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Archive for August, 2012

Dorado were again our bread-and-butter, especially for our clients fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet. Even when the weather turned, the fish continued to bite. Captain Rogelio holds up a trophy bull dorado that Mark Gilliam of Thousand Oaks stuff of Espiritu Santo Island.

Wyoming first-timer, Amy Larson, had a banner day fishing out of Las Arenas with Tailhunter captain, Jorge. Now that we’re getting some sardines for bait, the fishing has improved with dorado getting most of the attention.

Shawn Parker got a bit of a mix fishing north of La Paz. Dorado from fishing topwater and nice barred pargo fishing closer to the rocks. Shawn is from the Reno NV area.

Brennan Lowery and Roger Hayak hadn’t fished with us in quite awhile, but had 3 pretty good days playing with the dorado schools last week. The show off a double-pair of mahi they caught their first day fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet. Both are from the Newbury Park / Westlake Village CA area.

Iowa in the house! Andy Gilliam did a good job repping the mid-west this past week. It was Andy’s first trip with us and he got a number of dorado similar to this one out of La Paz and Las Arenas.

Rick Kasper has place north or La Paz and visits often. In 31 years fishing the area, he had never caught a roosterfish until this past week when he caught and released this nice one off Cerralvo Island east of Las Arenas on a live bait.

Shawn Parker had a knack for nice pargo this week and he wasn’t even fishing for pargo! He was trolling deep water for wahoo with a Rapala when somehow this big pargo came up from the bottom and whacked the lure!

We had some brief thunderstorms this week, but some of them were pretty crazy! Mid-week we got a 45 minute dambuster that had downtown La Paz under several feet of water and turned streets into rivers!

Down on the malecon on the waterfront by our Tailhunter Restaurant, within minutes of the rainstorm starting, roads were blocked by torrents of water. By the very nature of these storms, several hundred yards away it was completely dry. Not a drop had fallen.

VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK

Mark Gilliam put a big dorado in the boat this week.  Check out the final moments of the battle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoRQrH_KC-o

THUNDERSTORMS AND SUNSHINE MIX WITH DORADO AND OTHER SPECIES

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Aug. 19-26, 2012

It was another crazy week of thundershowers on-and-off.  It would rain one place, but not another.  It would rain for 5 minutes or 60 minutes.  One place would flood, but another place would be bone-dry!  Downtown La Paz was under several feet of water early in the week as a flash downpour with thunder and lightning engulfed the commercial areas, but several blocks away, there wasn’t even any single rain-drop!

But, despite all that, we were able to continue fishing with no interruptions.  Often, during this time of year, we’ll get these thunderstorms.  You can often see them coming in columns of rain marching across the mountains or ocean. Pretty much all you do is either drive the boat around them or else you pull over and onto the beach …which is never far away…and wait it out for a few minutes then head back out .

Even tho’ the sun isn’t out sometimes, the fishing can still be good.  The rains wash a lot of junk into the water and can really discolor the water especially with the run-off of mud from streets, ditches and arroyos.  Seen from the air, it’s really a contrast between the dirty brown water and the true color of the ocean.  However, the upside of that is all the debris that’s carried into the ocean as well.  This includes brush, plants, trash, trees, parts of structures, branches…anything that floats.

This stuff accumulates on the surface and becomes a haven for baitfish.  The baitfish, in turn, attract the larger predators, especially the dorado.  So, one of the keys to fishing this time of year is to look for the current lines where the brush and debris will accumulate in long lines or just look for anything floating.  Anything out there is worth investigating!  Even a floating bit of styrofoam cup might be holding dorado under it.  You never know!  You could come up on a floating tree trunk and find dorado, tuna, wahoo and billfish all milling around it but never know it until you trolled by it or tossed some bait at it!

This past week there were some pretty decent days of fishing for both our Tailhunter La Paz and our Las Arenas fleets.  The La Paz side had more fish and larger dorado but Las Arenas had some decent day as well with smaller dorado, but more variety with roosterfish, pargo, and a few billfish as well as scattered tuna.  Most of the dorado were 5-15 pounds, but larger ones in the 20-30 pound class were around with some larger ones lost.  Some striped marlin were also caught and released.  Not many guys got roosterfish this week, but that might be because not many of our fishermen were chasing them, but the few that did go after them got some in the 15-30 pound category.

Still no wahoo to speak of and tuna remain elusive although we should be getting into them about now.  September and October are usually the best part of the year for fishing !

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jill

 

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com

Mexico Office: Tailhunter International, 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149
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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Our Amigo, Paul Nagata, from San Francisco always comes down this time of year. He toughed out a rough week. Not only did he have to fish in rough weather but the airlines also lost his fishing reels (he got them back!) but he kept a smile and got good dorado fishing all week like this solid bull north of La Paz. Note the grey skies and rougher waters behind him. That’s Tropical Storm Hector that blew through and left us with a bit of rain.

Such a beautiful fish…a big bull dorado still “lit up” straight out’ve the water posed by our Captain Joel who had been fishing with Paul Nagata that day with our Tailhunter La Paz Fleet.

Thankfully, we did not get flooded like other Baja cities, but we did get some very gentle rain and wind which were a nice break from the heat for a few days. It didn’t make for the best fishing conditions, although we still got some nice dorado. But this was thet wet view of the malecon in front of our Tailhunter Restaurant in the afternoon.

TV actor and TV show host, Rick Kasper fishes with us just about every-other-week during the season and never fails to do well. Check out this trophy bull dorado he caught while the sun was still shining earlier in the week fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet.

Old-time friends of Tailhunter, Jim Booth and Bill Sharp, wrestle with a fresh big bull dorado they just put in the boat near Cerralvo Island.

Professional chef, Vartan Bagdasaryan, put the wood to this nice roosterfish off Bahia de Los Muertos. He had a good week with roosters and dorado. This fish was released.

Daniel Compton from Arizona with Bill and grandfather, Dan Compton from Kansas wanted to get at least 1 dorado during the week. They ended up with 3 solid days of dorado fishing with both our Tailhunter La Paz and Las Arenas fleets. They are posed her at Bahia de Los Muertos near Las Arenas.

Big smiles for Greg Drezil just outside of Bahia de Los Muertos where the roosterfish continue to provide some great action on trophy fish. Greg released this one after the photo. Greg also got into some nice dorado fishing during the week as well.

I’m not sure what kind of setting he had on his camera when he took this photo, but it’s kinda cool! Burke Roble fished 4 days with us and did some damage to the dorado schools including this healthy slugger bull dorado! Check out Burke’s video clip below.

VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK:

Burke Roble of Riverside had a nice bit of fishing this past week.  In addition to the nice dorado above, he got several others including the one shown in the video clip below taken near Cerralvo Island near Las Arenas.  I have it in 3 different formats for you since some players play one format, but not the other.  Click the link or any of the TV icons!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr3YB-Pz5dI&feature=plcp

TROPICAL STORM HECTOR CLOUDS SKIES BUT DORADO STILL BITE

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Aug. 12-19, 2012

We have certainly had better weeks of weather down here.  As a tropical storm pushed up the west side of the Baja Peninsula several hundred miles out it dropped some considerable rain on southern Baja.  Cabo and Todos Santos and some of those areas were flooded.  In La Paz, we got some nice gentle drizzles although some areas did get some sporadic short thundershowers that came and went.  We were still spared the brunt of what hit areas to the south of us.

Still, it made for a lot of cloudy, windy and blustery days on the water. We were pretty much not able to fish Las Arenas at all from about Tuesday on.  Too bad because the dorado and tuna bite had just kicked in.  But with the storms, it was just too windy to get off the beach or even get to Cerralvo Island for bait.  As the week went on, the road and arroyos became too slogged to get through also.

So, we had all our anglers fishing with our La Paz fleet.  They didn’t do too badly.  Most days there were limits or near limits of dorado.  Most fish were about 10-20 pounds.  Nice grade fighters ,but we also had some 30’s taken and several stories of “pilot error” on behalf of cursing fishermen who battled larger dorado only to lose the battles to fish that were easily over 40 pounds…and some larger to hear them tell!

As well, we still hooked some marlin and sailfish, but not many roosters once the storm front moved through.  By the time you’re reading this, the sunshine has returned according to the predictions, along with some great sunshine and blue skies.   However, as with any storm’s aftermath,  I’m a bit worried about high winds that follow that are tougher and have a greater effect on fish and fishermen than the rain.  As I’m writing this report, and looking out the window at the water…so far…so good!  Just a little bit of a breeze!  Fingers crossed for a good week of fishing.  You have a good week too!

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jill

 

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com

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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Not bad for a quick morning of fishing! TV Show host and actor, Rick Kasper from California and his amigo, Scott Behnken, all the way from Ohio on his first-ever Baja fishing trip knocked out the yellowfin tuna off Las Arenas. Hopefully, the tuna season is going to kick into gear full turbo soon! It’s that time of the year. To see more of Rick and Scott, check out this week’s video clip below!

The tuna were elusive this week, but the one day that Joe Fuschetti fished Las Arenas he found the tuna more than willing to go in a hot spot between the east side of Cerralvo Island and the 88 spot hammering nice-grade tuna like this one and back on the beach before noon. The next day, the same spot produced only a few small tuna and lots of bonito.   Joe is a high school coach in Orange Co. , California and has fished with us many times over the years.  He told me, “This was the best tuna fishing ever and my personal best tuna!”

Everytime they visit us, Jana and Lauren often outfish the guys. They come  once-a-year with brother Scott McKenzie who fishes with us several times a year from Washington. The ladies  fish every single day non-stop hardcore  and next year want a full-week of fishing!  Here,  they pose with some of the dorado they caught fishing north of La Paz.

What a great shot of a leaping striped marlin! Dan Puetz had just had full shoulder re-constructive surgery and was still nursing it but ended up with two days of pulling on fish like this one. Sore, but happy! Another shot of Dan below with one of his dorado.

Dan was supposed to fish 3 days with us, but after two solid days of pulling on dorado and marlin, he laughingly decided to put up his feet and take it easy! Here’s one of the dorado he put in the boat posed at Balandra Bay.

They have been so few and far between this year, but Joe Arata of Pacifica CA got one of the much-sought-after wahoo near Cerralvo Island this past week. All year, I think we’ve only boated about 10 wahoo. Where are they? Our divers are seeing them way way down below the thermocline. Perhaps like last year, they’re just not coming up to the surface to feed. Fingers crossed. The fall is usually prime time for the skinnies!

Our BFF from La Ventana, James “Hawk” Davis gets in the report this week showing off a slug roosterfish he slammed and then released. The big pez gallos are still out there although now that there’s sardines around, more folks are out chasing dorado and tuna. This is the type of roosterfish that made the Las Arenas/ Cerralvo Area famous!

Limits of tuna for Mike Akiyoshi and his son, Kevin, from Redondo Beach. They pose with a pair of fish but filled their box with dorado their last day fishing out’ve La Paz. Congratulations especially to Kevin…he went home and proposed to his girlfriend!

Virgil Bascos was with us for his first trip to La Paz. He was looking for tuna and didn’t do so well, the the billfish and dorado were very cooperative as she shows off one of his dorado caught with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet.

No matter the age, it’s always great to have father-son trips! Two of the funniest guys we’ve had were Paul Zech and son, Mike, who fished 3 days with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet and stocked up on nice dorado like this one.

This lady not only like to fish…she CAN fish! Pam Sharp spent a week in our waters and blew up all kinds of fish like this trophy roosterfish off Cerralvo Island. Fish was released.

Roger Thompson has been in our fishing report so often, he’s a virtual poster-child. He makes the report again with another big rooster caught and released plus his classic fishing pose! Thanks, Roger!

VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK

TV Actor and host of the outdoor hunting show, “Living on the Wild Side” , Rick Kasper fished with his amigo, Scott Behnken, a few times this week and did a great little video clip for us.  Check it out above, or see it on YOUTUBE by clicking this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeeSJ474u3w&list=UUSN0xdz-El64xBXmMhl_yvg&index=1&feature=plcp

UNEVEN FISHING BUT RODS STILL BEND ON DORADO WITH TUNA STILL TEASING!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Aug. 5-12, 2012

Every day fishing this past week was at best…a surprise!  I don’t want to go so far as to say it was anemic, but maybe “inconsistent” was a better word.  I guess if you wanted to fill the ice chest, dorado continued to be solid for our anglers that fished with our La Paz fleet.

But, even for our La Paz anglers, it could be frustratingly good and bad.  One day you could hammer limits and crazy good fishing and fill the fish box with dorado between 10 and 50 pounds.  The next day..same spot…same captain….same good bait…seemingly similar conditions would produce 2 fish!  With no rhyme or reason!  Fortunately, most folks fished a number of day so the good days more than made up for the off-days!  Besides the dorado there were still the occasional marlin, sailfish, roosterfish, pargo or cabrilla to round things out.

For our Las Arenas anglers, it was perhaps even more frustrating.  Lots of finger-pointing at the yellow-“fun” tuna!  They were the source of more teeth gnashing than any other fish this week.

Several days they came up live mad dogs!  Boats plugged with fish and back on the beach before noon with no more energy or space for any more tuna.  Fish from 10-50 pounds were boiling around boats in several spots near the south and east sides of Cerralvo Island.  Everyone would go crazy.  The next day…NOTHING!  Maybe a bunch of bonito but the tuna were nowhere to be found!

On the plus-side…there were some nicer dorado if you chose not to chase the tuna and there were also our usual slugger-sized roosterfish up to 65 pounds this week.

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

 

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com

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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Tailhunter Captain Victor goofs with Gerry Acosta and Victor Gildelmontes who got into the nice bite of football tuna late in the week of Cerralvo Island. The guys got into the bite but ran out’ve beer and came back to shore. Then, they went back out and caught more fish! All the tuna were fun 8-12 pounders, but the first school-sized fish we’ve seen all season.

Mario Salazar and Luis Arandia started hooking tuna when this nice sailfish bit while fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet. Attempts to release the sail weren’t successful and the meat was donated. The guys also got some nice dorado while fishing several days with us.

Our long time amigo, Victor Ochoa with Captain Jorge. This is one of the great stories. Several years ago, Victor was fishing with us and Capt. Jorge was running the panga. As the day went on, they realized they were COUSINS! Victor’s mother had moved to California but was the cousin to Capt. Jorge’s mother! So, the two guys are related and always fish well together plus have a good time showing off one of their larger dorado of the trip.

Pam Sharp rocked her day with this trophy roosterfish that was released while she was fishing off the Ventana-Cerralvo area with Capt. Fabio. Great fish and super shot. (Thanks Hawk!)

We have sure had some good fishermen from New Mexico this season! Darren Hanson flew his own plane down and spent several days on the water with us. He took this huge bull north of La Paz near Espiritu Santo Island.

Our buddy, James “Hawk” Davis, took this incredible shot of Pam Sharp’s marlin doing the dance as it’s close to the panga. You can see her special “pink lure” on the line as the fish does it’s thing. Great shot and Pam also released the big fish.

Jim Lipkowski wanted one day to get a shot at getitng a roosterfish and successfully got this nice pez gallo of Las Arenas.

Nice buffet…yellowfin tuna…a pargo…even a small mako shark as Captain Archangel with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet poses with Don Slaiman. 

TUNA SHOW UP AT LAS ARENAS WHILE DORADO CONTINUE FULL MOON FEEDING!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 29 to Aug. 5, 2012

Despite the full moon, it wasn’t a bad week of fishing at all!  The past few months, the full moon has actually been our better fishing.  However, while the fishing seemed to slow just a tad, it was still pretty steady enough to fill some ice chests and keep anglers happy.

The dorado bite north of La Paz continued.  Some days were better than others and some of our pangas did better than others but overall, if you fished a few days, you were going to get some nice limits of dorado that averaged about 15 pounds, but no unusual to have others in the 20-45 pound class as well.  As far as I can remember this week, we had a lot of pangas out and I think pretty much everyone had shots at some of the bigger boys.  Some of them caught them and some well…got away!  That’s why they’re BIG!  But there was some great action.  The biggest factor seemed to be the wind.  Some days were a little breezy and those days made finding the dorado a bit harder.  The less wind…the better the dorado bite seemed to be.

The nicest surprise was the tuna boil that took place late in the week off Cerralvo Island.  In spots between the island and the 88 spot to the east there were some nice boils of tuna going off.  Nothing big, but for some pangas all the football sized 8-15 pounders they could handle!   At the time of this writing, I don’t know if this is a fluke or the start of some nice tuna shots, but at least at the end of the week things sure looked promising.  Some of the commercial guys who were out as far as 25-35 miles said there were some spots of larger fish in the 30-50 pound category.

But for our Las Arenas fleet, even if they didn’t fish for tuna, it remains the spot for roosterfish.  Boy, did we have some nice roosterfish going this week.  Several of the fish were in the 40-65 pound class plus a good number in the 20-30 pound class.  It continues to be one of the best roosterfish seasons in a long time.

Also, quite  few marlin and sailfish around still.  We’re not specifically targeting them, but we hooked a number just while fishing for dorado or other species.  Most were released.

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

 

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com

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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