PHOTO 1: “BIRTHDAY JACK!” Now THIS is a fish. This is an amberjack (pez fuerte). It was Wes Howard’s birthday and he said he wanted a BIG fish! Well…imagine this toad of a fish! Wes got it at the south end of Cerralvo Island fishing with Captain Ramiro. It was over 100 pounds because it was put on a 100 pound scale and bottomed out the scale! Wes is 6’2″ and weighs 340 pounds and this fish STILL looks HUGE!!!
PHOTO 2: MORE BIRTHDAY JACK! Here’s the rest of the story. This bad boy bit a sardine on a little 1/0 hook and Wes fought it out of the rocks for 2 1/2 hours on 25 pound test!!! Quite an accomplishment. After this, Wes didn’t want to fish another day. He also got dorado and rock fish as well. Great birthday fish!
DORADO FINALLY KICK IT UP A NOTCH WITH MARLIN STILL MILLING ABOUT!
La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for July 15, 2007
PHOTO 3: Las Arenas started kicking out more of the “right kind” of dorado this past week. Here’s a slugger bull dorado being held by “Pirate” Ed Santillan of Mira Loma CA. Punta Coyote is in the background. These bulls were sometimes freeswimmers but other times, you hopped from buoy to buoy hoping to hit the right one. You could hit 10 and find nothing or hit the right one and watch the waters explode with fish fighting to get to your bait! 
PHOTO 5: These were some of the funniest guys we’ve had in a long time. Great times whenever they’re around. Here, Albert Salazar, Mike Sergiuff, Oscar Howard and Gerry Burford strike a dorado pose for us. All the guys are from the San Gabriel Valley area near Los Angeles.
PHOTO 6: Ricky Fraysure from Palmdale CA has one of the best eating fish around right now. He’s holding a big African pompano. These fishe are just about 30 yards off the beach in front of the Arenas light house and have a propensity to eat a sardine with a small weight atached. This fish is huge. Ricks a big guy and this thing is the size of an XL pizza plate that feeds 10 people.
PHOTO 7 : It’s been a great week for striped marlin around here. Multiple hook ups and multiple sightings every day. Somedays they won’t eat and others…they almost attack the boat. More than once this past week, anglers told me they were hooked up to one or two only to have others circling the boat at the same time! Most are fortunately being released.
PHOTO 8: Bob Gonzalez (right) came down this week and told me, “I just really want to catch at least ONE dorado! I’ve never caught one. If I catch just one, it will make my trip!” Well, he got more than just one. He put quite a few fillets in the ice chest. Norm Schickling shares the Kodak moment with a couple of excellent bull mahi. 
PHOTO 9 : Sometimes the rookies do the best! Bill Johnson from Running Springs CA (left) and Steve Robles (right) openly told everyone, “We don’t know what the heck we’re doing! We’ll be happy to catch needlefish!” Well, on their first day each of them spent 45 minutes on each of these nice bulls in a double-hook up. “I was so tired! Crazy fish kept going round and round the boat!” said Steve. Captain Francisco stands front and center.
PHOTO 9: This is Jerry Mason’s lure showing what teeth can do to a purple Rapala! These are the big Rapalas’ I’ve been telling you to bring down for months! Jerry said it took one wahoo, but two big amberjack. This is the lure you want to keep! The more scars the better! If it’s not broke…don’t fix it!!! 
PHOTO 10: Everyone asks, “What’s an amberjack?” and “What does it taste like?” Well, if you like yellowtail as a sportfish or as eating fish or you enjoy yellowtail (hamachi) at your favorite sushi restaurant…that’s AMBERJACK! The Mexicans call it “Pez Fuerte” (the strong fish) and these bronze bulldozers run from 5 to over 100 pounds and are the big cousins to yellowtail. The meat is fuller and more flavorful as it eats a variety of foods including…well, just about anything it wants like clams, mussels, crabs, lobsters, other fish….so the meat reflects all these great flavors. Dorothy Danielson of Palmdale CA put the hurt to this big boy. Captain Jaibo looks on. Dorothy got this amber off the islands. Amberjack have been a great surprise these past few weeks.
PHOTO 11: Steve Artis was one of our first guys to sign up his reservations this year. He and his amigos really worked hard at their fishing and hung tough. Steve came from Antioch CA and holds the kind of bull dorado we’ve been known for, but have been elusive until recently as waters finally started to warm. Las Arenas waters are a good 5 degrees warmer than the waters north of La Paz which only finally turned blue.
PHOTO 12: Two sea turtles doing the “wild thing.” Absolutely no privacy these days! Unfortunately, on the darker side, these guys are endangered and even possessing a single turtle egg can result in a year in a Mexican jail. But that does not stop folks from killing and selling both the turtles and their eggs which are considered a delicacy. Turtles just doing their onw thing on the surface are especially vulnerable. The only think taken were some great photos.
PHOTO 13: Abolutely no reason for this photo other than it’s another “day at the office” and a beautiful Sea of Cortez sunrise to be thankful for with friends and family and a promising day of fishing.
PHOTO 14: Bob Ames from Texas was on his first trip with us here to La Paz and had his hands full with this jack crevalle or “toro” (bull) as the Mexicans call it for it’s feistyness. They don’t taste good, but they make up for it in brute fishing strength. Famous Captain Jorge smiles from behind. 
PHOTO 15: This is Harriet. She’s with Bob, above! She’s from Texas too and Jorge is helping here with another of these great jack crevalle. Schools of these jacks up to 30 pounds have been rampaging in front of the Las Arenas beaches especially near the old lighthouse.
THE FISH REPORT
Fishing definitely got better this week as waters warmed and we lost some of the green currents that hurt us for several weeks. Lots of marlin in the area and it was not uncommon for the pangas to get multiple strikes although at times numerous marlin simply teased the boat and swam away. Dorado were biting better for both our Las Arenas and La Paz fleet. It’s still behind the curve of what we normally see, but there was a marked increase as the week went on. Lots of wahool still swimming around the S.end of Cerralvo Island, but sometimes that’s all they did was swim and not bite! Pargo, cabrila, amberjack and roosters still offering great action inshore.
Overall, I would have to say that early in the week, Las Arenas was the place to fish. Waters were easily warmer by a good 3-4 degrees around that south side of Cerralvo Island. As a result…The bite was simply more consistent and there was alot more variety. No particular fish was wide open, but as you walked the beach, you’d see that boats would have some dorado, the occasional tuna, some billfish, amberjack (see the photos above!), pompano, roosterfish, pargo, some wahoo, cabrila, jack crevalle, etc. It was a good mix. If you were out at the buoys and hit the right buoy, you could easily slam some 30-50 pound dorado. The secret was hitting the RIGHT buoy that was holding fish. There’s something like 80 buoys just offshore. You could hit 20 and find nothing, but the boat ahead of you goes to buoy 21 and finds all the fish YOU were looking for. Luck of the draw.
As the week went on, the La Paz area finally got into the program. Most of the week, it was picky. A few dorado. Quite a few marlin, but not much consistent action although alot of guys hooked their first marlin with alot of stripers. Fortunately, many of the fish were released because sometimes a boat would hook 3 or 4 stripers. The bad thing… However, that could be the ONLY bite of the day with dorado going lockjaw most of the week. Later in the week, the waters got warmer and bluer and the dorado finally jumped in and boats on the weekend hit their pace with much much better dorado action with bigger and more fish and boat taking limits or near limits. We don’t do much trolling, but many of the larger fish were taking trolling feathers or slabs of fresh bonito.
It’s HOT down here! Bring the sunscreen and big hats! I kid you not!!! It may not feel like it, but it’s 100-104 right now. It doesn’t feel like it on the water, but believe me, it sucks it outta you so drink alot of water and lather the sunscreen. I’m seeing alot of macho guys who think they “never burn” fishing without their shirts all day who turn to lobsters and pay dearly for showing off their torsos all day. It’s not fun! Sunburn hurts!
DELTA AIRLINES
OK…this is getting old. I’ve been writing about this for months and guys still show up surprised.
1. Delta airlines IS charging for rod tubes if you’ve already checked-in two bags. It’s $100 bucks EACH way!!!! Combine as many rods in a tube as you can. The folks are the check-in desk…frankly suck. I’m sorry. Sometimes they charge and the next person doesn’t get charged. There’s no rhyme or reasons. I’ve heard them tell people that they charge if the tube is over 84 inches. I’ve heard them tell people they charge if it’s over 60 inches…even if it’s not your third piece of luggage. I heard one story from an angler who was simply told that his 7 foot tube was not going to be allowed at all…”because it won’t fit in the plane!” SAY WHAT???? Just be prepared. Argue at the counter. Tell ’em their idiots. They are. Even old Aero California was not this bad.
2. Delta Airlines stands for Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive. It also means Delta Scare-lines! It seems that every single flight arrives and several people do not have their luggage. Delta routinely lightens their plane by taking luggage off. Yes…OFF!!! Or, once they are full, that’s it. The rest of the luggage has to wait for the next plane. Do not be one of those people. Be the FIRST in line.
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (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.”
Tailhunter Fish Report 
Leave a comment