WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WEEK MAKES!
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay Fshing Report for Week of May 19-25, 2023
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN REPORT
WEEKLY RATING – (scale of 1-10). I give it a 6. It was about a 3-4 for weeks!
WIND – Finally gave us a break from those gusty cold winds we’ve had for months!
WATER – As winds have diminished, water temps have risen. Water has also gotten clearer and less cloudy.
TEMPS – High 60’s / Low 70’s at night to High 80’s and Los 90’s in the day time.
BAIT – Sardines, mackerel, bullitos, caballitos, strips and chunks or fresh bonito
LAS ARENAS FISHING
Still lots of species, but increasingly more of the warm-water species as the temps rose and winds cut back. Still getting pargo, snapper, cabrilla and others, but more and larger roosterfish, dorado and wahoo now.
LA PAZ FISHING
Waters stayed largely colder than Las Arenas most of the week, but late in the week temps rose a bit more and we’ve gone from rockfish to more dorado action.
FISH CAUGHT THIS WEEK:
Dorado, marlin, tuna, wahoo, pargo, snapper, grouper, bonito (3 kinds), jack crevalle, amberjack, yellowtail, sierra, rainbow runners, barracuda, cabrilla, triggerfish, roosterfish.
AMIGOS VISITING FROM: Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, Washington, Montana, Colorado, South Carolina, California, Honduras, Michigan, Wisconsin. We had a full-house!
MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO FISHING REPORT
THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…
Finally, some of the larger roosterfish started to show with Captain Gerardo and Ron Woita from Oregon who spent the better part of a week chasing the roosters. Each day they seemed to get a little bigger. Here’s one of the larger models with lots of smiles! All roosters were released all week.
Captain Pancho gives Nancy Enright from San Diego a hand with a good-looking bull dorado!
Technically, our first marlin of the season caught by our long-time amigo, Art Flippin from Colorado who was on his 2nd visit to us. He was here in April as well. The marlin was deep hooked and unable to be released.
Now THIS is a healthy legit big-boy cabrilla! David Noble was on his first trip with us and took this guy just off Espirito Santo Island where we’ve found a number of these larger fish.
All the way from S. Carolina, Dr. Bob Garrison hooked this tasty barred pargo just off the shallow beach near Punta Arenas.
The right kind! It was a good week for the wahoo to finally show up. Lora Burke pulled this ‘hoo off near Cerralvo Island.
Armando with Karl Davis and Don Markus the day the dorado finally started to chew near Las Arenas! They were a little late this year, but finally arrived. Hopefully to stay around a bit!
Marie Wirtz just had the one day to squeeze in a day of fishing and boated a number of species like this roosterfish she photo’d and released!
Somewhere behind the gaff Sue Stanley from San Diego is smiling as she tries to lift her big cabrilla with help from Captain Alfredo.
Yup! We even had some football tuna show up of Cerralvo Island. That’s Ryan and his dad Bruce Bonsack from the Seattle area.
Here’s Ed Aguilar and Kent Markus with a nice variety for their first day on the water including dorado, snapper, cabrilla, pompano and trevally!
Talk about a banner day! On 2 pangas, they caught Mark, Ryan and Bruce Bonsack from Washington caught 5 wahoo and several more were lost!
Texas in the house! Good amigo Allen Cazier with Captain Licho holding the gaff on another of those large cabrilla off Espirito Santo Island.
That’s alot of good looking fish meat on the cleaning table! Matt Shipley from Texas and Kelly Kartchner from Utah have trevally, pargo and dorado ready to get into the ice chests!
First timers Michael and Louise McMichael always had the best smiles. They were on the water that day the dead whale was found floating offshore holding all the dorado anyone could want like these!
I can see Captain Gerardo with a big small and I think that’s Sam Woita from Kansas behind the mask and dorsals of another big roosterfish. (released!)
Bob Stanley from San Diego with a good-looking cabrilla for the fish box with Captain Alfredo lending a hand!
Marie Wirtz and our Captain Victor with a lengthy colorful dorado. She’s from Bend, Oregon.
The story I got is that Denise Peters hooked the fish and fought it, but finally it got the best of her and she handed it to my long-time amigo, Don Peters, who finished off the big dorado. They came to visit us from Oklahoma.
John Pooley and Billy Harrison with some nice variety after their first day on the water with pargo, snapper, cabrilla and triggerfish.
Of course, Lori Thorpe caught the “big one” a nice dorado with Captain Arcangel. Husband Jeff helps the pose. Other species on the cutting table.
Captain Victor and Arthur Wirtz and another rooster for a photos and release.
Diane Kosnosky knows how to fish and always puts fish in the box whenever she visits like this solid cabrilla. Diane is from Washington.
Ed Aguilar was fun to have visit this week and he nailed this trophy dorado out’ve Bahia Muertos.
On the flyrod! Dave Noble with a cute little roosterfish for the photo and release.
Guy Markus and Steve Wright on their 2nd trip visiting us in La Paz started their fishing week with a pargo liso (mullet snapper); a rare barracuda; 2 rainbow runners and a triggerfish.
Jim Elrod from Bakersfield was visiting us for the first time and gets a hand with this dandy bull dorado from his amigo, Luis, to get the great photo.
Lots of fine eating and a day full of action for Don, Karl and Captain Armando who has his work cut out for him cleaning all these cabrilla and pargo!
We finally strarted to see dorado with our La Paz fleet and around Espirito Santo Island. Asa has one for the fish box and dinner back at Tailhunter Restaurant.
You can’t see her, but Lora Burke is back there helping hold up her striped marlin. They couldn’t release the fish.
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Let’s start by saying that the fishing still is NOT up to where it should be at this time of year.
However, compared to what it’s been like for the past month, it’s a zillion-times waaaaay better!
Here’s the deal. Just like the winter which was harsh down here, we continued with chilly weather, strong winds, cloudy overturned water and a chillier-than-normal ocean. That meant really scratch fishing pretty much all of April and May when we should have been getting bit pretty nicely.
Well, this past week the sun got warmer. The winds gave us a break. The ocean turned bluer. The rough current settled down. And not surprisingly it made all the difference.
If you just look at all the photos or compare them to the previous reports, anyone could tell our fishing was markedly improved.
No doubt there’s still cooler waters down below the surface which produced cold-water species like yellowtail, rainbow runners, amberjack, several species of pargo, sierra, cabrilla (some huge ones!) plus the usual bonito and jack crevalle.
However, with the warmer water, we got more pompano, palometa (trevally), the larger roosterfish, but also the much-desired warm-water pelagic species like some wahoo,;our first few marlin of the season; and finally some dorado!
In fact, one day there was a dead whale near Cerralvo Island. According to one of our anglers, there were “hundreds” of dorado everywhere flashing through the waters and as many as 20 pangas were out there with everyone completely bent and dorado flying everywhere. Everyone nailed limits of 10-pound class schoolie-sized dorado.
Then, as the week went on, the dorado got bigger with more 20-30 pound fish in the counts!
Then, there were the wahoo. We knew they were there, but they sure were reluctant to bite. Well, they finally came to the party. One day we had 5 back to the beach and another 4-5 lost! Some of these wahoo were conservatively estimated 50-60 pound fish or larger.
One day, we even had football-sized tuna show up as well.
Additionally, with the bigger ladyfish baits finally swimming along the shallows, not surprisingly the larger roosterfish in the 40-70 pound class also started biting. We’ve been waiting for several weeks! But, even without them, there were good numbers of 5-15 pound roosters to have fun.
If the weather continues to improve, I expect the fishing will also improve.
Additionally, the unusual fish arrivals continued! A few weeks ago, we got rare totuava in the counts. Illegal to keep so they were released, but those fish are usually found way up 1000 miles north in the Sea of Cortez and I’ve never seen totuava down here.
Then, we got a few more species that I’ve never seen down here in 30 years:
Captain Pancho with a red-bearded-brotula (brotula a la lengua).
A star-studded grouper caught by Mark Bonsack
Lora with another grouper also called a baqueta by locals.
All-in-all an interesting and much better week. What a difference a week makes!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Tailhunter Sportfishing
Mexico Office: Tailhunter International, 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter Sportfishing
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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