La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of Mar. 30-April 6, 2014

April 7, 2014 by riplipboy

Big smile for Miles! First timer to fish with us in La Paz, Miles, Brown spent the week getting some yellowtail, pargo, dorado (see below) and this nice roosterfish that he released with some help with the pose from Captain Jorge of the Tailhunter fleet. Nice to see the roosters have come in!

From Idaho taking a break from teaching school, Mandy Pollock let’s Tailhunter Capt. Boli struggle with this big yellowtail from the north side of La Paz. Still a few yellowtail around and this was Mandy’s first trip to La Paz.

Jeff has fished with us many times over the years, all the way from Minnesota! He had a good week on a variety of fish while he vacationed with his brothers including this trophy roosterfish they got off Las Arenas that was photo’d and quickly released!

Hard to believe such nice dorado are in the neighborhood, but they’ve been a welcome surprise like this nice bull taken by Miles Brown just outside of Bahia de Los Muertos. Great eating! Folks ask all the time if it’s good on the plate and then I tell them it’s “mahi mahi” on the restaurant menus!

Rod Brown from Wrangell, Alaska is one of our Tailhunter amigos who has fished with us several times a year for many years. He always does well. On this particular day they caught and released several nice roosters right off the beach at Las Arenas which can be seen nearby in the background.

cabrilla pargo brown brothers joel tags 3-14

Here’s some really good eating! Captain Joel on the right fishing out’ve La Paz near Espirito Santo Island with Jeff and Miles Brown hold up some of the toughest to catch but best to eat fish…2 barred pargo and a nice cabrilla (Mexican seabass)

SPRING TIME BITE HOLDS VARIETY THIS WEEK

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of March 30-April 6, 2014

This past week was a bit more typical of the kind of fishing we get during the spring time. With air temps in the low to mid-80’s with great sunshine and cooler evenings and water temperatures in the high 70’s, the bite reflected the normal transitional bite we see this time of the year.

We still got some breezy days that put some bump out there, but most days were not bad. Inshore fishing showed up with the usual characters. Some sierra, pargo and cabrilla were among this in the rocky reef and sandy areas. A few straggler yellowtail are here and there, but largely, with the waters a bit warmer than normal, our usual yellowtail numbers are down from normal.

The best news was that we finally got into rooster fish…basically, the fish that put our Las Arenas area on the fishing map as the “rooster fish capital of the world.” The world record 114 pound rooster fish was caught on these white-sand beaches and last year, we had one of the most spectacular rooster fish seasons in all our years down here. Last year, our “average” rooster was 40-90 pounds and we had a number fish over 100 pounds and one fish that was released that many estimated would have been close to 150-pounds and shatter the world record.

This past week, using live bait, we finally tied into some of these exotic fish with some fish rolling right around 20-40 pounds…all released, but encouraging that the fish are in place and willing to bite. We’ll have to keep an eye out on this, but so far pretty good news.

With other species, we’re still hitting the dorado as well which have really become our bread-and-butter these past few months. As waters warmed faster than normal, the dorado sort of either came in early or else never left us from last season. The fish we’re getting now are generally not schoolie-fish, but more like free swimmer solo or small group fish. However, there’s some respectable fish. Most are about 10 pounders, but there’s some 15-25 pounders around as well.

WANT A WORLD RECORD? TAILHUNTERS IS OFFICIAL NEW IGFA WEIGH STATION

Jill and I with our amigos, Pat McDonell editor for Western Outdoor New and IGFA representative; world record holder, author and journalist, Gary Graham holding one of the new official IGFA “release” scales that we now have at Tailhunters Sportfishing that can be used to officially measure catch-and-release fish. Released fish can now be submitted to the IGFA for world record status! We plan to go after a few this year. As well, our Tailhunter offices on the La Paz malecon also had a certified scale for conventionally caught fish that can be submitted for all-tackle and line-class world records.

Jacques Cousteau called the Sea of Cortez the “Aquarium of the World” and with more than 700 known species of fish and more being discovered yearly, it’s easy to see why. The area around La Paz is considered one of the best light tackle fisheries on the planet and arguably more world records have been set in the surrounding waters than few other places!

So, Tailhunter Sportfishing is jazzed to announce that we’re an official International Fish and Game Association (IGFA) weigh station. We have a certified scale at our headquarter offices on the La Paz waterfront and within a few months will have handheld certified scales for the beaches as well.

Even moreso, we’re excited about the fact that the IGFA now certifies fish that are caught and released! This is great news creating more opportunities to be a world record holder. To that end, we’ve now got official “release scales” that can be brought out on one of our pangas for folks looking to catch-and-release a world record! An official IGFA measuring scale MUST be used to measure and release the fish.

Additionally, given that Las Arenas is considered the roosterfish capital of the world, Tailhunter Sportfishing is now a member of the ROOSTERFISH FOUNDATION and we’ve ordered a number of tagging guns so that released roosters can now be tagged and recorded to hopefully proliferate the resource. We will hopefully have some of these devices in the next few weeks.

All of this is great news because our “LA PAZ PANGA SLAM” being held June 17-21 and sponsored by Western Outdoor News has now turned into a great opportunity to go after some of these world release records as well as hopefully having the first official “tag and release” roosterfish event! (We still have some spots left if you’re interested, send us an e-mail to riplipboy@tailhunter-international.com).

There are many categories that can be attained…especially for kids and women and line class records are always a possibility as well. Last year, we had 4 potential world record fish caught by our clients!

We’ll keep you updated as this comes along!

That’s our story!