La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay Fishing Report for Week of July 25-Aug.1, 2021
MEXICAN MINUTE VIDEO REPORT
THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…
NOTE: MARLIN and SAILFISH PHOTOS! Folks…before you send me e-mails or post up hate messages, please take notice that there are ALOT of billfish photos in this report. These represent perhaps 5% of the billfish that our fishing fleet hooked this past week. There are THAT many billfish out there. Some days, the waters are thick with billfish. Many times our anglers are NOT trying to catch billfish. But the billfish are biting. The vast majority of the fish that we hook are released by our anglers or (being big fish), they break off or get unhooked). In many cases, the billfish you see here were unable to be released or, after the photo was taken, the fish were indeed returned to the water. In many cases, when the fish was not or could not be released, the meat was donated to local folks who were very grateful for the meat. But, that being said, anglers are entitled to keep a billfish if they did want to keep one and we are very stringent about never exceeding the billfish limits.
Marius came all the way from South Africa to spend two weeks fishing with us every-other-day. He was so impressed, he purchased property in La Paz! He caught lots of dorado and on this particular day hooked, landed and released four billfish all on light tackle including this striper.
Jeanne Cabales had to cancel her yearly trip last year, but is always fun to have visit. She’s pretty excited about these nice dorado. Jeanne is from San Diego.
Not too many funnier guys to have visit us each year than Sal Lopez with another dorado in the boat with our La Paz fleet.
Young Jacob Radloff from northern California…first day…fishing in the rocks in shallow water hooks his first marlin! You don’t have to go a zillion miles out to find big sportfish!
Bo Henke has been fishing with us for a generation every year. He always does well. Here with his son Gio and two of his box of dorado for the day. Loves fishing with Captain Chito.
Jose Mohler from Carlsbad CA had just one day to squeeze in for fishing and had a pretty good day of it with one of several dorado in the photo.
Captain Raul took Luis Arandia out for several days. One of them produced this striper. They took a number of dorado as well. Luis has been fishing with us for years and owns his own high end clothing line. Most of this marlin was donated.
My San Diego “bruddah” from Hawaii has never taken a straight-faced fishing photo in all the years he’s fished with us. This pargo is headed home in the box.
Molly and Travis came all the way from Texas with just one day to fish. They wanted to do some inshore fishing and had alot of action with cabrilla, snapper and triggerfish.
One of our long-standing amigos for so many years came back to see us and got a load of dorado over two days. Hector Chacon from Arcadia CA came down with his dad. Always good to see him.
Dan Sayin and son Aidan squeezed in a day of fishing at the end of their vacation and found a productive day on the dorado schools. Both are from Carlsbad CA.
Daniel Acosta on his first trip to fish with us for 3 days took this striper. Most of the meat was donated.
With the full moon earlier in the week, the fish counts took a tiny bit of a dip, but overall, it was just a nice solid summer week of fishing. It was hot, humid and sunny. Waters were blue and warm and mostly it was pleasant vacation style fishing which is perfect for most folks that are here right now. Lots of couples and families. Lots of first-timers experiencing Mexico and salt-water fishing for the first time. Quite a few kids. So the kind of fishing we had was pretty much just-right!
Dorado made up the mainstay of the catch, especially for our Tailhunter fleets that fish out’ve La Paz. Most of the fish were perfect fun-sized 10-20 pounders with the occasional larger fish. Schools were scattered over a wide area and could provide crazy action if the right school was found.
Sometimes a boat didn’t do as well as other boats, but the next could could be the exact opposite or the boat that didn’t bring back much fish might be because they tied into the other pre-dominant species we had this week…billfish.
Once again, as has been the case for the last two months, we’re seeing more marlin and sailfish than we have ever seen in many seasons. Often, whether you wanted one or not, it was not unusual to hook a billfish…or two…or three!
Many times the anglers are trying to catch a dorado or some keeper fish and along come the marlin and bites and they are in the middle of dorado or bonito or other species. The billfish comes along eating the bonito or the dorado and even the little sardine bait on the tiny hook and light line! Then, the angler is in for a crazy long battle or the fish gets off. It makes for some fun fishing and there is always the unexpected anxiety of not knowing just what is going to bite if you have a line in the water.
Most of the billfish were released or broke off. For all the photos, it represents only a fraction of the billfish that were hooked. If a fish could not be released, more-often-than-not the anglers donated the meat.
Other than dorado and billfish, the rest of the catch included roosterfish which are surprisingly still around with fish up to 40 or 50 pounds as well as jack crevalle, bonito, snapper, pargo and a few other random species. No shortage of action, especially if you’re fishing several days.
Like I said, you could have an off-day here or there, but if you’re fishing several days, the other days might well make up for it.
By the way, beaches have been re-opened and alcohol sales in restaurants and markets are now back to 11 p.m. instead of the 8 p.m. cut off. 😁👍
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