La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay Fishing Report from Tailhunter Sportfishing for Week of Oct. 26-Nov. 1, 2015

November 1, 2015 by riplipboy

Not just the best catch of the week…maybe one of the best of the season! When someone catches three or more kinds of sportfish in a day, we call it a GRAND SLAM! Richard and Sue Marksberry from Herndon, Virginia had never fished in the ocean before. They had never fished in Mexico. They got 5 tuna, then caught a sailfish; then caught a wahoo! On top of that, they got pargo, cabrilla, bonito, jack crevalle and roosterfish. They let most of their fish go or donated fish to the pueblo. Nicely done! They set the bar pretty high for future trips!

Nice way to end the trip for Kyle Herrera from Kaysville UT and his dad Channing. The got into the tuna early in the week then topped things off their last day with a nice wahoo as they were coming back to the beach with the panga!

Tom Mullican, from Idaho, is one of our great Tailhunter amigos. He spent the last two weeks here struggling through the difficult bite, winds, hurricane waves and lack of bait and never gave up and kept smiling. During that tough bite, he and Captain Archangel suddenly found themselves with THREE sailfish hooked up at the SAME TIME!!! He said it was wild. All on lighter tackle. One got unbuttoned right next to the boat. Another was released and swam strongly. The last one could not be revived which is shown here on the beach. Tom donated the meat! Once-in-a-life-fishing! Good job, Tom!

Early in the week when the tuna cooperated, Dave Codding with Captain Armando and a nice rack of yellowfin tuna that Dave caught with wife, Gail. They donated all the meat to families in San Pedro. They also left donations of money for our FANLAP scholarship program.

Despite tough fishing all week, Barbara Choate, was gonna keep fishing and outfish her husband and the rest of the guys. She’s got the best laugh! Well, she came through on the last day with Captain Jorge and caught what might be the largest dorado of the season. We’ve caught alot of dorado this year, but a fish over 10 pounds has been rare. It’s been a strange year. But this one might be in the 20-25 pound category!

Dave Codding from Idaho and Captain Armando with a nice marlin. Dave had caught other billfish, but had never done it like this on light tackle and it battered him for almost 2 hours. The fish could not be released and he donated the meat to folks in the pueblo.

A beast! Matt Deichsel shot this huge barred pargo while freediving and it might be a new spearfishing world record. They brought the monster to Tailhunters where we have a certified IGFA scale and it topped out at 38.5 pounds almost 2 pounds heavier than the current world record. The papers have been submitted and hopefully qualifies!

Two of our newest amigos! Tammy and Donnie Van Ness from Texas came looking for a trophy rooster that evaded them, but they did get some of the yellowfin tuna.

With Captain Gerardo of our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet, John came to us all the way from New Jersey and shows off a few of his yellowfin tuna.

From Oakland CA, Dave and Lou Hong with a couple of their yellowfin tuna.

ANGLERS PUSH THROUGH TOUGHEST FISHING WEEK OF THE SEASON

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Oct. 26-Nov. 1, 2015

Without mincing words, this was by far the toughest week for fishing of the entire year. Honestly, a struggle for the anglers and the captains. The way we’re set up, we have two fleets. For those of you who have fished with us, you know how we’re set up.

Our Tailhunter La Paz fleet fishes north out’ve the bay and then around Espirito Santo Island

Our other fleet is our Tailhunter Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay Fleet that fishes around Cerralvo Island.

This time of year, both sides are usually producing some fantastic fishing with everything from billfish to wahoo and tuna to dorado and others in between. This is prime time right now. On the rare occasion that one side is not doing well (either because of wind, weather, bait, etc.) , the other side is always productive and we easily move our clients to the other fleet so they can continue to get bit. It’s worked like that for the 20 years we’ve been here.

I don’t know what happened this week, but the ocean turned into a desert for fishing on both sides. Poor fishing doesn’t even begin to describe things. The week started out promising with tuna and billfish for our Las Arenas fleet and then dorado for our La Paz fleet. About Tuesday, the whole place just sort of shut down. We had trouble buying a bite. It was ridiculous. What happened?

LAS ARENAS / MUERTOS BAY

For the last 3 weeks or so, football-sized yellowfin tuna between 8 and 20 pounds have been a real nice treat in that area just south of Muertos Bay. As well, sailfish and marlin have been moving through the areas and providing a great bonus bite. Wahoo were also in the area. So were rooster fish! We were getting 3-10 tuna on the average per panga per day. That was the bread-and-butter-fish.

Then, it just shut off. Nothing. Nada. Boats were catching nothing or coming back with a cabrilla and a trigger fish!

Several factors seem to have been involved.

1. No bait. Our lifeblood is having live bait. The sardines and other baitfish just disappeared or became nearly impossible to find. No bait. No bites! After a few days of futility, word among the captains was that commercial boats and pangas from “down south” had swooped in during the night with small-mesh nets and taken all the bait. Lovely.

2. Residual wind and waves from Hurricane Patricia didn’t help. Patricia late last week that hit the Puerto Vallarta area was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the western hemisphere. It had winds over 200 miles and hour and rains are still being felt up in Texas. We’re 500 miles away, but lots of water got pushed up our way and created big rolling swells that also pummeled the shallow areas where the sardines are often found. Plus, the rollers got people seasick that normally don’t get seasick. I think I had more people seasick this week than the entire year put together. The winds from the south added chop to the area and then seasonal winds from the north that start up this time of year anyway, turned the waters into a swirl.

3. Full moon. Huge full moon. I usually don’t put much stock in the full-moon superstition. You either fish or you don’t. Some of our best bites have taken place during the full moon. However, combined with everything else mentioned above, it was a sorry combination. I saw big tidal surges and low ebbs along with strong currents that made the water look like a flowing river at times.

LA PAZ

Our go-to area. All year long if nothing else was biting, we could always fish with our Tailhunter La Paz Fleet and 9 out’ve 10 times, the dorado would charge and fill the coolers and put smiles back on everyone’s faces. The dorado weren’t big, but they were feisty and fun.

This week, in combination with the things mentioned above, the bait was hard to find and our boats would spend most of the morning look for bait. Then, the fish were all the way over the other side of the bay near San Juan de La Costa…about 20 miles away! So, chase bait all morning then a long boat ride to the other side.

Then…the pangas were coming back with only 1 or 2 little dorado. Not even worth the gas. Even my captains were telling me not to fish the area! Waste of time and gas.

Add to that rough seas and you have a perfect combination of bad things making for bad fishing.

Hopefully, things settle down by the time you’re reading this.

MORE BIG THANK YOU’S!

We we head toward the end of the season, just another big shout-out to all of our Tailhunter Tribal Family that brought down hundreds and hundreds of pounds of school supplies, clothes, shoes, dry goods, hygiene items, toys and sports items for our needy kids in schools and also our battered women’s shelter. As well, to those of you who donated money to our FANLAP scholarship program to help keep a child in school, you all rock. Thanks for making a difference everyone!

Cannot find nicer folks and have more fun with this group for amigos from Idaho! Barbara and Randy Choate; Claire Ames; Gail and Dave Codding and Tom Ames. Thanks for the big hearts and smiles and thanks for spending your vacation with us!

We are blessed and grateful more than you know!

That’s our story!