SPRING CONDITIONS FINALLY BRING LOTS OF SPECIES

AND ACTION!

La Paz- Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Bahia Suenos Fishing Report for Week of May 7-14, 2021

MEXICAN MINUTE VIDEO REPORT

The BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…

Nice 1 day catch that doesn’t include all the roosterfish and jack crevalle they released, but left to right holding pompano, yellow trevally, snapper and pargo are Sy Thomas (Thousand Oaks CA), Brian and Kelly Bowman (Payson AZ) and Rick Kasper (Arizona/ Wyoming/ Texas/ California).

Yes, this is a massive pargo liso! See more about this fish below. Scroll down!

Another incredible week for these beautiful pompano. Maybe the best pompano bite I can remember! Just off the Punta Arenas lighthouse sands, Roger Thompson holds up a whopper!

Jordan Curet right off the rocks, she and her husband caught and released 6 roosterfish in a single day.

Todd Hembry was fishing north of La Paz around Espirito Santo Island with Captain Boli when this huge cabrilla bent his rod!

Roger again…wahoo again! Finally, the wahoo started biting this week. That’s Cerralvo Island in the backgroun and Roger has a knack for these speedsters!

Bryce Gordon with one of several nice roosterfish he caught and released this particular day just outside of Bahia Muertos.

Captain Jorge with Sy Thomas and Rick Kasper and a trio of tasty pompano.

Early season dorado and one of the first of the year for us with Todd Hembry caught just outside of La Paz Bay.

Bryce and Jordan Gorgon with a double double of nice pompano.

No shortage of action when the jack crevalle schools move into the shallow. Our amigo, Gary Wagner from Rancho Costa.

The man in the mask, Bryce Gordon, with another rooster for a quick photo and release.

No doubt, I can officially say the seasons are changing. Generally warmer sunnier weather with gentler kinder winds (most of the time!) herald that we’re finally moving out from the colder harsher winter conditions to an actual spring-time season.

The best indication of that are the water conditions understandably coupled with a change in the complexion of the fishing.

Although we still got occasional days of brutal winds, for the most part now, they are the anomaly rather than the norm. Waters are warming and in many areas changing from the cloudier-colder greenish gray to clearer blue waters.

After maybe the most spectacular yellowtail season in decades, colder water fish like the yellowtail are diminishing along with other cooler-water species like sierra and amberjack, although there’s still no shortage of a host of other winter-ish species like snapper, pargo-liso, barred pargo and some huge cabrilla/ grouper. If you like shallow-water fishing you can bend rods all day over the rocks fishing for these great fun fish.

However, more and bigger roosterfish have moved in. Fish in the 20-60 pound class can now be found along the shallow sandy beaches as well as near the rocky drop-offs near cliffs and around both Espirito Santo Island and Cerralvo Island. We had one day where 3 of our pangas totaled 18 roosters caught and released on a single day.

However, other members of that same jack-family like the roosterfish have been abundant as well to add to the species list. Big schools of slugger jack crevalle are cruising the inshore channels with fish up to 15 pounds but the biggest surprise has been the huge African pompano that have shown up.

This past week, we had more pompano catches than I have ever seen. Usually, the fish are 5-9 pounders, but the past several weeks has produced fish up between 10-15 pounds with multiple hook-ups on some pangas. Mixed in are giant yellow trevally (palometa) as well which are also members of the jack family and also great eating.

Related to the warming waters, we’re also finally hooking up some wahoo and some schools of dorado have moved into the fishing counts as well. Hopefully more of both in the coming weeks as conditions improve!

WOULDA COULDA SHOULDA (WORLD RECORD?)

This past week, we had a pretty exciting catch.  Popular Captain Pancho with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet was out with Dr. Jesus Velarde when this huge pargo liso (mullet snapper) bit his sardine.  Now, MOST pargo we see are 5-10 pounders and they are TOUGH TOUGH fish to pull out’ve the rocks!

However, this fish was estimated by Pancho to be about 50 pounds!

After checking the photo, I went to the IGFA website to check the official world record.  It turns out to have been Rolla Cornell’s big 45 pounder caught in 2007 in our area with our friend David Jones’ Fisherman’s Fleet.  Take a look at the two fish and see if Pancho’s is larger.  They’re pretty close!

Rolla Cornell’s 2007 world record mullet snapper of 45 pounds caught in our waters fishing with David Jones’ Fisherman’s Fleet.

Dr. Velarde’s fish…maybe not as long as the Cornell fish, but most folks seem to think it’s much thicker!

It’s too bad, but still an incredible catch.  There have been so many records and near records taken out’ve our La Paz waters over the years.  The world record roosterfish of 114 pounds is still in the books and personally, we’ve had 2 world records set by our anglers and maybe another 6 that would have been world records except we cut them up into fillets and then checked the photos and record books later!  We DO have an IGFA scale at our offices.

You never know what that next fish will be!!!

That’s my story

Jonathan