you camouflage your hook right in the middle of the chum. All of these bits and pieces of fish settle down into the current and sink away. However, one of those bits o’ bait has a big sharp hook in it!

It is an incredibly effective way to catch fish and since that first day, I’ve used the technique to catch more tuna, dorado, pargo, cabrilla, yellowtail, amberjack and numerous other species.

I’m not a fish psychologist, but I think fish are a lot like people. Everyone loves a good buffet line. No one likes chasing around for their food. Chasing your food takes too much energy. That’s what separates us from the cavemen hunter-gatherers and 21st century homo-sapien fishermen! We like it now and we like it easy. We like it right in front of us and we love to load up! It’s impossible to eat must one French fry; one meatball; one stuffed potato skin!

I think fish are the same way. Why expend the energy when all my food is right in front of my face and isn’t trying to get away. Time to chew!

I have put on snorkel gear and watched fish in the “chunk line!” I’ve seen 50 pound tuna, and other species literally slurp and gulp chunks of bait like the circus fat man eating potato chips! Big and lazy. No hurry. The food isn’t trying to get away. Slurp! Slurp!

Well, one of those has your hook in it!

Remember, “Dead bait does not swim!” When line starts peeling off your reel, that’s not the bait swimming away. Time to hit the brakes and lean into that fish. You’re bit!

I’m a convert. Kill my bait? Sure. Now let’s catch some fish!

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.

HIS NAME IS PANCHO!!

Originally published in Western Outdoor News the week of Sept. 24. 2007

Over the many years, I’ve had this conversation in one way, shape or form:

Angler: “We’re coming fishing this year and we want the same captain we had five years ago. He was really good!”

Me: “Great! What as his name?”

Angler: “Uh, I think it was “Pancho.” You know who I’m talking about. He’s the really good captain you have. We caught so many tuna with him five years ago!”

Me: (skeptically) Well, uh, I have several captains named “Pancho.” Can you tell me more?

Angler: “Oh c’mon. You know who he is! His panga is blue and white (like everyone else). He wore a t-shirt every day that had the Nike shoe logo on it (remember this is five years ago).”

Me: “Let me guess, he was short, brown, had a mustache and wore a baseball hat too, right and he liked to drink beer!”

Angler: “That’s the guy! I knew you’d remember! That’s the guy we want this year too!”

I throw up my hands and shake my head. Of course that description could fit any of hundreds of guys named “Pancho” that fish for a living here in Baja.

Still, I like it when clients ask for a captain by name. To me, it means that somewhere along the line, they connected.

For all the gear we buy and seem to need every time we go to the tackle store to get an “edge” in our fishing, there’s one item that sometimes goes overlooked. We want to catch more fish. We want to have a better time. We want to beat the other guys in that 10 dollar jackpot or win the beer pool money. We’ll do whatever it takes to do!

But what about your truly best weapon on your boat that day? A good boat is fine. Great gear is a bonus. But what about the guy driving the wagon?

I don’t care how good you are. There is nothing that replaces local knowledge and chances are the guy riding with you and driving the boat has forgotten more about this particular fishing hole than you will ever know.

Most were raised in the area and were cleaning dad’s fish or schlepping bait when they were still in gradeschool or working weekends and holidays to help feed the family.You’ve been to Baja 10 times in the last 10 years? Your captain was fishing 300 days a year in these waters before he know how to drive.

He learned from his dad and uncles and grandfather who learned from their dads, uncles and grandfathers. Look at their hands and you’ll see the callouses and line burns turned to scars from years of hand lines. Even the young ones have a permanent squint from staring into the sun for that “finner” on the surface or the birds diving the bait.

Give me a bad boat and a good skipper over a great boat and cruddy skipper any day of the week. I’ll give up my GPS satellites for the knowledge in the captain’s head and his ability to triangulate to a fishing hot spot by simply lining up points of reference…that hilltop…that tree…the old lighthouse. These veteran skippers don’t fish as a hobby. It’s a living and when they’re not fishing for you, many are still on the water fishing commercially. You get pretty good when feeding your family rides on your ability to find fish.

I see so many anglers overlook the most important asset on the boat. If you can build a rapport with your skipper that’s even better. Especially, if you fish more than one day with the same captain.

Fishing with your best buddy takes awhile to get used to how he or she fishes. Same thing down here with a captain. You fish with a captain and you have certain expectations, stereotypes, etc. you have to work around. Everyone is different. Captains are different as well.

Surprise, they feel the same about you. They really don’t know if you’ve never held a rod and reel in your hand or you’re the saltiest dog that ever trod the Baja. The captains tell me often they assume the clients knows very little and work up from there so that there’s fewer margins for error.

After the first day, you each know a bit more about each other’s skills, abilities and personalities. With each passing day, you’re a better team…a better human fishing machine! Hopefully, you’ll also be making new friends as well.

It’s not so easy when there are language barriers, but you’d be surprised how many captains know more English than they let on. Certainly, any captains worth his salt is able to communicate basic fishing language such as “reel,” “more line,” “pull harder,” “wait for the bite,” etc. Plus, there’s the universal language of smiles, “please,” “thank you,” “gracias,” that work wonders in any language.

Believe me, the captains do remember you! If you come down year after year, the captains will remember you and actually look forward to the return visit unless you were an absolute jerk. With each trip, a fishing relationship grows. The “team” gets better and hopefully, your trip will be enhanced by the fact that you’re not just fishing with a hired guide…you’re fishing with another fishing buddy!

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.