ROOSTERFISH RAGE & HEADLINE
UNPREDICTABLE WEEK!
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay Fishing Report for
Week of June 16-23, 2019
MEXICAN MINUTE VIDEO REPORT
THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY. . .

My hero of the week! Enzo Moreno is only 11-years-old from the San Antonio area of Texas. He hooked this marlin with Captain Armando. He fought the fish for 2 hours on 30 pound test line! He refused help and battled it all by himself. He got the fish to the boat…took the photo…and released it! AWESOME!

The tuna popped up again after being somewhat absent the last few weeks. Bob Lederer from Massachusetts with Captain Jorge and a nice rack of footballs and some larger models!

San Diego birthday girl, Michele Conklin, was just off Punta Perico and dozing off when this big boy rooster hit her bait. Her largest rooster and she was able to release it!

Captain Pancho strikes a pose with Justin Larson! The young man from San Diego caught and released 4 big roosters the same day!

A pretty good day and a pretty photo of the Steele Family…Ashley, Dan and Zach and some nice yellowtail headed for the cutting board.

Crazy to be catching yellowtail in June! These are cold water fish and normally, we don’t see them after about April. However, Dave Gee holds up another one with La Paz Malecon in the distance.

Happy Fella! Captain Jorge with our amigo, Dave Conklin and a hefty rooster taken not far off the Las Arenas sand. The fish was released.

Pretty photo with great colors! That’s a big yellowtail and Jackie Laes from Oregon enjoying some sunshine and some fun fishing.

Another fish we don’t see very much this late in the year, but a feisty ferocious fighter is the pargo liso (mullet snapper). Dana Jacklin wrestled this pretty fish out’ve the rocks.

First roosterfish for Ramy Shatara who gets a hand from Captain Arcangel. Ramy released the fish and caught it on light tackle.

Bob Lederer gets the tail-end of this striper he hooked just outside of Bahia Muertos while fishing with Captain Armando!

Big cabrilla like this lurk in rocky structure and reefs making them a difficult fighter, but Jeff Morgan got this tasty seabass into the boat.

Best week of roosters that I ca remember. Here’s another one for the photos gallery taken by Adam Larson. Adam released the fish which swam off strongly.

The man behind the mask is Dan Steele who gets a hand from wife, ashley on a thick pretty rooster he hooked not far off the shallow rocks at Punta Perrico then released it after the photo. Check those colors!

There’s alot of good-eating on this table. I see cabrilla, triggerfish, snapper and pargo including the one being held by Mark Jacklin.

Craig Hoffman from Phoenix AZ and brother Bryan, all the way from London got into the tuna bite with a table-load of yellowfin tuna.

These are tough fighters on hook and line…among the hardest to pull in for alot of our anglers. Ramy Shatara at the La Paz municipal pier off-loading some of his bonito

With his first roosterfish, Bill Eggleston makes the photo gallery. The fish was released and he was fishing south of Bahia Muertos.

Lots of hard-fighting jack crevalle kept rods bent and reels screaming! Michele Conklin with big smiles and Captain Jorge.

Kyle Eggleston has to be one of the funniest first-timers we have had down here so far! First day out he got in on the rooster bite!

Another rooster on the books for young Justin Larson, caught and released. He had a spectacular day.

Strange fish of the week! Related to roosterfish, amberjack, pompano and jack crevalle, this is the first time we’ve had a Hawaiian trevally show up! Just goes to show you what a crazy season we are having! Tom Dietz does the honor.

Hefty amberjack (pez fuerte) for Miles Wagner and Kris Kobach coming in late with dinner at Rancho Costa.
It was like Jekyll & Hyde Week. It was also a week of strange fishing on so many other levels.
The first part of the week, cold winds, choppy seas, off-color water and strong currents really had us all working hard to get fish. After a pretty decent previous week, it was like “What next?” On top of it there was a full moon.
For our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet…
Las Arenas fishing virtually shut off the first 3-4 days this week. Some snapper and pargo and cabrilla. Lots of bonito. Jack crevalle kept rods bent. But not much else.
Thankfully, we had the roosterfish!
What a week for roosterfish…maybe the best I have seen in 25 years. We had fish running 10-70 pounds. Some pangas caught, 2,3…4 fish each day and lost several others! Fish were literally schooling up like we have never seen them.

Dennis Adair’s rooster was so big the photographer (Glenn Oclassen) couldn’t back up any further to get the whole fish. Captain Ramiro on deck!
Many anglers took their first or largest roosters ever! I can’t tell you how often folks came back from fishing with big smiles but asking me for a band-aid for the blisters on a thumb or inside index fingers from reel with folks fighting a single fish from 15-45 minutes. Then doing it all over again! It was crazy!
Also remarkable were the mullet snapper (pargo liso) on the backside of Cerralvo Island. Normally, these big scrappy pargo school-up in huge undulating crashing pods in March and April!
But all of a sudden, here they were! Fish up to 20-30 pounds were busting guys off as they watched this schools crashing the surface. So many fish were lost and frustrating so quite a few anglers as these powerful fish took them into the rocks!
About Wednesday, it seemed like things changed. By Thursday, it was like someone threw a lightswitch.
The winds died down. The temperatures kicked into the low 100’s. Humidity rose. The sun blazed and the waters turned bluer.
And the fish suddenly got into the game!
Tuna started crashing with yellowfin as small as footballs, but as large as 40-pounds. Most fish caught on the banks near Cerralvo Island. We have not seen many tuna in about 4-6 weeks.
Marlin also got active with a number of fish caught and released. All the fish ranged from about 100-130 pounds.
For our Tailhunter La Paz Fleet…
Fishing was much better than Las Arenas if you just wanted to fill the ice chest and wanted some good rod-bending action.
The areas around Espirito Santo Island and Punta Coyote and Punta Mejia were productive for a number of species.
No shortage of both tasty white bonito and hard pulling skipjack (barriletes). Plus inshore, lots of snapper, pargo, cabrilla, trigger fish and amberjack. You could have fun all day with that.
Plus add in the dorado that are roaming around and getting better every week with fish running 10-25 pounds to put in the ice chest and you can have a full day of fishing.
However, just like the unusual pargo liso near Cerralvo Island that popped up in big schools (a cold water fish), we had yellowtail show up! In my 25 years down here, I’ve never seen yellowtail in June. Normally, by April, we’re all done with any yellowtail in these waters. Just like the pargo liso, they are cold water fish!
So, here we are almost at the end of June and at the technical beginning of summer and our boats are coming back with 2, 3 or 4 yellowtail and losing more in the rocks. Fish going 10-20 pounds…totally legit.
Weird thing is that often they’re in the same spots as the dorado which are warm water fish! That leads me to believe that there’s warm water on the surface then a chilly thermocline down deeper that brought the yellowtail up from colder deeper waters to feed on the abundant bait. At least, that’s what I’m speculating. But no complaints! These are fun good-eating fish!
That’s our story!
Jonathan & Jilly
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.”