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La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay Fishing Report from Tailhunter Sportfishing for Week of Aug. 28 -Sept. 4, 2016

September 5, 2016 by riplipboy

MINI-VIDEO FISHING REPORT

WEEK AT A GLANCE (Scale of 1-10 being best)

Weather – 8 (like a postcard most of the week)

Water – 7 (mostly great and blue with some patches of dirty or cold)

Fishing Action and Quantity – 8 (Las Arenas) 4 (La Paz)

Fishing Quality – 7 (nice tuna to big marlin)

Fishing Outlook for Coming Week– 3 (worried about the storm coming Tuesday and winds on Wednesday)

Jonathan’s Attitude – 7 (If you’re happy, I’m happy – lots of happy fishermen mostly!)

Fishing Quote of the Week – “Men and fish are alike. They get in trouble when the open their mouths.”

THE BIG PICTURE

First time with us, Jason Rudloff and his dad, Robert, from California started out their fishing trip with a bang. They hung all these nice yellowfin tuna plus dorado (released some too!) just outside of Bahia de los Muertos.

John Titman from Oregon, has one of the best weeks of any angler all year. Here he is with Captain Adolfo and their wahoo plus some chunky yellowfin tuna. John caught so much fish (including the blue marlin below) that he went home with about 150 pounds of fillets (and that was AFTER he released fish and gave fish away!)

San Diego in the house! Mike Rose and Doug Ladderbush stuck some nice tuna and dorado with Captain Gerardo on the beach at Bahia de los Muertos. They said to me, “Uh your “football tuna” are alot bigger than our San Diego football tuna! “

Happy fella, John Titman and Captain Chito and a blue marlin estimated at over 220 pounds. John donated 1/2 the fish. It was quite a week for billfish with a number of fish lost and most released.

Captain Armando had a great day with Joe Hill and girlfriend, Shelly Andrade from the Sacramento CA area who had a banner day during the tuna bite during the week.

We have some great amigos that come from Kansas, including Elijah Florence who fishes the light tackle spinning rods and got these 5 feisty dorado.

Dave Hill from Texas has been fishing with me since about 1999! With his favorite Captain, Jorge, he shows of a couple of his yellowfin tuna!

First time speedster wahoo for Steve Douds from Arizona! He explained that his facial expression as well as sore arms and hand joints were attributed to the battle with the wahoo.

Beautiful shot of first-timer, Debby Champley, with Captain Jorge and another yellowfun tuna in the boat!

Oh-oh! Here’s the path that “INVEST 90E” is showing as it heads towards the Baja Peninsula. It’s not slated to be a hurricane, but winds in the mid-70’s are expected and a few inches of rain. No bueno. Just a one day event fortunately. I hope.

BEST WEEK AS TUNA CRASH…BUT WAIT!

La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay Fishing Report for Week of Aug. 28-Sept. 4, 2016

It turned out to be one of the best weeks of the season down here. Not only did we have some outstanding weather with warm (but not hot) sunny skies and blue calm waters, but for the first time in about 2 years, the tuna crashed for our Tailhunter Fleet at Las/ Arenas Muertos Bay with some outstanding catches. Mixed with some of the other species, it was the kind of week we have rarely seen since the El Nino weather conditions dropped in on us 2 seasons ago…and now apparently are diminishing.

Will it continue? Read on…

LAS ARENAS/ BAHIA de LOS MUERTOS

In a scene reminiscent of the glory days of the area, for about 4 days this week, yellowfin tuna came up from the trenches to within a few hundred yards of the beach or closer and crashed our pangas! It started with some football 5-10 pounders, but these turned into heftier beefier feistier 20-25 pounds fish and pulled many first-time anglers right out’ve their flip-flops!

Literally, a long casting distance from the beach in an area that stretched from just south of Bahia de los Muertos to just around the corner to Punta Perrico and the old Hotel Las Arenas, the tuna rolled up with an appetite. Our pangas were slamming fish with limits in a few hours, then turning their attention to other species like dorado, wahoo and billfish. What a luxury. (For once, rooster fish weren’t center stage!). Even releasing fish, anglers were filling their take-home ice-chests in a single day of action!

I spoke to one person who was scuba diving in the area and he told me, “There’s huge schools of tuna milling around down there, even in the shallow waters!”

For many of our anglers, not only was this the first tuna they had ever encountered, (“Man, I didn’t know tuna were THAT strong!), but for some, it was their first fish or first time fishing (“I caught two and had to sit down because my back and arms were cramping!”). Imagine your first-fish ever is a 20 pound yellowfin tuna!

But, here’s the rub…the ONLY bait that was working was squid! Bellies of the fish were filled with small squid that the fish must have followed up from the deep. That’s why they were in the area.

However, it’s impossible for us to catch little tiny squid! It’s impossible for to hook them unlike when the huge Humboldt squid come up from the deep with monsters that are 10-80 pounds and we can actually fish for them!

Therefore, it became incumbent on us to scour the city of La Paz looking to buy all the squid we could find. The better stuff was the bodies, but squid bodies were in short supply. Also, this couldn’t be “bait quality” squid. This has to be fresh-dead squid that’s restaurant/ table quality stuff. So, I had stuff running around and over the course of just a few days, we purchased over 220 pounds of blocks of fresh-frozen squid and then vacuum sealing them into 2 kilo bags for our anglers to have! It made for some long days, but you do what you gotta do! As it is, there’s not much other bait out there at Las Arenas.

This stuff is COLD!!! Big 20 pound bricks of frozen giant squid had to be packed everyday hoping to give our folks a bit of an “edge” getting the tuna to bite. We went through about 250 pounds of giant squid in 3 days and scoured every store, market and fish store to have enough everyday! I’ll keep doing it too…if it means the difference on our folks getting bit!

Anyway, after 4 days, the bite quieted down and the frenzy turned to a trickle as the fish moved further south. At the time of my writing this report, we have our whole fleet looking south today for the fish!

However, as the tuna diminished, small to medium dorado came up which was the first time we’ve ever really seen dorado in the area so that was good news! We’ll keep you posted.

And…also wahoo around as well and hitting the dark Rapalas as usual!

My biggest concern as of the time of writing this is that there’s a bit of a storm and rain coming on Tuesday that might be a complete game-changer. It could make things better or it could dirty up the water; cold water; and scatter the fish..and then it will take several days to clear up again. Then, who knows?

LA PAZ

The story for our Tailhunter La Paz fleet were the billfish. I think almost every one of our pangas hooked a billfish at some point in the week. One day each of our pangas hooked at least one sailfish or marlin. Most were lost. Or, after a fight, they were released (thanks guys!). A few of the larger ones that were blue marlin were either kept (perfectly legal!) or were unable to be revived. The fish seemed to be right in the areas where, not surprisingly, we also found small dorado and small bonito which are perfect candy-food for billfish.

Dorado were also around with a few of the better quality in the 20-25 pound class around and alot getting lost and released as well

Inshore, still some good steady action on big triggers and small-to-medium cabrilla and pargo.

TAILHUNTER DONATION NATION

Joe Hill, Shelley Andrade, (Jorge Romero photobomb), Debby Champley and Dave Hill brought a LOAD of much needed school supplies in several ice chests!

Mega and Dave Bosteter from Phoenix, AZ, hauled down clothes, toys, little girl costumes and bathroom supplies for our kids and their families!

The guys from the Helena Chemical Company…you guys are TOO much! They hauled down 7 full ice chests of kids clothes and other supplies for our Women’s Shelter and the Alberga Kid’s Shelter Orphange in Los Planes.

And a well-deserved mango margarita toast by the Helene Chem guys for bringing down so much needed items!

An awesome shout-out to our Tailhunter Tribal amigos who went an extra step and brought down donations for our two schools, the women’s shelter and the orphanage. This last week almost 300 pounds of items went to one of the orphanges. These new items might be headed to one of the schools or the women’s shelter. Tailhunter Donation Nation rocks! Thank you all!

Thanks also to Jason and Robert Rudloff for their donation. I didn’t get their photo except ABOVE with BIG FISH!

That’s our story!

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