La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay Fishing Report from Tailhunter Sportfishing for Week of July 24-31, 2016

August 1, 2016 by riplipboy

TAILHUNTER SPORTFISHING – WEEKLY MINI REVIEW

THE WEEK AT A GLANCE

Conditions: 4 (cloudy, humid, a few passing storms, windy at times and choppy)

Sunshine: 3 (much of the week overcast, but finally sunshine late in the week)

Bait: 3 ( better for La Paz than Las Arenas)

Quality of fish: 5 (nice marlin and roosters)

Quantity of fish: 2 (sometimes there were only triggerfish caught)

Optimism: 6 (it’s gottta get better!)

Quote of the Week: “I have 99 problems. Fishing solves all of them.”

THE BIG PICTURE

From Puyallup WA area, fireman Seth Maxwell is on his honeymoon with his new wife Vann. Their first date was fishing. He proposed to her while they were fishing and now this! Nice amberjack off Punta Arenas!

C.J. Randolph with the big boy dog-tooth snapper (check out the choppers!) on the beach at Bahia de los Muertos! CJ is from Pacific Palisades CA

Gary Wagner and his daughter, Sydney, with her rooster caught not far from Gary’s place in Bahia de los Suenos…great lodge Rancho Costa (Plenty!). The fish was released!

Monte Adridge from Utah with a really gorgeous white marlin and Captain Pancho near the south end of Cerralvo Island.

One of the rare dorado caught this week. Van Maxwell, again in the report with Captain Chito north of La Paz.

Gary Wagner again, our amigo, with his son Miles’ roosterfish and captain Manny looking on! They are near Punta Perrico and released the fish.

Here’s Vann Maxwell again with big smiles and a huge roosterfish and Captain Pancho. The fish was released. Look closely and you can see the rain hitting the water in the background!

Pretty photo of Marlene and Monte Adridge visiting us for the first time from Utah and a big rooster just off the rocks near Baha de los Muertos. The fish was released.

Slug of a trophy cabrilla (seabass) for young Captain Randolph out’ve Las Arenas/ Bahia de los Muertos!

Dietmar Kruger with a nice barred pargo that’s going to get filleted!

You alway remember that first fish! Kudos to Marlene Aldridge for the fiesty bonito that was released and Captain Joel near Espirito Santo Island.

WEATHER AND FISH RELUCTANT PARTICIPANTS

La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay Fishing Report for Week of July 24-31, 2016

It was a struggle this week. It’s been a repeated pattern all season. We have a week or two of really encouraging fishing and conditions when things look like they’re turning around followed by some really tougher fishing a week later. The last two weeks, the billfish really kicked it in and we were even seeing a few dorado finally.

This week the winds came in strong. So did cloudy skies and even some rain in the mountains and occasional showers on the water for our anglers. We barely saw sunshine. The billfish bite, while still OK was not as consistent as the week before. The dorado couldn’t be found. Even our reliable rooster fish were harder to find. It was like two steps forward…one step back.

We didn’t have alot fishermen this week, so maybe that was a good thing. We’ve been really solidly busy, but this week we had a few days with only a few pangas out. But, the guys really hung in there and worked hard. The captains were working especially hard. As I told my captains, when the fish are biting, all of us are superstars and the “best captains” in the world. When the fish are not biting, we have to prove we’re good by showing the clients that we work even harder. Some of our guys were staying out just a little longer than normal to give our guys as much time on the water as possible. We did whatever we could. Sometimes it paid off. Sometimes…well, that’s fishing. Not for lack of effort by the anglers or the captains.

LAS ARENAS/ BAHIA de Los MUERTOS

Roosterfish have saved us time-and-again all season. The fish are nice quality fish of 25-60 pounds. But this week even the roosters were harder to come by although we still got a few. As well, surprisingly, we got amberjack this week. We had not seen any for about a month and these are usually spring-time fish when waters are cooler. It’s really surprising to get any when it’s almost August!

A few billfish hooked and lost. Wahoo are apparently still in the area too. We had several inadvertent hook-ups but fish either bit-off or were dumped.

LA PAZ

Definitely our area this past week with the most action. Not great fishing, but the better area just to get your rod bent. There were billfish out there with stripers and larger blues getting hooked, but nothing like it was last week. Word is out now and there’s so much more boat traffic out there with alot of local boats all zipping back and forth across the marlin holes. So, I’m sure that had an effect on it too. A week ago, there were 1-3 billfish per boat some days. One day we counted 26 vessels criss-crossing the same patch of water over…and over…and over…

With the marlin action diminished…

Alot of our action has been inshore for pargo, cabrilla, jack crevalle, triggerfish, bonito and amberjack. Again, we would normally NEVER even be talking about these species of fish this time of year. These are spring-time species. We SHOULD be talking about dorado! But other than the occasional free-swimmer, there’s just not much out there for pelagic species. Other areas are also having their issues finding dorado as well so it’s not just us.

On the upside, the waters are warming and clearing up. Much bluer every week and there’s a bunch of sargasso weed about 10 miles north of town that’s moving south towards us so that’s very promising because the live bait situation is also improving. My captains are saying to give it 2-3 weeks and they think we’ll be getting dorado.

That’s our story!

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