MINI-VIDEO FISHING REPORT
For those of you who like it visually…
WEEK AT A GLANCE (Scale of 1-10 being best)
For those of you who don’t have time…
Weather – 8 (great until Sunday!)
Water – 7 (not bad until Sunday when wind and waves mucked it all up)
Fishing Quantity – 8 (if you were fishing for dorado)
Fishing Quality – 3 (if you were fishing for dorado and only got the peanut-sized fish)
6 (if you caught other species like tuna, wahoo, a roosterfish or larger dorado)
Jonathan’s Attitude – 5 (feel badly for those folks who did NOT have a good week…there were 2 or 3)
Forecast for Upcoming Week – 5 (it all depends on what Sunday’s rain will do)
THE BIG PICTURE
For those of you who want the whole enchilada with all the sides…
Whoa! We haven’t seen many of these around lately! Brandt Knudsen from Colorado hammered this big bull dorado fishing with Captain Archangel from Las Arenas. Dorado getting a little bigger!
This is a GREAT story! Todd Jones has been all over the place for 10 years chasing a roosterfish unsuccessfully. He had only 1 day to fish and gave us a shot since we’re the “roosterfish capital of the world.” Fishing with Captain Victor, he broke the curse and got this massive rooster we estimate around 80 pounds. Todd told me he’s 6’4″ and 270 pounds so you can see how big the fish is. As excited as he was, he told me he was more heartbroken that they couldn’t release the fish although they tried mightily. The met ended up feeding alot of folks in the pueblo. Oh…he also got a big wahoo on the way in (photo down below). Todd’s from the Salt Lake City area.
Captain Jorge with first-timer, John Green, from S. Carolina who rocked this big-time wahoo and poses on the beach at Muertos.
Robert “Leon Redbone” Martinez with Clyde Dent and some of the better “yellowfun” tuna we got this week.
Capitan Moncho with Karen Gerber from Washington and a BIG roosterfish. She’s just a tiny gal too and did a great job, especially considering this was her first time fishing! The fish was released.
Texas in the house! Kevin Preuss and Randy Moe had a good solid 3 days of fishing with us and included some tuna like these in their homeward bound ice chests.
You’ll not find nicer guys than Ray and Raymond Ahner from Fresno CA and San Francisco CA respectively. They got into a school of rainbow runners in Muertos Bay. If they look like yellowtail they are cousins and very tasty eating fish. These are some of the largest I’ve seen.
Our buddy Kris Honkola brought down first-timer Chris Wilbur with him this year and it paid off with a great week of fishing including tuna, dorado, marlin and several wahoo.
Colin Jensen was great to have down. He had never seen the ocean and never fished in the ocean. Visting from Utah, he made up for it with his nice bull dorado and more!
Fun-sized dorado like these really lit it up this week. Hopefully, they keep getting bigger, but nice to see more and more of them showing up.
All the way from Finland!!!Herkko Miettinen had quite a nice week topped by this big-time wahoo on the beach at Bahia de los Muertos.
Another of our Utah amigos this week with a female dorado…the kind we NEVER even saw last season. Very encouraging to finally be better some better-sized dorado!
Jordan Rabinowe with a nice yellowfin tuna. The “footballs” are sticking around and giving us some fun action around Bahia de Los Muertos. Jordan came with his dad and sister and her husband. He’s from Portland area.
From the Bay Area of CA, Jeff Cassens is all smiles with one of several of his yellowfin tuna.
From Washington, Bob Griffiths, does his best to cradle this big roosterfish so he can take a photo and let it go! Jeff got this just off the Las Arenas lighthouse and the fish swam away strongly!
Capitan Boli with Karen Gerber and one of the better-sized La Paz dorado. They’re getting bigger finally!
Birthday trip for Brandt Knudsen from Colorado! He got tuna, wahoo and dorado to take home!
Kevin Preuss is holding the biggest rainbow runner I have ever seen in my 20 years here. With Randy Moe and his tuna. On the beach near Las Arenas. The guys are from Texas.
Two more Texas guys that happen to be visiting! Ed Moreno and Charles Riley on their first day ripped a nice wahoo and a couple of yellowfin tuna.
Just one more to add to his ice chest! Senor Knudsen put the wood and gaff to this nice speedy wahoo!
What a day! Todd Jones had only one day to fish! He racked a huge roosterfish then stuck this big wahoo on the way back to the beach!
If ever there was a gamer! Carolyn Knudsen from Colorado hefts up another nice yellowfin. She fished 5 of 6 days here like a trooper!
Fun dorado to start the trip for Ray and Raymond Ahner. They added to the count shortly after with a variety of species.
Our Arizona amigo, Ted “Roosterfish” Kuhn, tries his best to pose with a nice roosterfish he caught just outside of Bahia de los Muertos. He used to be known as “Bluegill Ted” before he started fishing in La Paz. Hard to find a funner guy to fish with.
Migue and Chris drove all the way down to La Paz along the mainland then took the ferry across to the Baja. Miguel with another rainbow runner and Chris with a yellowfin tuna.
It’s great to finally see so many dorado finally rolling into our waters. Ed and Jordan Rabinowe at the start of their fishing week!
FULL MOON? TELL THAT TO THE FISH
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay Fishing Report for Week of Sept. 11-18, 2016
No storms. Great weather. Even the full moon seemed to have zero effect on the bite this week. Dorado, tuna, big rooster fish and wahoo were all highlights.
La Paz Fishing
If you fished with our La Paz fleets this week, I could pretty much do something I never do…guarantee you fish. There’s plenty of dorado everywhere. You cannot help but catch dorado right now.
The downside is that there are so many “dinks” out there that are literally the size of a big trout, it’s like you’re molesting the nursery. But, these little guys are born hungry like little pac-man fish and they go after anything that’s in the water. They are attacking lures twice their size. They go after and destroy any bait you put in there and ergo, there goes your precious bait supply! In a word, they’re pests!
But that’s the only way to catch anything even remotely larger! If you don’t have line in the water, you’re not gonna catch anything. And there’s some larger 10-30 pound fish running with the “children” but the issue is how many of the squirts you have to deal with to get a larger fish!
The upside here is that these fish are a load of fun on the lighter tackle or flyrods. The other side is that dorado grow faster than just about any fish in the ocean because all the do is eat. In a month or two, these fish will double and triple in size. Two months ago, there were zero dorado around and we were all bitching. So, it’s hard to complain too loudly when there’s this kind of action out here. We just want ‘em to grow FASTER!
As a little side note to the dorado, if you want to catch a billfish like a marlin or sailfish, a great color pattern for your lure would be…(drumroll)…dorado colors like green, yellow, blue and white!
LAS ARENAS/ MUERTOS BAY
This is where it was happening all week. This past week and the previous two weeks (minus that little hurricane last week) was like what Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay were like “back in the day.”
We had wahoo between 20-50 pounds. There’s a good smattering of yellowfin tuna in the 10-20 pound class. We have dorado…mostly in the 10 pound size, but got some of the largest dorado I’ve seen in two years up to 30 pounds.
And, we had some monster rooster fish up to about 80 pounds! In fact, about the smallest I think we got this week was in the mid-20’s with most in the 40 pound class.
Now, in all fairness, it wasn’t wide open and not every boat did great every day. But over all, with most of our anglers fishing 2 or 3 days, you really had some of the better fishing we’ve had in a long time.
Here’s the ticket…we had squid!
Several weeks ago when the tuna and dorado showed up, we cut open bellies and found they had baby squid in them. The problem is that there’s zero baby squid to be caught. Impossible.
So, for about 2 weeks now, we have our staff head to town and buy every bit of fresh giant squid they can get their hands on. Every night, I’m cutting up to 100 pounds of blocked frozen squid into 3 pound bags to sell to our guys.
From what I hear, we’re buying out the city and are the only ones with the squid. The fish are eating it and, at the very least makes great chum.
This is not “bait squid.” This is edible “CALAMARI” that’s “restaurant grade.” It’s expensive. But the fish eat it and it’s making a difference.
We had some good guys come to our restaurant for dinner. They fish with a competitor however ad asked if they could buy squid from me and I regretfully had to turn them down and say it’s only for our fishermen and there’s not enough to sell to anyone else.
So, one of the laughed and said, “Well, we’re here to order dinner. So, we’d like to order the “calamari plate.” However, please tell the chef we want 30 pounds of it and not to cook it and make it “to go!” We all had a laugh.
Anyway, as long as the fish are eating it and I can keep getting it, I’ll sell to our clients to be prepared to purchase it. It’s better than headed to the water and paying the bait guys the waiting maybe 1-3 hours for them to find enough mackerel or caballitos to sell you…if they find any at all.
For the rooster fish, the best bait is still the big ladyfish so be patient. You DO have to catch these baits and it can take a bit and you can only catch them one-at-a-time, but this is what the big rooster fish want. Anything that can wrap it’s mouth around an 18-inch bait is gonna be big!
Lastly, we hit some monster rainbow runners this week. These were the largest I’ve ever seen down here in 20 years. Cousins to yellowtail, they look like smaller cousins and are great eating. Usually, we catch these in the spring when waters are cooler so it’s a mystery why they are here now…unless waters are cooling earlier than normal. Hmmmmm…
BUT WAIT!
Don’t let it be said that I don’t put out the most up-t0-date-info that I can or that I sugar-coat things. I really do my best not to! Despite all my optimism…Sunday, we got some really high winds that knocked the bite down dramatically for our Las Arenas fleet as high winds produced big waves and kicked the bite to the curve. Except for a few firecracker-sized dorado, the Las Arenas bite stunk.
Tropical Storm Paine came in and is supposed to make landfall way way way north of us along the Baja Peninsula. We’re not in the target area.
But, some rain clouds moved in. We’re supposed to get a few little quick thundershowers and then it’s over-and-done. Some showers maybe linger through Monday. Hopefully, not too much effect on the fishing. At least, the storm isn’t hitting us directly. I just feel badly for our Sunday anglers!
Our La Paz fishermen did just fine on Sunday.
TAILHUNTER DONATION NATION!
Bruce “BC” Champlin and Ted “Roosterfish” Kuhn had a load of clothes, shoes and other items.
Wayne Seibert and brother Ken, brought down some sports equipment for the boys plus bags of pencils.
Joe Prouty and Al McDowell from Washington with much-needed school supplies.
Millones de gracias to Ben Fischer and Dan Gleason for trooping in so much stuff as well!
High-five’s to all our Tailhunter Tribe who brought down stuff for our Tailhunter Charity Outreach programs! School supplies…adult and kids clothes…toys…sports gear…We can’t tell you how grateful we are. Several photos of folks never got in here either for various reasons (my cell phone hasn’t worked real great since the hurricane), but God bless you as well even if your photos didn’t make it in!
That’s our story!
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website:
www.tailhunter-international.com
Mexico Office: Tailhunter International, 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter International, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA 91942
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
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Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report: https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/
Tailhunter YouTube Video Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBLvdHL_p4-OAu3HfiVzW0g
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”
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