Tailhunter Fish Report

PHOTO 1: Megan Premoe from Washington State was on her first ocean-fishing trip as well as her first trip to La Paz. She made no bones about telling folks she was going ot catch the largest fish! Well, take a look at this estimated 60-pound toad yellowfin tuna. Not only did she catch this fish, but she pulled it in herself even though the fish was TAIL-WRAPPED making it almost impossible to turn and double-hard to bring in! She got this fish on live bait at the north end of Cerralvos Island.

PHOTO 2: Captain Adolfo (“Yofo”) poses with San Diegans Steve Vargo and Robert Thoma and 6 of their yellowfin tuna. The guys came back to the beach at 10:30 a.m. I thought something was wrong, but they told me, “Hey…we’re just tired! My arm is tired! This is plenty of fish!” Good reason. The fish ranged from 15-20 pounds and popped up just off the beach between the old Hotel Las Arenas and the Arenas lighthouse.

PHOTO 3: He’s become one of our poster-guys. This our amigo, Don Melucci and Tony Gabriola who got into the tuna and broke off a few as well using light tackle. These were nice fat fish in the 20-pound class and eat the smaller sardine baits.

PHOTO 4: The catch…a nice rooster caught by Terry Biggs this week…that’s one good part. (see below)

PHOTO 5: The best part…THE RELEASE! Captain Jorge releases Terry’s roosterfish to fight another day. Bravo to all.

PHOTO 6: Dorado are still the mainstay for our La Paz fleet. The fish are holding in several areas and these nice fish are typical of those held by Richard Keogh and Jim Davis from Northern Cal. Live bait and stripped pieces of bonito work best.

PHOTO 7: It’s only October, but we got ALOT of sierra this week. Normally, these are cold water fish that show up around November or December and hang out during the winter. However, there were a few days when you could catch as many as you wanted. These are great eating fish and fantastic on light tackle. If you wanted to go no further than stay in La Paz Bay all day, you could nail limits of sierra in short order. Jim Davis holds a pair.

TUNA AND DORADO MIX-IT-UP FOR SOME STEADY FISHING

La Paz/ Las ARenas Fishing Report for the Week of September 20-27, 2009

Overall, a pretty solid week of fishing here highlighted by the re-appearance of schools of 15-30 pound tuna right off the the beach near Las Arenas, near the old hotel as well as in front of Muertos Bay. Another school of larger fish in the 30-60 pound class showed up and busted up the anglers at the north end of Cerralvo Island. It made for some good catches.

However, the mainstay fish continued to be dorado. There were small fish in the 10 pound class, but some nicer 20-30 pound models with sprinklings of thelarger 30-40 pound bulls. The dorado were scattered in numerous spots all the way south from Punta Pescadero to the north end of Espiritu Santo Island. No one particular place seemed to be the hot spot. You could encounter dorado pretty much anywhere. Sometimes you would dink and scratch for a few fish here and there or you could blank all day then at the 11th hour run into a nice school willing to go on the wild chew and all hell would bust loose!

A few billfish were hooked and either released or lost. No wahoo to speak of. However, late-season roosterfish and pargo are still in the shallows with some of the roosters bring trophy-class 50-90 pound fish. Squid pop up for a day then disappear. No real trend to speak of with the big squirters. Everyone is getting fish is the bottom line. Even for the light tackle guys…small roosters, jacks, sierra, pompano and snapper can keep you busy all day long!

AUCTION FOR JACK VELEZ

We wanted to thank all of you who reached out and bid for the two custom rods that were being auctioned off for the family of Jack Velez.

The Whopper Stopper Mini rod went to Art Savedra of Las Vegas for $300.

The Seeker bait stick was won by Richard Winslow for $275.

You guys who kept up the lively bidding are awesome. Ed Robison of Whopper Stopper Rods http://whopperstoppers.976-tuna.com/

and Vic Ochoa who wrapped the Seeker blank, you also rock. Thanks, amigos!

In fact, just to bring you up-to-date, money for the family continues to trickle in. In a few weeks, the season will slow down and we plan to have a memorial dinner for Jack and will surprise the family with a check as well as a card with everyone’s names who donated. You’re the best! Mil gracias por todo!

That’s our story!
Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website: http://www.tailhunter-international.com/

U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
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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PHOTO 1: THIS IS THE KIND WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! Bigger yellowfin tuna popped up at the north end of Cerralvo Island this week that bent rods, back and stamina! Brian O’Neill took down this 60 pound class toad yellowfin tuna fishing with Captain Adolfo and our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet . It was a long run to the north island, but it paid off in some of the largest tuna of the year.

PHOTO 2: What a week for Leif Dover who rolled in all the way from Atlanta GA . He booked 6 straight days of hardcore fishing just to catch a single roosterfish. He got a 35, 45, 50 and this fish estimated at 80-85 pounds. All the fish were released. He also go tuna and dorado on the week as well. The big roosters bit live ladyfish trolled behind the boat.

PHOTO 2: The man behind the fish is first-timer, Brian Meier, from Oregon hit this big boy on his first day fishing out of Las Arenas with Captain Adolfo. Estimated at more than 65 pounds (by the captain), it was caught off the Las Arenas lighthouse area and was released after the photo. It was a good week for the big roosters and most of them were caught fishing with our Captain Adolfo (Yofo).

PHOTO 3: Ladies Day! On the beach is Jillene Roldan of La Paz (tuna) , (Mom) Janille Todd from Spring Valley CA celebrating her birthday in La Paz (dorado): Captain Jorge holding jack crevalle; and “Lucky” (Auntie) Maryann Hendren from San Diego (tuna). There was a nice mix of fish out’ve Las Arenas all week.

PHOTO 4: Nice sized football tuna held up by John Brown from Eugene OR and Ray Miklich from Pueblo CO, holds a dorado. Most anglers this week took home a nice mixture of tuna and dorado. Most of the tuna were caught with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet.

PHOTO 5: Quentin Abramo and Mike Koontz were on their first trip to La Paz this past week and hold up a few of the yellowfin tuna that poked up off Cerralvo Island a a few other spots this week.

PHOTO 6: Never too late to start! This is Frank Burgess from Kansas City. First time ever on the ocean. He showed ’em how it’s done and ran circles ar0und some of the other anglers here holding up just one of his fish. Frank came with his son Allen Burgess, who is one of our regulars. They fished 5 straight days and Frank just keep rolling…never getting tired!

PHOTO 7: Just an incredible shot of a marlin. This is John Chase’s striped marlin just after being hooked south of Muertos Bay. You won’t get many special shots like this with full action!

PHOTO 8: Charlie Gibson is actually really happy to have cuaght his nice female dorado fishing with Captain Chito and our La Paz fleet north of La Paz. The dorado fishing got better as the week went on. Stripped pieces of dead fresh bonito worked best to get the fish to charge the pangas.

PHOTO 9 : In this job one of the best things is that we get all kinds of folks. It’s what makes it fun. Jess Franco never has a dull moment. He came in with a big group of retired firefighters this past week and came down to the pool at La Concha Beach Resort wearing a bikini top. He proceeded to walk around the pool sending mothers and small children scurrying away!

PHOTO 10: Steve Linenberger retired from years working for CBS Sports and loves Harley’s and fishing. He got into our nice tuna bite earlier in the week. He holds a couple he nailed off Las Arenas near the old hotel.

GOOD WEEK OF FISHING HIGHLIGHTED BY 60-POUND TUNA and BIG ROOSTERFISH

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Sept. 13-20, 2009

It looks like we’re finally back on track. Steady to good fishing for our La Paz fleet for dorado ranging in size from 5-40 pound fish.

The schools are scattered north of the city all the way from Las Cruces to the gap between the islands then on the west side of Espiritu Santo near Isla Ballena across the bay all the way over to San Juan de la Costa in front of the mining town. Quite a few smaller fish, but cruiser bulls seemed to join the party as the week went on. The better fishing came on our pangas that were able to get big bonito in the morning and use the carcasses or strips of bonito to chum up the schools to the boat or entice a bite on the troll then get the fish to bite on flylined sardines. Not a bad idea, if you’re coming down to bring some hoochies to small tuna feathers to catch bonito. The faster you get your bonito, the faster to the fishing grounds.

The big news for our Las Arenas fleet was the appearance of larger tuna. Over the course of the week, 10-15 pound footballs had teased the fleet with our pangas getting 2-5 fish each from various spots around Espiritu Santo Island mixed in with some dorado, pargo and cabrilla as well as sierra. Late in the week, 30-60 pound fish showed up at Northern Cerralvo that really tore into the anglers. These were bigger grumpier fish and fishermen had their hands full and rods bent! Only problem is that it’s a long boat ride from Las Arenas Beach all the way up along the side of the island to get the fish, but no one complained once they came back with those big fillets!

By the way, waters must be getting cooler! We’re getting alot of sierra all of a sudden. Normally, we run into sierra when the waters are cooler and generally not until November so, but some boats ran smack into schools of these toothy guys.

As a side note…roosterfish are still here, over 6 days of fishing, Leif Dover and Brian O’Neill specifically came to chase roosters. They posted smaller fish, but tallied an 85 pound beast as well as a 35, 45m 59 abd 65- pound fish that were all released.

FACEBOOK

Last week, I told you that I started posting up daily reports on FACEBOOK under my name, JONATHAN ROLDAN. However, I didn’t know that we already had an account under TAILHUNTER INTERNATIONAL. So, if you’d like to check out DAILY reports, get on as a fan of TAILHUNTER INTERNATIONAL on FACEBOOK. Over the past two weeks, I”ve posted photos and items about the fishing and our Tailhunter Bar that may not necessarily make it onto the weekly fishing report.

JACK VELEZ FUND

At this time, we have bids on the two custom rods offered to raise funds for the family of Jack Velez. On the mini-Whopper Stopper rods, we have a current bid of $140. On the Seeker bait stick, we have a current bid of $70. If you’re interested, we’ll hold the auction open for one more week. Just send me an e-mail to riplipboy@tailhunter-international.com

Have a great week!

Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website: http://www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
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.”

Read Full Post »

PHOTO 1: Arizona resident, John Chase, came down to dive and fish with us and put this pretty bull dorado in the panga fishing with Captain Pancho and our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet. Great colors and a great photo. Dorado were on-again-off-again, but some spots produced limits or near limits. It changed from day-to-day.

PHOTO 2: Just another fantastic dorado photo that really shows out the colors of one of the prettiest fish in the water. Paul Mohklenbuhr is a retired firefighter from the Sacramento CA area and he put the hurt on this nice bull dorado fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet and Captain Jorge.

PHOTO 3: Yes…we got some tuna this week. Early in the week, Dave Bean got one of the teaser football tuna that kept popping up and then disappearing while fishing south of Cerralvo Island. There were some larger 40-50 pound fish lost. Late in the week, some 30 pounders showed up schooling and got everyone excited. Maybe by the time you’re reading this, we’ll be going full turbo on the nicer grade of fish. That’s Todd Rudaitis with his back to the camera on another fish!

PHOTO 4: Might be one of the larger dorado of the week when big fish weren’t real common so you’d think Aaron Hamilton would be smiling. But, he said it was hard to hold up! Normally, Aaron goes after his game and fish with a bow since he works for Martin Archery. He caught this nice bull north of La Paz with our Tailhunter La Paz Fleet and Captain Raul.

PHOTO 5: This is our gal, Jessie Pfost, who just moved to Las Vegas after just graduating from college. She came down and spent a week with us putting up not only with her two parents, but hurricane Jimena as well that put a damper on her vacation. However, once the sun came out, things got better. She got this bull dorado off Punta Coyote and then came back and her boyfriend, Brian Reid, proposed to her! She got a ring and everything! Congratulations, Jessie!

PHOTO 6: Ed Janas spent years coming down to Baja trying to catch “just one roosterfish” unsuccessfully. We sent him to the east side of Cerralvo Island where he slammed and released over a dozen roosters as well as dorado, pargo and other species all on light tackle! Notice how close they are to the island. All the fish were caught on live bait and released…except the dorado…which they brought back to the Tailhunter Bar for dinner!

PHOTO 7: Here’s another one of Dave Bean with a dorado he hung just south of Muertos Bay where he and Todd Rudaitis (battling his own fish) got limits earlier in the week.

PHOTO 8 : Sarah Hamilton from Washington State wanted us to adopt her. She didn’t want to leave after spending 3 days fishing and 2 days finishing up her open water PADI dive certification. We sure enjoyed her and her husband, Aaron. Sarah was a gamer…she could fish and dive all day and loved the Tailhunter mai tais at night. She loves the outdoors and is an accomplished bow hunter.

PHOTO 9 : Still swinging it’s tail, this big bull dorado wants to smack Pete Hansen from the San Francisco Bay area. Pete was fishing north of La Paz and got this fish on live bait. Best bait all week for the larger fish were strips of dead bonito trolled behind the boat to get the fish near then dropping a live sardine back onto them.

PHOTO 10: When Pete Hansen told me he was coming down with Sam Hansen, I figured he was bringing his son or his brother. It was his lovely wife “SAMANTHA.” Fishing with Captain Joel, she shows off one of her dorado she just gaffed.

FISHING ALL OVER THE PLACE FROM SLOW TO EXCELLENT AS AREA RECOVERS FROM STORM BUT EVERYONE GETTING FISH!

La Paz / Las ARenas Fishing Report for week of Sept. 6-12, 2009

A bit of a mixed week down here. At first, I thought that the hurricane hadn’t done much to us and on the surface, the waters and conditions seemed amazing. It wasn’t turned over or muddy or full of debris as is normal after a storm. Fish were still around. However, as the week went on, the bite got a little more spotty…a little more scratchy. Everyone got fish. The dorado are still bending the rods, but the fish seemed to move around a lot. They weren’t schooling up like normal. We had to work harder to find them and keep them around. One area could be red-hot on day and stone cold the next without even a bonito around. Like I said, it just meant we had to hunt a little harder. Dorado were the mainstay with fish about 10-20 pounds on the average, but larger fish showing up later in the week in the 30-40 pound class.

We did notice one thing. If you could get bonito early in the morning and use them for strip bait, you had the btter shot at gettting the larger dorado, especially for our La Paz fleet anglers. The dorado wouldn’t necessarily bite the bonito bait, but it would draw them in then you’d feed them back a live sardine and WHAM! By the way, weather is great…mid-90’s but it can be windy and rough in the morning so if you’re coming down, keep that in mind! Some guys got a little queasy.

One FLASH!

We did get a few tuna from our Las Arenas fleet. The fish were 10-15 pounds, but two larger fish estimated at 40-50 pound by our captain were lost. Then, late in the week…we hit a school of 30-40 pound fish that put the hurt on a few guys! (That’s why you come down here, right?). Anyway, hopefully, by the time you’re reading this, we’ll be into a regular tuna bit. I’ll keep you posted.

As well, we had a few marlin and sails come up. No calamari or wahoo to speak of, but we had some anglers who wanted to fish inshore and had an outstanding time on roosterfish, pargo, cabrilla and other rock fish with non-stop action.

NFL and COLLEGE BALL at the TAILHUNTER BAR

Just an FYI that we have NFL! It’s great to finally come into a season and have 7 flat screens carrying all the college and NFL games. Whooo-hoooo!!! After 15 years here to finally be able to watch AMERICAN football and have all our friends and guests and clients over with cold cerveza and good food is incredible for Jill and I.

We had on the USC vs. Ohio State game last night and were packed. Right now as I write this, we’ve got NFL on all the flat screens going and tomorrow night a double-header for Monday Night Football.

Also, we now have Tecate Beer Co. aboard. We’re excited because that brings us Tecate, Dos Equis, Indio and Sol Beer. We’ve been carrying all the Pacifico line…Corona, Corona Light, Pacifico, Pacifico Light, Bud and Bud Light, Estrella, and Modelo Dark and Modelo Light ON TAP in ice mugs!

Oh…and we also started serving breakfast as well and it’s been a big hit. We’ve got the best pancakes and huevos rancheros on the waterfront! And we plan to add chicken wings and sushi rolls to the menu this week too!

FACE BOOK

If you FACEBOOK Jonathan Roldan, I’ve started to be a little better. I’m going to be posting almost daily with little snippets that might not show up in the regular fishing report. All week, I’ve had mini-fishing reports and photos as well as things going on at the TAILHUNTER BAR. If you comment, I probably will not be able to respond to everyone, but will try. Don’t be offended if I don’t! But, I know many of you die-hards like to know almost daily what’s going on so I figured I’d better get better at FACEBOOK.

JACK VELEZ MEMORIAL FUND

Thank you to so many of you who donated to the fund for the family or our friend Jack Velez who passed away earlier this summer. The response has been fantastic. Money is still trickling in and at the end of the season, we plan to do a surprise memorial dinner for Jack for the family and present them with a check and a card with everyone’s names on it.

To that end…we have to great amigos who have donated their services to the cause

1. Ed Robison of Whopper Stopper Rods http://whopperstoppers.976-tuna.com/

and the famous mini-rod, has put one of his custom sticks up for auction. Starting price for the auction is $140.

2. Victor Ochoa, our long-time amigo, has also put up one of his custom sticks. It’s a 7′ Seeker stick double wrapped in blue. Starting bid is $75.

I”ll hold these open for 2 weeks. Write me directly at riplipboy@tailhunter-international.com if you have a bid and which rod you are bidding on. If someone tops your bid, I will write you back. The bidding starts Sunday, Sept. 13. Thanks for all your good thoughts!

That’s our story
Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website: http://www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-1786

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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PHOTO 1: Here it comes! It’s getting angry out there…Hurricane Jimena starts to roll into Baja.

PHOTO 2: I don’t have photos of La Paz during the hurricane because there was nothing really to take pictures of…moving palm fronds? Puddles of water? This, on the other hand, is Cabo San Lucas which dodged a bullet ,but still got some heavy winds and rains as well as big surf since it faces the open ocean, unlike La Paz.
Thanks to Bil Pulford for the photos.

PHOTO 3: Dave Duenas from Rialto CA took time off from his police work and got in some good fishing for dorado before the storm hit. He got this nice bull fishing north of La Paz with our Tailhunter Fleet.

PHOTO 4: Two of our best amigos who visit us yearly, Steve Huth and Billie Nash from the Glendora area new Los Angeles CA hold up an excellent “variety” of fish they caught earlier in the week fishing with our Tailhunter Las ARenas fleet. Steve holds up a barred pargo and roosterfish (the smaller ones taste pretty good). Billie hangs onto a handful of dorado and a pompano.

PHOTO 5: Sunny Chung from Santa Clarita CA is also a police officer and got into a really nice snap of dorado fishing with our Captain Chito with our La Paz fleet. Before the storm, the dorado bite had just started to pick up.

PHOTO 6: Eileen Dann from Los Angeles got a nice batch of dorado and here holds up a prized barred pargo mulatto.

FISHING INTERRUPTED BY HURRICANE JIMENA ALTHOUGH LA PAZ ESCAPES SERIOUS DAMAGE

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for week of Aug. 30 to Sept. 5, 2009

Not much to show you in the way of fishing this week. We spent most of the week in lockdown as Hurricane Jimena ran towards us with Category 4 written all over it. We taped windows, hoarded water and flashlight batteries and sandbagged our building and got ready to get slammed. And at the last minute it veered north of us and thankfully, hit us with only about 2 ½ days of intermittent rain and some strong winds doing little damage and only localized flooding. I think we dodged a big bullet! But, it also kept us off the water for 3 days.

Prior to the storm, the dorado bite had picked up nicely and I’m anticipating that once the water settles the dorado will come back strong given all the junk that gets washed into the ocean from storms. At the time of writing, we’ve been back on the water for two days and the waters are still a bit turned over and murky. It’s gonna take a bit for it to settle down and clear up because there’s still some residual chop. However, we did find some dorado up to about 20 pounds and normally that gets better assuming no other fronts come through. Looking at the forecasts, it looks like great conditions on tap.

That’s our story!
Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website: http://www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
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.”

Read Full Post »