La Paz – Las Arenas/ Bahia de Los Muertos Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of April 5-12, 2015

April 12, 2015 by riplipboy

Lift that baby! Sergio Rodriguez from Santa Barbara hooked this hefty thick yellowtail while still pretty much inside the La Paz Bay near Balandra Beach!

rooster aaron beckord tags small 4-15 joel

It’s gotta be the great glasses and the high-vis shirt! Aaron Beckord from Oregon gets big smiles with Captain Joel and a huge roosterfish they caught and released near Espirito Santo Island. This day, they caught two roosters and released both. Check out the flat seas!

What a story. School-teacher Mindy Pollock from Orofino Idaho spent some spring break time with us in La Paz and had some big fish over 3 days fishing. On her last day fishing with Captain Boli, handful of nice yellowtail got away, but her LAST fish she hung on! It produced this huge 90-pound amberjack off Espirito Santo Island! Well done!

yellowtail brian beckord small tags 4-15

Love this photo of soon-to-be, Doctor Aaron Beckord who starts his residency at UCLA but took time for a quick trip to La Paz that produced some good fishing including this great photo of one of his big yellowtail.

Joel Puente brought his son fishing and told us, “We don’t need any big fish. Just some “action.” The 12-year-old, Ben shows off his “action” including dorado, cabrilla, skipjack, pargo and another 10 or so fish the released. Happy guys! They are from El Monte CA.

Proudly sporting his “Bass Knuckles” t-shirt, Dan Hypse with one of his yellowtail out’ve La Paz. Earlier they hooked a huge 200 pound manta ray they fought and lost after a 2 hour battle!

He loves to flyfish! Tyler Lyon from Utah spent a few days with us and his flyrod and had a ball with his hand-tied flies taking multiple species including bonito like this…roosterfish…cabrilla…ladyfish…pargo and sierra. (See the photo of Captain Moncho below).

A whopper of a jack crevalle. There’s a reason the Mexican name for them is “toro” (bull). Susie Waters from Orange Co, CA battled this tough guy for a photo then released him.

Tyler Lyon (2 photos above) released all the fish he caught on his flyrod except this one which he gave to Captain Moncho to whip up some great ceviche! Sierra show us that cold water fish are still hanging out.

Rod Brown had too many good photos during his trip not to post one more. Our amigo from Alaska fishing with our Tailhunter Captain Boli, rocked this nice yellowtail north of La Paz Bay.

FISH MIX IT UP UNDER WEEK OF CLOUDY SKIES

La Paz – Las Arenas / Muertos Bay Fishing Report for Week of April 5-12, 2015

Hopefully, you weren’t here for the sunshine this week. Really weird week of weather. Temperature-wise, it was very comfortably moderate, but what happened to the sunshine. It was overcast and gray almost all week which didn’t bode well for folks still trying to catch some rays for spring break and late Easter vacations so I felt badly for them. As you read this, there’s actually a small chance of rain by the weekend for a few hours. Then, it clears up for next week so hopefully back to normal.

Anyway, fishing conditions weren’t bad. A little wind, but nothing drastic. Bait was good for both our Las Arenas and La Paz fleets so right there that’s always a good start to kick off the day knowing that we’ve got live bait which is the life blood of our fishing style here. Last year with El Nino, bait was hard to come by for pretty much all of Baja. But this year, we’ve got sardines for our Las Arenas guys and La Paz has a mix, mostly of mackerel, but also some caballitos and and sardines as well.

So, here goes…

LAS ARENAS/ MUERTOS BAY

We actually got some sunshine there relatively speaking this week. The fishing produced some good action. The wahoo had been going nicely, but none were boated this week although there were some fish that were dropped. However, this is our area to go if you were looking for some action and variety.

This week we had some first timers and family so this was great to get them bent…for some of them…the first time ocean fishing. Nothing huge to speak of, but what a variety. You never knew what the catches would be each day. To give you an example on a single day between several of our pangas we got:

1. Dorado

2. Roosterfish

3. Barred pargo

4. Yellow Snapper

5. Jack crevalle

6. Cabrilla (seabass)

7. Skipjack

8. Bonito (lots of them!)

9. Ladyfish

10. Pompano

11. Dog tooth snapper

And that was just ONE day! Plus, add in the lost wahoo and also a lost marlin and there were some cool fish out there to hook onto.

We also had our first flyfishers of the year as well. I’m always a bit leery this early in the season for flyfishing because you never know about the wind, but our flyfishers got roosters, jacks, bonito and ladyfish and had a blast.

LA PAZ

While not showing as much variety as Las Arenas/ Muertos, our anglers who fished out’ve La Paz got the larger fish. More quality for sure.

Around Espirito Santo Island, there’s several spots that glowed nicely for yellowtail. Fish were running 15-30 pounds and were eating the mackerel as well as the iron. Quite a few fish lost to inexperience, and also, I’m sure the bite would’ve been better, but there was alot of traffic out there because lots of folks are still on vacation. Here in La Paz, spring break is actually two weeks long so there were lots of families out on the water as well as fishermen. By next week, it should calm down a bit better. The fish are definitely there.

In addition to the yellowtail, the same area is also holding some nice amberjack, pargo and hefty cabrilla. Some of the beaches and coves have been good spots to look for roosters with most about 40 pounds or so.

We’re seeing more marlin north of town as the waters get warm and I’ve got reports of bits of sargasso weed starting to break looks and start floating so that’s also a good sign for the dorado to move in.

WHALESHARK WATCH

Yes! They are still in the bay! Our clients are swimming with 3-10 of the “baby” whalesharks almost every day in the shallow water. Most of the babies are 10-20 feet long! Great trip!

That’s our story!