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Archive for October, 2008

Posted in Uncategorized on October 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »

PHOTO 1: Yes! That’s right…YELLOWFIN TUNA! The north end of Cerralvo Island gave up a few teasing days of great tuna fishing early in the week with 20-25 pound fish crashing around the boats. Popular Captain Jorge holds up some fish with our good friends, Len and Cheryl Atkinson.

CHANGING NORTH WINDS AND UNSTABLE WATERS DAMPEN A SOLID BITE AND APPEARANCE OF TUNA!

La Paz Fishing Report for the Week of Oct. 19-25, 2008

PHOTO 2: Len Atkinson and Captain Jorge at North Point Cerralvo Island holding one of the yellowfin tuna that romped on the panga fleets early in the week. Our bait and flyfishers alike all got into the fish. Down below, deeper water amberjack also bit for anglers fishing further down the water column.

PHOTO 3: Stacy Amos from S.California poses with Captain Armando and one of the nicer grade bull dorado that are still roaming the waters outside of Punta Perico.

PHOTO 4: She likes NASCAR and fishing and now loves La Paz too! Becky Amos holds up a nice bull dorado taken close to shore on strips of fresh giant squid. This was Becky’s first trip down with us here.

PHOTO 5: Beast from the deep. The giant squid are still here although some days they seem to be deeper and deeper. This 50-pounder is about to be gaffed. We’re using chunks of these guys to slow troll for thd dorado outside of Muertos Bay.

PHOTO 6: Our amigos from the heartland, Leroy Freeman and Al Burgess from Kansas had a pretty good week with over 10 species of fish caught including dorado like these.

PHOTO 7: Sure is a pretty fish. Tasty too. It’s a golden jack and also known as a palometa amarilla. Byron Tanaka from the Sacramento area does the honors. He and his guys spent the week flyfishing with us and got an assortment of fish including tuna, jacks, bonito, dorado and sierra on the flyrods fishing with Captains Loreto and Moncho.
PHOTO 8: From Utah, here’s the Gustafson family: Morgan, Debbie, Broc and Bill with a few handfuls of Las Arenas dorado.
THE FISHING REPORT

Well…we were kinda hoping we’d go out at the end of the season with a roar. It sure looked like it. However, mother nature is cruel and she had other ideas. Instead of a roar. We got a whimper as the week went on. Fish kinda went on strike!

Simply put, by the end of the week, we were struggling for fish as seasonal northern winds appeared to have started earlier this year. When they start blowing with regularity, things change. And I have a feeling that our blue water season may be coming to an end. We’ll have to see.

However, the week sure started nicely. Dorado, although not big, continued to bite pretty steadily for both our Las Arenas (Muertos Bay) and La Paz fleets. Most of the fish were 10-15 pounders. Hardly the big bulls we’re used to this time of year, but lots of fun, especially on the lighter tackle. Jacks and roosterfish were in the shallows as well. Some boats did better than others, but if you fished a few days, everyone got fish at some point. Not banner, but steady.

Then, we got the real bonus…tuna showed up at the north end of Cerralvo Island! Whoa…what a surprise. These were a nice grade of fish too…25 pound class sluggers! Light tackle and even our flyfishers got into the fish and had a blast getting beat up. In the same spot, some of those nice amberjack also came up too! We had those kinds of days when everyone literally came back to the beach looking trashed and bloody, but all with big grins. So we got pretty jazzed and figured we were finally on it…

Well, then the winds started up. They blew hard enough that it was almost impossible to get up to the spot again bucking against the north winds…unless you wanted to get soaking wet and/or get your teeth rattled out of your head!

And that was the bite…after that…with the winds blowing…even the dorado seemed to go ground and became about as scarce as chicken’s teeth. Really had to work for the fish the latter part of the week. Even the bonito seemed like they weren’t interested. I won’t kid ya. The last part of the week had lots of sunshine and that was almost about it.

I sure hope the winds don’t hang around. We’ll hope for the best this coming week. I’d like to run up for some of that tuna again.

That’s our story!
Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, 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.”

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Posted in Uncategorized on October 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

PHOTO 1: Famlies that fish together. From the left…the first four are the Barker family (Matt, Al, Big Al and Diane). Next four…the Gustafson family (Bill, Morgan, Debbie and Broc). All are from the Salt Lake City UT area and were on their first trip down to visit us. As you can see, not a bad day of dorado fishing out of Muertos Bay. The fish they’re holding are fairly representative of the type of dorado we got all week.

RESIDUE FROM THE STORM – A HUGE FULL MOON – CHANGING WINDS PUT A TRIPLE WHAMMY ON THE FISHING BUT DORADO AND BIG SQUID FILL IN THE BLANKS!

La Paz / Las Arenas Report for the Week of Oct. 12-18, 2008

PHOTO 2: YEOW! Talk about first time outta the block! Justin Wick from Alaskas holds onto the big 250 pound black marlin he nailed out of La Paz on his first day of fishing. Captain Eddy Carballo (left) was driving the panga and holds up one of his lucky orange Crocs. Seems whenever Eddy scores big he is wearing his lucky Crocs! The funny thing is that this fish was caught on a little purple and black tuna feather while trolling for bonito to use for dorado bait. Justin fought the fist for over an hour. They were going to release it, but the fish died at the end.

PHOTO 3: Here’s out amigo, Al Barker again and his son Matt from Sandy, UT. Biggest dorado of the week he got on a chunk of slow trolled squid just outside of Muertos Bay.

PHOTO 4: More long-distance amigos all the way from Kansas. In front is Al Burgess and behind him is Leroy Freeman. Both have been down numerous times and show off some of their first-day dorado. Leroy also got a marlin that day.

PHOTO 5: Rich Grigas from Northern California holds up a pair of dorado he got on bait that are fairly typical of some of the fish we were getting early in the week.
PHOTO 6: Diane and Al Barker get an assist from Captain Armando on the beach at Muertos with a couple of their dorado they got on their first day of fishing.

VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK

Check it out. Turn up the sound and click thelink!


Kind of a quiet week around here. Quite a few folks for all the fleets canceled after so many flights canceled over the previous weekend from the hurricane (that turned out to be a woosie of a hurricane…lots of wind, but not much else). Anyway, not much traffic on the water.

I kinda think we got triple whammied this past week. I don’t put much stock in any of these things that happened if taken alone, but all three of them stacked up and I think it made a big difference in the fishing. First, as mentioned, we have the hurricane (which wasn’t much of one). Then, we had the biggest and longest full moon of the season. Then, the winds shifted from the north and started blowing and made things kinda rough. Put all those together and the fish were just outta synch!

What the hurricane did was turn up the waters around La Paz. It got rough AFTER the hurricane. In fact, the waters out of La Paz AFTER the hurricane were rougher than during the hurricane! Bright sunshine and warm conditions, but there were 4 foot waves in the bay! We did put out some the day after the hurricane but fishing was off as the waters remained brown and green.

So…

We had everyone fish out of Las Arenas instead most of the week. That’s the beneifit of Tailhunter having two fleets. We fished out of Las Arenas…well, Muertos Bay to be exact (we moved the boats back there to the cove)…and surprise! We got fish!

In fact, the area barely got touched by the storm! The big squid remained there right where we left them. There were dorado scattered around the mouth of the bay including a few nice bulls there then towards Punta Perico and the lighthouse which also kicked out more cabrilla and yellowtail. It wasn’t great gonzo fishing by any stretch, but everyone got fish. We had several families and first timers so by fishing them out of Las Arenas instead of La Paz, we were able to have a good time for all.

Some other surprises as well…yellowtail popped up off Punta Perrico! There’s been some strange happenings there this pas season. Yellowtail were there in the spring…big ones!!! But usually yellowtail are around when the waters are cold. However, there’s a bunch of bait stacked up there like squid, mackeral, caballitos and sardines. Commercial guys got some 20-30 pound yellowtail early in the week then some of our anglers got some 10 and 15 pounders. We’ll have to keep an eye on that.

Additonally, some tuna popped up briefly around the south side of Cerralvo. The elusive tuna came up and went down. We’ll keep track of that as well. Who knows! It’s been a weird season for species.

By the time you’re reading this, hopefully, the La Paz side fishing will have settled and the fish come back. Tune in for the next report!

That’s our story!
Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, 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.”

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Posted in Uncategorized on October 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »

PHOTO 1 : Dog tooth pargo trophy! Chip Wickline was fishing with 30 pound test just off the Las Arenas lighthouse with Captain Archangel and looky what he caught! This massive dog-tooth snapper (pargo) also called a cubera snapper or pargo perro. Estimated at 50-70 pounds this huge guy tore into a chunk of bait. Most folks think that the spring is a good time for the pargo, but although it’s true we get the most fish during that time, we got the biggest ones in the fall.

HURRICANE NORBERT HALTS FISHING LATE IN THE WEEK BUT DOES LITTLE DAMAGE BUT BEFORE THAT BIG SQUID AND DORADO SCHOOLS KEEP ANGLERS HAPPY!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for the Week of Oct. 5-11, 2009

PHOTO 2: Wade Gomes and Bill Moore from northern California area hold up two of the dorado they got fishing a day out of Las Arenas sch

PHOTO 3: One of the larger bulls that day, first timer Keith Kleppe hooked this guy working the dorado schools that have taken up residence between the Las Arenas lighthouse and Boca de Alamo.
PHOTO 4: Now appearing on “air dorado” playing “Rock You Like A Hurricane”, Joe Burkhart holds up an ice bull dorado taken south of Muertos Bay.

PHOTO 5: Dave Wakaybayshi’s guys from Southern California all hold up a nice quiver of dorado after a day of fishing at Las Arenas.
PHOTO 6: I teased Paul Dubow that he was holding his big roosterfish like a “loaf of bread” with an assist from Captain Gerardo, but he said, “When you’re 75-years-old you can’t be blamed for holding a big fish like that! Great catch from Paul. It was his first and he released it. The big roosters are still around this late in the season!

PHOTO 7: Captain Moncho (Raymond) poses with Ed “Sunny” De La Torre who spent 3 days flyfishing with us on his first trip down. He admitted he was a rookie on the flyrod but got numerous pompano, his first rooster and well as dorado on the flyrod and had a great time.
PHOTO 8: Willy Domingo from San Jose CA was trolling a plastic hoochie on the surface with 30 pound test line. No wire. When this wahoo bit, not 50 feet from the shore! As it was being fought, another wahoo twice the size swam around the boat eating chunked squid, but nothing with a hook. The wahoo was a great surprise. Sed Roldan of Hacienda Heights CA, cradles his prized barred pargo he caught on a piece of squid off the Las Arenas lighthouse.

PHOTO 9: Kevin Lang and George Nichols show off two of their dorado caught flylining baits south or Muertos Bay SE of La Paz.

PHOTO 10: Here’s the fish that made Las Arenas famous being held by Chris Blair and one of the best rooster captains in our fleet and in the area, Captain Archangel. This beauty was released to grow larger, but fish like this are still prowling the sandy shallows near the lighthouse!

PHOTO 11: Another solid beauty of a roosterfish! Rod Brown from Alaska visits us each year and loves fishing with Captain Jorge, for obvious reasons. Check out the rooster. Las Arenas is considered the “roosterfish capital of the world.” This fish was released.


PHOTO 12: Look carefully. I’ve never seen it photographed before and it’s a shame I can’t make the photo larger, but there’s about a dozen dorado in the water boiling on bait in a feeding frenzy! Get them going like this and it could be non-stop high-flying action for hours!

PHOTO 13: On the left Paul Scheuring from Mill Valley. Middle is Mike Ting from Redwood Shores. On the right is Fernando Sucre also from Redwood City. Showing of a brace of dorado headed to the hotel kitchen for a cook out. The guys caught these dorado north of La Paz

PHOTO 14: Don’t go in the water! This is the beak of one of these aggressive hungry giant squid. Easily snap off a finger or when groups get together tear apart fish and yes…even people! These hunters are canibalistic and even eat each other! This beak is what is in the middle of all those tentacles!

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

We actually have two clips this week. Turn up the sound. The first link is to the hot fishing action. The second link shows some clips from Hurricane Norbert! Enjoy!
THE FISHING REPORT

An exciting week here for sure. Let me set the scene. We pretty much figured hurricane season was over. It’s already pretty late in the season. Things had been going really well. Cooler temps on the water and air pretty much signal the end of storms. Well, about mid-week, all of a sudden, we get notices that Hurricane Norbert might be headed our way and it was gonna be a BIG ONE! We couldn’t be sure of how strong it would be or even if it would hit us directly. Day-by-day, it was stronger-weaker-stronger. It was going to hit us directly, then move north, then come our way again. It was the most erratic storm I have seen. At one time, it was up to a Category 4 hurricane which is almost the strongest!

People spent the week here alternately sandbagging, taping windows, moving furniture, building berms, and stocking up on flashlights and water and gas. For us as a fleet, we had to continuously juggle the fishermen to get them where waters were safer as winds would rip, then die, then rip again.

Anyway, it finally hit us Saturday. Oh wow…that’s about all I can say. It was ALOT of wind and that was about it. Like a big FART of a hurricane! It had to be the dryest hurricane I have ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, I was thankful, but after all the preparation and anticipation, it turned out to be just severe enough that we had to cancel a lot of fishing trips and a lot of our fishermen headed home had their flights canceled. So, everyone drank beer and watched the baseball playoffs. I have officially re-named Hurricane NORBERT, Hurricane INCONVENIENCE!

As for the fishing…well, those big squid off Muertos continued to be huge and hungry so that’s how we started most days off Las Arenas. Trolling the squid strips for dorado usually produced a flurry or two and enough dorado in the 8-20 pound class to keep folks happy most days. (Check out the photo above). Still not a lot of big bulls. This late in the season, we should have more bulls in the 30, 40, 50 pound class, but right now, a 25 pounder would be a trophy.

Big roosters are still around as you can tell by the photos. It’s late in the season, but the big boys are still hanging.

Marlin and sailfish are also around. Most of them are being caught right where the dorado schools are biting. Not surprisingly, they are eating the smaller dorado and baitfish.

We did have some really interesting things happen. Our amigo, Bruce Peterson, from South Dakota, dropped his big squid jig down and as it sank below the boat in the clear blue water, not 10 feet below the boat, a big striped marlin bolts out and inhales the squid jig all the way down it’s gullet (Squid jigs the new hot marlin lure?) Anyway…fish on! Fight on! The got the fish to the boat and the marlin had completely inhaled the the lure down it’s throat, but was still able to be extracted and released.

Roy Cordes (we want to adopt him as our ex-officio grandfather) got into a wild dorado bite where a dorado leaped into the boat and bit him in the toe, then jumped back out! FISH ATTACKS MAN!

I was on the water myself a few days this week and the squid bite was incredible. These are 60-80 pound beasts! I would NOT want to get into the water with these. They were not only hard to pull up, but if you took too long, you could actually see the other squid tear the hooked squid apart. No mercy. After all your work, you’d come up with just a head and some tentacles!

I don’t know what this storm will have done to the water and fishing conditions so we can only guess. But often, it washes a lot of debris into the water that becomes a haven for baitfish and ergo, the sportfish! We’ll keep you posted.

That’s our story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, 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.”

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Posted in Uncategorized on October 4, 2008| Leave a Comment »

PHOTO 1: THE BEASTS ARE BACK! I”m referring to the squid, not our two angler buddies from Boston…Mike “Moogie” Alperin and Joe Abrams. For two weeks not the big uglies have been off the Las Arenas area and range up to 60 pounds!

THEY’RE NOT BIG BUT THERE’S ALOT OF THEM! DORADO AGAIN CENTER STAGE WITH BIG SQUID GARNERING LOT OF INTEREST TOO!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, 2008

PHOTO 2: From Denver, Dave Van Steenkiste came down for his first La Paz foray and did some great fishing including this excellent bull dorado, one of the largest this week. He was fishing just south of Muertos Bay.

PHOTO 3: Our amigo, Nathan Chow, has been down numerous times with us and always does well. He got this nice female dorado while fishing north of La Paz. Nathan is from Fremont CA

PHOTO 4: A happy bunch after their first day of fishing, Steve Meyers, George Nichols, Kevin Lang (hiding behind the dorado) and Steve Delot hold some of their catch including the giant squid held by George.

PHOTO 5: Yes, the big roosters are still around. Mike Alperin was our rooster king of the week with several big guys caught and released this week including this big guy taken not far from Las Arenas beach. Captain Adolfo helps out. Mike released all fish and specializes in light tackle. He’s from the Boston area and this was his second trip out to see us this year.
PHOTO 6: Also down for their 2nd trip of the season are Craig and Cathy Corda from the San Diego area. Note Cathy’s new pink rod!

PHOTO 7: This seemed to be a week for returning amigos! Roger Van Steenkiste on the far left from Arizona comes to visit us twice a year. He was just here in August. Here’s he’s back again terrorizing the fish schools. Next to him are: Mike Reber, Greg Van Steenkiste, Jay Dawe, David Van Steenkiste and Olin Martin. Over 4 days, the group caught and released scores of dorado.
PHOTO 8: On is first trip with us, Joe “Flash” Abrams holds up one of the many schoolie roosterfish still holding along the beaches around La Paz. Great fun on light tackle. Joe and his amigos released a majority of their fish including all roosters.

PHOTO 9: La Paz in the house! Two of our La Paz amigos, Aurelio and Carlos know exactly what’s going on the barbecue tonite. They got an easy limit of dorado not 200 yards from the beach and stopped fishing after only 2 hours.

PHOTO 10: Don’t go in the water. This is what a 50 pound squid looks like going through it’s color changes before being brought aboard after coming up from the deep. These are not “cute.” These things can and will hurt you.
PHOTO 11: I told Dave Van Steenkiste to bring his flyrod out on the panga. Right off the bat, his first two fish on the flyrod are dorado! That’s Cerralvo Island in the background.

PHOTO 12: Left to right, Randy Nakayama (Fullerton CA), Derrick Tagawa (Whittier CA), Mark Kojima (Hacienda Hts CA) with some of their dorado catch as well as one of the big squid they took just south of Punta Arenas lighthouse SE of La Paz
PHOTO 13: This is Chuck and Jennifer Applegarth from San Luis Obispo CA showing their first-day catch standing on the sand at Las Arenas. Flurries of breezing dorado can quickly turn into a feeding frenzy of colorful fish.
VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK
Turn up the sound and click the link!
THE FISH REPORT
Well, if you wanted to catch a dorado or a big squid (big enough to eat you!), this was certainly the week. Probably 90 percent of the catch this week was dorado. To get the dorado, you often had to catch the big squid. What a way to start the day…pulling a 40, 50, 60 pound squid up from several hundred feet down in the hot sun! It’s a workout!

But, let’s start with the dorado bite. OK…there are a lot of dorado around here right now. There’s not a lot of big ones. Normally, this time of the year, our average dorado STARTS at 20 pounds and goes up to 60. The AVERAGE size dorado is a 30 pounder. Not so the last few weeks. A 20 pound mahi is pretty big for now. Most of the fish are in the 10-15 pound class. However, lacking in quality, the schools have been making up for it in QUANTITY. Although it doesn’t happen every day and you can miss the school or have a slow day, don’t be surprised if you run into a school where you can hook and release 20 or 30 fish at a time! Bottom line, everyone who wants a dorado is getting dorado.

The dorado areas are scattered. Basically, if you have a bait in the water, you never know if a dorado will bite. The competition for the food is fierce and they’re willing to bite the big squid in chunks, live sardines, lures and strips of bonito as well.

For the squid, the guys fishing Las Arenas are getting big huge! Check out the photos. There have been squid even larger! Catching them right out of the chute in the morning is the way to go then using chunks for the dorado to get them going. Also, save some of that squid meat! Guys are taking huge slabs home in their ice chests for calamari.

For other species…sorry…no tuna this past week. I can’t imagine where they are, but this is normally a good time for the yellowfin. Maybe by the time you’re reading this, the tuna bite could crank up!

As you can see, we’ve still got some chunky roosterfish around! Fish the beaches. Most of these fishe are getting released and we’ve gotten some solid 50 pounders this past week.

Marlin and sails still around, but all four billfish…black marlin, blue marlin, striped marlin and sailfish are all in the waters feeding on all the small dorado and bonito.

That’s our story!
Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, 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.”

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