FEATURED PHOTO: After more than 3 years, the TAILHUNTER and the FUBAR Cantina are finally open on the waterfront in La Paz. Jill and I finally opened the doors this past Saturday to a packed house and three stories of food and drink, a dance floor, two bars, seven sports TV’s, convenience store, offices, fish processing operation and tackle shop. We still have more to do to get fully up to speed, but the first night was incredible thanks to so many people who put in their time and energy to open a place that will offer more services to our fishing client and fun for the public.
PHOTO 1: Talk about a banner day of fishing. Charlie and Jane McGhee from the San Diego area were just here two weeks ago spanking fish. Well, in 3 days fishing, Charlie got 5 wahoo the morning of the 1st day and 2 more on day 3. These fish were all taken at the south end of Cerralvo Island while trolling. Largest fish went about 30 pounds. In addtion, the pair were on fire taking amberjack, jack crevalle (released) , a mako shark (released) , numerous roosterfish (released) and huge dorad0 (many released) .
PHOTO 2: Becky and Stacy Amos come to town twice a year from Harbor City CA. This catch of their shows the tremendous variety of fish the hit on a single day…yellowtail, dorado, cabrilla, snapper, roosterfish are in the mix plus the released many others all caught not far off shore with live bait.
PHOTO 3: Talk about a fish of a lifetime! Our good buddy, Bob Solee from Portland OR found some Baja sunshine and this BEAST of a roosterfish estimated at 70 pounds taken off the Las Arenas lighthouse. According to Bob and Captain Adolfo, there were bigger fish swimming around. Good for him…he released this fish to swim away. Not the size of the mouth as Bob’s hand is fully inside! There were LOTS of roosterfish of assorted sizes this past week ranging from 5 to 70 pounds.
PHOTO 4: A great week for dorado. Not Norm Fulco’s fish. Norm is from Los Angeles area and took this nice bull out of Muertos Bay outside. If you look carefully, Norm is holding the tip of his rod that snapped while he was battling the fish on light tackle.
PHoto 5: Lots of sierra still around even though waters are getting warmer. George ” the Governor” Gill holds a nice pair taken inshore. You can spend all day catching these right now. Light tackle makes for a great fight and terrific eating!
PHOTO 6: Lloyd Newton and Ed Sussex from northern California came down this week for just two things…big dorado and a billfish. Normally, I’d tell them, they’re a bit early in the season but they not only got into some nice bull dorado, but got themselves a sailfish as well!
PHOTO 7: Nice forktails! Johnny Stoneman and Steve Sturm from Huntington Beach CA hoist these two pretty yellowtail fishing out of La Paz Bay. The big jacks are still around although seemingly diminishing as the waters warm. The ticket is to get the big baits and get to the spots fast. Big mackerel are key!
PHOTO 8: It was an outstanding week for pargo. Some of the biggest dog-tooth in recent memory were put on the decks including this hefty dog just off Cerralvo Island held by Captain Armando. As one angler said, “These are the most frustrating fish in the ocean. They are all around and you think it would be easy to catch, but it’s just the opposite. They tease and then beat you up!”
PHOTO 9: Great color on this cubera snapper (dog tooth) held by Steve Sturm of Huntington Beach CA. The fish ate a flylined sardine and schools of these guys have come up in to the high spots and shallows to spawn.
PHOTO 10: Mike McFeely from Southern CA knows yellowtail fishing and there are some nice grades of fish here right now as we head into the late spring months. Waters are getting warm so I’m not sure how long these guys will be around, but Mike put the beatdown to this nice yellowtail just off the island.
BEST WEEK OF THE SEASON MARKED BY BIG FISH AND LOTS OF VARIETY!
La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of April 26 to May 3, 2009
Just an outstanding week of fishing, amigos! Where do I start? What did you want to catch this past week? About the ONLY fish we didn’t catch were tuna, but everything else from A to Z showed up the radar at one point or another!
For our guys that fished straight north out of La Paz toward Espiritu Santo Island, they found big yellowtail and roosters. These were yellows in the 20-40 pound class and roosters up to 50 pounds although with waters warming, I can’t say how much longer the roosters will stick around. The ticket was having the big baits like mackerel to drop in front of their noses!
For our anglers that fished out’ve Muertos Bay…it was literally a fish buffet! Over the past week, we hooked blue marlin, black marlin, sailfish, wahoo, big dorado, huge roosterfish, cabrilla, pargo (dogtooth and mullet snapper) , grouper sierra, cabrilla, amberjack, pompano and snapper.
You almost never knew what was going to hit. Guys came back reporting scores of billfish circling the boat or non-stop dorado action until their arms fell off. They told of catching and releasing a dozen roosterfish in a single stop or finding a world-class gallo that had them pinned to the rails. One of our amigos, Charlie McGhee (photo above) got 5 wahoo one day and 2 wahoo the next. Others came back with eyes big as saucers when talking about “all the pargo” that were under the boat and how they couldn’t stop any of them from taking them into the rocks!
Trolled marauders and rapalas worked for the wahoo as did trolled wahoo bombs. For pretty much everthing else merely dangling a live sardine seemed to work. The dorado were a super surprise. Several of the outside buoys produced non-stop action and it didn’t hurt the day our boats found a dead whale outside just loaded with mahi up to 40 pounds.
For inshore fishing, flurocarbon leader did make a difference so bring some if you’ve got it. If you’ve got the itch to fish inshore for the numerous species, crank baits by Rapala (x-rap) and Yo-zuri models were off the charts!
That’s our story!
Jonathan and Jill
Tailhunter International La Paz
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will only have moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try. “
Tailhunter Fish Report 
Leave a comment