La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of June 16-22, 2014

June 23, 2014 by riplipboy

From Ontario, Oregon, Bob Chadwick was able to tick “roosterfish” off his bucket list with this outstanding rooster caught on a live ladyfish and released just outside of Bahia de Los Muertos with Captain Armando.

Florida in the house! Captain Victor gives Beth Nichols a hand with another nice bull dorado. Cerralvo Island in the background.

Amy Kasper by way of Wyoming hits a pose after another good day of fishing with her husband, Rick and Captain Jorge at Las Arenas. They got nice limits of dorado.

When she’s not vacationing, Katie Nichols from Florida actually skippers a commercial fishing boat in Florida for her family getting lobster and crab! She’s pretty good with roosterfish too! She caught and released this fish near Punta Perrico.

The ladies were on fire this week with the fishing! Patti Buffington lives up in California wine country and had a nice day on the water with her husband and Captain Adolfo catching and releasing a trophy rooster.

CRAZY WEEK OF FISHING – 2014 PANGA SLAM EVENT FINDS BIGGER DORADO

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Jun3 16-22, 2014

Good fish to be caught, but overall, an erratic week of fishing. It was hard to describe this week. There were definitely some great fish to be caught and good fishing to be had, but the “what…where…why…and how” aspects of the fishing equation threw so many variables into the mix that there’s no way to completely get a fix on what happened.

Let’s get right to it…everyone caught fish! No one who wanted fish went home empty-handed so let’s put that to rest right now! But, let me break it down for you by our two areas of fishing:

TAILHUNTER LAS ARENAS FLEET:

Tougher fishing this past week and I attribute it to several things. The lack of live bait doesn’t make it easy. There is “some” live bait, but mostly, we were using a combination of some live bait with a bigger mix of dead frozen ballyhoo, chunked and stripped bonito as well as caballitos. They all worked, but not as well as live bait.

The bait situation is a bit dire to begin with, as I have often described. All of the Baja is hurting. Much of it is due to the cyclical “El Nino” situations we’re experiencing with extremely warm waters hurting the bait stocks.

Secondly, I don’t know what it was this week, but I can’t remember when I’ve ever seen so many pangas on the water. We had several vans of our own full of fishermen each day , but it was just an incredibly busy week out there. Our competitors also had a van or two. Visiting guide services also had a van or two. There were alot of independent fishermen in their own boats. There were scores of commercial fishermen. There were alot of free diving spear fishermen in the water as well (not exactly the best mix when there are fishermen in the same areas as the divers!). It looked like a freeway out there!

Everyone needs bait. So, that meant that the bait was truly depleted. Additionally, so much traffic on the water didn’t do the fishing any favors.

We only had a few wahoo hook-ups this week. The billfish bite wasn’t as hearty although there were a few stripers hooked and one blue estimated at over 400 pounds . The rooster fish were a bit more scarce as well. About the only thing really going on were the tons of 3-5 pound “mini-dorado” all over the place. But that gets pretty old after awhile hooking trout-sized dorado!

So, maybe this upcoming week will be lighter and things will turn around. There were a few cabrilla and pargo in the mix and some large bonito.

TAILHUNTER LA PAZ FLEET

We fared much better with our La Paz fleet this week. And the big difference…LIVE BAIT! We had caballitos, big sardines and, and mackerel. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Working the island as well as around the corner around El Rosario, Las Cruces and Punta Gorda some nice quietly 20-40 pound dorado were common. There weren’t many of them, but each panga was getting 4-6 of the nicer sized ones and throwing back many smaller. The big ticket is letting the fish “eat” the bait and waiting until it really has the bait down it’s throat. The baits are bigger than we normally have so give the fish time to really chew-down on the bait before setting the hook. So many fish were lost because anxious anglers pulled the trigger too fast and the bait right out’ve the fish’s mouths!

Sidebar: Some nice roosters along the beaches…amberjack…cabrilla and pargo.

2014 PANGA SLAM – FISHING AND PARTY FUN!

The “Rogues Gallery” group portrait day 3 Panga Slam 2014 at Balandra Bay with some of the catch of big dorado! Great time and great way to end the event!

Money shot for Angela! This fish was worth about 500 bucks to Angela Farrell from Oceanside CA who has fished with us many times and always does well. This 20-pound-bill was big enough to take first place on the 2nd day of fishing at the Panga Slam! She almost won the 3rd day as well with a fish that was barely one pound lighter than the winner!

One the 3rd and last day, the fish got bigger with many fish between 20 and 25 pounds! However, the big winner was this 30.5 pound bull dorado for Christian Regan who took the fish on a live caballito!

Shaking it loose on the Tailhunter dance floor!

The gang gives a shout-out from the 2nd floor terrace at Tailhunter Restaurant!

Kudos to Tim Farrell who tagged two roosterfish for the Roosterfish Foundation and released them swimming strongly. One of the fish might have potential as an IGFA world-record release fish!

Benny wails and make his guitar talk! Gary and Michele party up on the dance floor!

Show me the money! Christian Regan shows off his winnings for the 3rd day of fishing. Dad Randy is gonna hit him up to pay off the beer tab!

Always in the fish! Verda Boyd and her guy…Captain Jorge…fishing just off El Sargento/ La Ventana found one of the larger bull dorado cruising the area the last few days. She and husband Tim, always hit the fish! Nice flat water too!

Jilly and Michele funning on the Tailhunter 3rd floor! Pat in the back showing the size of the fish that got away!

Tim Zimmer, our recently -retired amigo from the Bay Area of California put this colorful bull dorado in the boat after the 3rd day of fishing out’ve La Paz.

Our first annual 2014 Panga Slam co-hosted by Western Outdoor News and sponsored by Costa Sunglasses, Tro-kar Hooks, Suffix Line, Okuma Reels and Turners Outdoors, was a grand success with lots of old and new friends and even a few nice fish thrown in!

Everyone got right into it after checking into their rooms at La Concha Beach Resort. Margaritas and cold beers quickly hit the tables and master of ceremonies Pat McDonell kicked things off and photographer and famous outdoor author Gary Graham was taking photos and a huge buffet dinner on the beach was served by the hotel with lots of great giveaways from our sponsors.

First day was a non-tournament day but everyone headed to Bahia de Los Muertos for the initial day. Lots of small dorado…a few medium ones…some jacks and bonito and a marlin were all tallied for the day then we all retreated back to La Paz for an all-you-can-eat taco feed at Tailhunter Restaurant and live reggae music from the Stamina band and some good dancing on the 2nd and 3rd floor!

Day two had us all heading back out to Las Arenas for more small dorado action…some nice roosterfish and a jackpot dorado from Angela “The Poster Girl” Zapien who nailed it with a 20 pound bull that put $550 dollars in her pocket from the pot. That night, it was a free night but a big group of us went for clams, shrimp and lobster to Pichilingue restaurant on the beach. Toes-in-the-sand and cold beers under a palapa roof to watch the sunset.

Our 3rd and last day, we changed tactics and had everyone got out to fish at La Paz north out’ve the bay. Big difference! Big fish showed up with every boat taking 18-30 pound big bulls! It was a great way to top out the 3 days and the day’s jackpot going to Christian Regan who edged out some other big fish with a 30.5 pound big bull dorado. That night, a big awards dinner and more party time at Tailhunters where we hosted an all-you-can-eat Hawaiian rib dinner and more dancing on the 3rd deck to the classic rock of “Benny and the Sons of the Beaches.” All-in-all, just a great time with so many good friends! Thanks to all, but especially, Pat McDonell and Western Outdoor News and their staff and Gary Graham for above-and-beyond being a good-guy to us.

That’s our story!