Tailhunter Fish Report

This trophy pargo bruised him, beat him and nearly pulled him out've the boat, but Al Jones got the last laugh (plus a big plate of grilled pargo at the Tailhunter Restaurant that night!) taking this bad boy out've the rocks just outside of Bahia de Los Muertos where the pargo continue to crash and shred and frustrate anglers.

As the waters got warmer we had alot of billfish (sailfish and striped marlin) show up. As one person described it…”there were dozens and dozens just sitting on the surface.” Many weren’t willing to bite having gorged themselves during the full moon, but we did get some biters like this one that Rich Jones holds…his first striper and among three that he and his partner, Ron Hepner, hooked but got released. Rich got this one on 40 pound test and swallowed the hook.

Not a bad first day for a first timer to La Paz, but Fred and Lisa Cruz from Washington put 4 of these nice YT’s in the boat (and a trigger fish) plus had a marlin come unbuttoned. Later in the week they got dorado and pargo (see the photo below).

Blue water, white sand and a good day of fishing is a great combination here in La Paz. Felix Basadre and his dad fished 4 days with this this past week putting some nice yellowtail like this one in the boat .

Being from Washington, Fred Cruz is more used to pulling on ling cod and salmon but got to feel the power of the big red pargo that are ripping lines near Punta Perico these days.

It’s pretty hard not to have fun when this guy is around because he’s just so enthusiastic about his fishing and even when he’s not catching a fish, he never has a bad day! Rich Jones really works at his fishing and got one of our first nice dorado of the season out of Muertos Bay. He also got his first striped marlin ever as well.

85-years-YOUNG from Anaheim CA, Felix Basadre, Sr. can still pull fish and took some nice yellowtail this past week. The fish were more finicky this week and we had to work harder for them.

There weren't alot of them around this past week, but the yellowtail we got into were all quality fish like this one held by Ron Hepner at Balandra Beach taken on the El Bajo Seamount. Ron is from Salt Lake City UT.

FULL MOON WITH WIND PLUS WARMING WATER MAKE ANGLERS WORK FOR SOME GOOD FISH!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of April 16-23, 2011

With  air temperatures now in the 90’s it’s looking like we’re transitioning out of our cool water fishing to our warm water fishing.  Unfortunately, that means we’re probably at the tail end (no pun intended) of our fantastic yellowtail season we’ve had although I’m sure we’ll still get a few strays here and there.  Looking at the Terrafin water charts, there’s warm water south of Cerralvo Island and then also just east of Espiritu Santo Island.

 Interestingly, that’s where we’re seeing marlin and sailfish seeming by the dozens sunning themselves and, although some are biting I think if we kick it up just a degree or two more, it’s gonna bust out WFO.  Let the full moon stuff pass and the water warm just a hair and BOOM!  It’s gonna be billfish rodeo time!  In fact, by the time you’re reading this, we might already be in it.  We have had a few flurries and fortunately, most of the billfish are getting released, but a few have been taken and we’re seeing that their bellies are full of squid like the schools balling up on the east side of Cerralvo Island and I think with the full moon that just passed the squid were coming up from the deep and the marlin were “on the chew” all night long stuffing themselves!  So…maybe we better get ready!  When the buffet table gets taken away, the billfish might just come charging! 

 Oh…yea…we also had to deal with some big rolling swell…higher and lower tides from the full moon…some days of strong winds…plus the changing water temps mentioned above.  By themselves, any one of two of those events would normally be no problem, but we got the multi-spanking whammy from mother nature and props to all our anglers this week for putting a great face on it and still coming away with some great fish!

 As for other species, like I said, we’re seeing perhaps the last hurrah for the yellowtail, but other cooler water species like pargo (barred pargo/ dog-tooth snapper/ mullet snapper) are still rolling in the shallows frustrating anglers as thehy take anglers to the rocks time-after-time.  Still, we did get a few nice ones this week…interestingly, the rookies did so much better than the veterans!  As well, we also got into some nice fat cabrilla (Mexican seabass) some amberjack, nice roosterfish and maybe not surprisingly some decent-sized dorado given the warmer waters!

 That’s our story!  Hope everyone has a great Easter.  God bless!

 Jonathan and Jill

 Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

 TAILHUNTER FISHING FLEET #1 Rated on Trip Advisor

TAILHUNTER RESTAURANT BAR #1 Rated in La Paz on Trip Advisor

 Now follow us on FACEBOOK TOO

 Website: 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:
https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/

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 »

Every reason to strike a pose when you nail a fish like this big yellowtail taken by Bob Robbins from Arizona fishing north of town at the El Bajo Seamount where yellowtail put on a world-class show this past week and were the highlight of a week that had its ups and downs.

John Bolton from San Luis Obispo CA has fished with us many times, but it was a first time for his amigo, Doug Fulp from Texas. The two of them got into that epic yellowtail bite north of town where they estimated they caught and released or lost close to 20 fish in just several hours!

Theres a reason they call the La Paz area, the "roosterfish capital of the world." This fish isnt quite as large as the world-record- roosterfish caught in La Paz at 114 pounds, but this is an incredible beast of a fish caught by our own Jilly Roldan of Tailhunter. (See the video clip below). Jill hooked the fish just south of Bahia de Los Muertos on a slow trolled live sardine and fought it for about 20 minutes in a spectacular battle on 40 pound test with the fish estimated at 30-35 kilos (70 pounds). Jill had an incredible day on the water getting her first pargo liso (mullet snapper); pargo pero (dog-tooth snapper) and this world-class roosterfish which is her personal best largest fish! Even better, she worked extensively to revive the fish and get it swimming away strongly! Not 5 minutes after releasing this fish, she hooked another that may have been even larger and it went "dorado" on her leaping completely out of the air which is unusual for roosters. The tough fish then went into the rocks (like a pargo) where Jill battled back and forth until the big rooster sawed finally sawed her off. Capt. Gerardo lends a hand.

Its a good day ANYTIME you get one of these great fish outta the rocks! Gary Palese says it almost pulled him outve the boat twice and his fishing partner had to hold onto his shirt tails as he struggled to keep the fish out of the rocks fishing just several yards from the Perico cliffs. This dog tooth snapper (pargo perro) makes great eating!

Sometimes they even let me fish! I hooked 4 pargo this day just outside of Bahia de Los Muertos with fish crashing all around, but only managed to get this one pargo liso (mullet snapper) to the boat. Fish are tough and can humble anyone very quickly!

A FRESH ONE on the gaff! Gary Palese holds up on of the slugger yellowtail that exploded north of La Paz this week. The trick was having caballito or mackerel for bait although sardines and iron worked well also.

Dr. Desmond Sjauwfoekloy from Los Angeles makes last minute trips to us when he can get away from his busy schedule. Whenever he shows up it just seems the bite goes off for him and he nailed 8 big yellowtail this week like this one. I dont know if the fishing gets good because he shows up or he just shows up when the fishing is good, but he always does well!

Theres always something special about a first fish no matter the size. Its all about the smiles. Abby Oclassen from Colorado holds onto her very first fish...a sierra...caught fishing out of Bahia de Los Muertos.

CRAZY YELLOWTAIL FISHING NORTH OF LA PAZ BUT COULD THIS BE THE GRAND FINALE?

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of March 19-17, 2011

There’s good news and bad news.  First, for our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet, things just went flat this past week.  And I’m not talking about the water smoothing out.  It was still a bit bumpy out there especially at the beginning of the week making it tough to get to Cerralvo Island and sometimes difficult to get sardines for bait.  Waters also got warmer which meant the algae bloom went off making the waters green and dirty.  None of this helped the bite except for pargo.  And you’d hook 10 and “maybe” get 1 to the boat.  That didn’t make for very good numbers of fillets to take home.

Now for the good news!  I’m glad we have two fleets…one in Las Arenas and one in La Paz!  We were able to switch many of our anglers to our La Paz pangas (where the fishing normally isn’t rolling full turbo just yet), but nonetheless was better than Las Arenas mainly because this past week we hammered some of the BEST yellowtail fishing in recent memories.  It wasn’t just the numbers of yellowtail, but also the size of the fish and the ferocity of their bite that made this so exciting. 

I don’t use the word “ferocity” very often but heading north to the El Bajo Seamount north of La Paz, the fish were FOAMING…yup…crashing the surface in displays we don’t often see.  According to some of our anglers, they were in such numbers at times that they were fighting to get any bait thrown in the water.  Double and triple hook-ups were the norm and the “smaller” fish were 25 pound class the the “larger” fish were in the 50-pound class (this is my captains talking…not the anglers!  To fishermen EVERY fish is 50 pounds!).   Getting the big baits early in the morning like the caballito and mackeral were the key and then chumming with sardines to get the yellowtail crashing and on the chew.   Anglers just had to be patient at times as it’s not easy to get the larger boats as they have to jig the up in the bay before going out to the fishing grounds.  You can’t just drive up to the bait man and order up a scoop or two!

Anyway, these fish were busting off 60 and 80 pound test at times, but normally 50 pound test with flurocarbon leaders worked well.   Here’s the rub…I’m not sure how much time we have on these things!  The way the Terrafin satellite images are showing the waters are warming up fast.  To the south at Las Arenas it’s already happened.  Once the waters get warmer, the yellowtail will shut down and I’m not sure what we’ll have after that.  Maybe great.  May it will hit a lull for a week or so until the waters keep rising and all the muck cleans up and the fish get acclimated and hungry again in which case it will be more blue water species rather than the yellowtail.  But, that’s just my guess.  Who knows?

For Las Arenas, as mentioned, the waters already have gone up a few notches.  Fishing isn’t bad.  It’s the ‘catching” that’s bad.  When the pargo are rolling in the shallows stopping them is sometimes just ridiculous.  I fished 3 days this week myself and broke off 8 fish and only got one 15 pounder to the boat.  But there are 20 and 30 pound fish moving in the school and all of them are horses!  But, there’s still sierra, some very good cabrilla and we also got some big roosters biting just south of Muertos Bay up to 70 pounds close to the cliffs.  Check out the photos and attached video!

VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK

Click this link to our youtube video clip of some of this week’s fishing action including some pargo and the big roosterfish!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4S31HJffFU

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jill

 Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

 TAILHUNTER FISHING FLEET #1 Rated on Trip Advisor

TAILHUNTER RESTAURANT BAR #1 Rated in La Paz on Trip Advisor

 Now follow us on FACEBOOK TOO

Website: 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:
https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/

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 »

In a strange early season showing, striped marlin in abundance showed up in La Paz waters giving anglers an unexpected bonus, especially just north of La Paz where one angler said, "They were thick and pesty. It seemed like dozens of marlin were seen every day!" Normally, we don't see stuff like this for about another few weeks or next month.

Our La Ventana buddy, recently from Long Beach, Roger Thompson was at it again. He was out with Captain Chito and had one of those banner days with limits of big yellowtail, a striped marlin, and huge cabrilla (see photos below).

Not bad for a first-time trip for Paul McBeth to La Paz. One day fishing...two striped marlin...5 yellowtail including this nice forktail on the gaff.

Perhaps even more prized than other gamefish for it's great eating...this trophy cabrilla (Mexican seabass) was taken by Roger Thompson who scaled it at 18 pounds!

This is just too pretty a picture not to post up. This is about a 140 pound striped marlin still underwater. It's a fat one if you check out the shoulders on this guy. If you've ever had one on the line, you can feel the power. Great shot! Thanks Roger!

Many of our readers wanted some samples of the artificials that we're using right now on some of these yellowtail when we're not using live bait. Across the bottom are samples of "iron"...basically what we call candybar type lures. Many companies make them but favorites include Tady, Ironman, Sumo, Salas, Raider and others. All of these are "heavy lures" and across the bottom from left to right are colors: scrambled egg (white, yellow, brown); blue and white; blue/ white; and dorado color (green, white, yellow). Also, above is a CD-18 size Rapala Magnum in green mackeral pattern that has also worked well slow trolled across the high spots and reefs. (Note the scratch, teeth and dried blood...these lures have all caught fish!)

APRIL ROLLS IN WITH SOME UNUSUAL FISHING!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of April 2-10, 2011

Except for some occasional strong winds that seem to diminish every week.  We’re into some great fishing weather with sunny skies and days in the mid-70’s.  Water temps, however, are really variable which might account for the really mixed fishing.  Not bad fishing…just “mixed fishing!”

How else to explain catching yellowtail (cold water fish) in the same spots as marlin and dorado (warm water fish)?  What we figure is that the surface temps are warming faster as we get to the spring time conditions.  The warmer water at the top has the blue water species while down deep, it’s still chilly which is where the yellowtail are hanging out.  In fact, I know for a fact it’s warmer on the top because the water vis has gone-to-poop.  It was great blue for a bit, but as is customary this time of year, when it hits a certain temperature, the algae bloom kicks in so the waters gets green and cloudy.  Not always the best for diving or fishing but it’s a temporary thing.  The water keeps getting warmer then WHAM…it hits a certain gradient and all of a sudden all the algae dies and disappears.  And the waters turn blue again.

As far as the fishing, it’s not been as great as it was a week or two ago, but certainly not bad.  The anglers who went-with-the-flow did pretty well.  Yellowtail still bit and we put some nice 20-40 pound fish in the boat mostly around the high spots and the island reefs but also the seamounts in deeper water.  Nice grades of moss-back fish!  In those same spots, the pargo are schooling up (if you can get through the schools of bonito) and we got some nice cabrilla as well.  But, the pargo are really frustrating…as many folks know.  If  the yellowtail aren’t biting then and the wind is blowing, you’re relegated to chasing the crazy pargo.  They bite, but they kick your butt too!  Most fish are lost and that makes for a long day!  Along the beaches, schools of small roosters and jacks kicked in which is great on a small spinning reel.

The real surprise are the marlin, especially north of town. As one angler said, “It felt like there were hundreds out there!”  Some fish are still pretty lethargic…so much so that one of our captains said he accidentally ran over two of them that were just sunning themselves.  He felt “bump bump” both times and saw the marlin skittering away.  Just not interested in baits, lure or anything 

Then, you run into another group of stripers and they almost fight each other to get to the bait.  We’re encouraging catch-and-release and most of the caught fish are getting let go.  But, for us to even be seeing marlin this early willing to bite is pretty great!  Normally, I would never suggest to anyone about coming in April to get a marlin!  But, that’s fishing!

That’s our story

Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

TAILHUNTER FISHING FLEET #1 Rated on Trip Advisor

TAILHUNTER RESTAURANT BAR #1 Rated in La Paz on Trip Advisor

Now follow us on FACEBOOK TOO

 
Website: 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:
https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/

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 »

Big smiles for Ken Gragg who landed this yellowtail fishing the El Bajo Seamount north of La Paz. The yellows are still there, but warming waters may change that as we saw more dorado and even marlin show up in the fish counts this week!

Someone has some fillets to bring home. That's Carl Lange and Gary Bray posing on the sands at Mogote with 8 yellowtail they caught north of La Paz. Sardines and iron still working!

Sometimes everyone is chasing the "trophy" fish that folks forget about all the other great species to catch like this excellent cabrilla (Mexican seabass) that Carl Lange got.

Not bad,young lady!... for first time fishing for Brady Davison getting a hand with his big yellowtail from Capt. Hugo out of Muertos Bay.

Gary Wagner knows he's got hamachi on the grill tonite with some yellowtail! Note the flat waters of Muertos!

YELLOWTAIL MIX IT UP WITH MARLIN AND DORADO…IN MARCH!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of March 27-April 2, 2011

I’m not sure how to characterize the week of fishing.   It was a good week of fishing.  Everyone caught fish.  The yellowtail bite has been fantastic, but some folks who wanted yellowtail caught other fish.  People who wanted “other species” got yellowtail!  So, there was just the “hint” of disappointment here and there! 

Look…  Everyone caught fish, but there’s so much variety out there right now that some guys wanted one species and caught others and vice versa!  I think the waters are warming and the bad news is, this may shut down the fantastic yellowtail bite we’ve had, but the good news is, we’ll be into the surface blue water species like dorado, billfish, tuna and wahoo before long. The other bad side is that when we hit a certain water temp level the algae bloom kicks off.  Waters get cloudy.  Good for our divers because that’s when we get whalesharks, but sometimes, not the best for fishing, at least for surface species.  Then, the waters go up a degree or two and BOOM…just like that the water clear to blue and the fish blow up again!   We’ll have to wait and see.

This week, we did get into more of that trophy-grade yellowtail.  These are those really nice 30-40 pound moss-back-golden-silver slugger fish that just hammer you when they bite!  They were still in the usual areas like El Bajo north of Espirito Santo Island and in various places around Cerralvo Island and Punta Perico.  In those same areas, we also got bit by pargo, cabrilla and amberjack with some nice shoreline action along the beaches by sierra, pompano, jack crevalle and roosterfish.  No shortage of bonito around either!

The problem was  (if you can call it that) is lots of anglers are here to nail the rock species like the yellowtail and pargo and cabrilla.  So, what do you do when dorado or billfish bite?  Well, that’s exactly what happened this week.  It’s still barely out of March and we had several hookups on striped marlin and well as dorado that really surprised the anglers as well as the captains.  Again, that just leads me to believe that waters might be warming up faster than normal!

We’ll have to keep an eye out for that as well as reports of sargasso weed already starting to build up in the channel which become haven for the dorado plus reports again of tuna at the north end of Cerralvo Island.

C’MON MAN!

One problem we did have was that so many boats from the East Cape to the south of us by 60 miles were running all the way up our area to fish.  That made for alot of traffic a few days.  One day, it was reported that as many as 50 boats were on the water (between cruisers, private boats, commercial pangas, sportfishing pangas)  !  Sheesh.  C’mon.

 Our little pangas and a lots of  cruisers jumping on our fishing spots.  Love the guys down there and wave at them all the time on the water, but some of their captains will drop right on our fishing spots even where commercial guys are just trying to eck out a meager living and the big cruisers with their thumping engines will just shut down the bite.  Lose-lose for everyone.   It’s not everyone…just a few rude captains. 

Or, on more than one occasion, I’ve seen the big cruisers just thoughtlessly criss-cross back and forth right in our panga chumlines.  It’s just a few idiots, but it doesn’t make for good relations.  I did hear of one set of commercial pangeros going at it with one cabron cruiser and started throwing things at them this week.   It’s a big ocean.  There’s more than one spot to fish.  We’re there at  6 a.m. and the cruisers show up at 8 or 9 and will just jump right on our spots. Shuts down the bite for everyone.   Bad ju-ju. Bad form.  I  have seen rude bahavior from panga captains too.  Plenty of room for everyone.  Just all have to be aware and courteous to each other.

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

TAILHUNTER FISHING FLEET #1 Rated on Trip Advisor

TAILHUNTER RESTAURANT BAR #1 Rated in La Paz on Trip Advisor

Now follow us on FACEBOOK TOO

 
Website: 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:
https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/

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 »