THE STRUGGLE IS REAL – Crazy Fishing!

La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Bahia Suenos Fishing Report for Week of May 11-18, 2023

MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO FISHING REPORT

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN REPORT

OVERALL FISHING (Scale of 10) – 3

WEATHER – Big thermometer.  50’s to 80’s.  Really chilly mornings and unseasonably windy.  Bring a sweatshirt or light jacket you can take off

WATER – Because of the erratic winds, water temps are all over.  Water is also cloudier and greener than usual because of it. Gotta hunt around . There’s warm blue water mixed with the turbid waters.

BAIT – Mostly no problem getting live bait of sardines, mackerel, caballitos, cocineros

FISHING – Really up-and-down.  Different from day-t0-day and boat -to-boat.  Lots of variety, but really gotta work for the fish and find a spot where they are biting.

SPECIES CAUGHT THIS WEEK – pargo mulatto, rainbow runner, yellowtail, amberjack, sierra, bonito, jack crevalle, pompano, trevally, cabrilla, palometa, tuna, dorado, totuava, roosterfish

THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…

Just when I thought the waters had warmed and the yellowtail were gone, Troy Kuzminsky came back with this double haul from the island.

Some dorado starting to move in. Captain Jorge has a thumbs-up for our good amigo, Johnny Chung, from Oregon!

Daniel Bovee comes down every year and does well. He put the first wahoo into the boat for the season off Cerralvo Island.

Just way too cute of a photo. Summer Kuzminsky’s first rooster! She also released the fish!

It’s all about the smiles and good times! Megan Nay from Colorado with her first-ever fish!

Neil Kanemoto from Hawaii on his first trip with us hung ths nice trevally off the rocks with Captain Rogelio.

Captain Armando with two of our funnest amigas from Oregon, Tracy Chung and Patty Killian with quite a variety of rock and reef fish. Alot of it ended up for dinner at our Tailhunter Restaurant.

The “Cabrilla Master.” Glen Adkins hadn’t had a bite all day but right at the end, Captain Edgar put him over a rock pile that produced a half-dozen of these trophy cabrilla. Gorgeous and great eating fish!

Marie Wirtz from Bend OR had just one day to squeeze in for fishing and got this pretty dorado fishing with Captain Victor.

Off Espirito Santo Island, Tom Worley from Colorado got one of the nicer roosterfish of the week for a photo and release.

A slug tuna! Troy was dropping a jig off Espirto Santo Island for yellowtail when he got hammered by this 50-60 pound tuna. He said never ever fought as hard!

Dean Sensui is the TV of of the show long running “Hawaii Goes Fishing” back in Hawaii and shows off a nice little rooster for the camera before putting it back in the water.

Another of our Hawaii brothers who visited us, Mark Mitsuyasu with a taste barred pargo.

Big smile from Crystal Kuzminsky and her roosterfish. We’re starting to see more coming in finally. Crystal released her fish.

Damon Donovan from Reno and dad, Jim Donovan, from Connecticut on the beach with a little yellowtail and amberjack.

Johnny with a fat bonito and Captain Jorge. The bonito have been big fat and feisty this week.

Captain Armando helps Nate Abe get a quick photo of a nice jack crevalle.

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If you’ve been reading our other fishing reports these past weeks, you can tell that it was probably a better fishing week than before just by the increasing number photos.

That’s true to some degree.

Overall, last week was so slow with the full moon and wind that any improvement had to be better and indeed, in terms of numbers, quantity and quality it was an up-tick.

However, we still had to work hard for the fish.

For one, these winds are really chilling things off.  These aren’t the northern winds that blow us off the water every winter.  These winds are from the south and usually warmer, but this whole past month, it’s been darned cold, especially in the mornings.

I’m wearing a heavy sweatshirt and long pants.  Captains have heavy jackets.  Clients are scrambling to Walmart and Sears to buy sweatshirts.  I’m not kidding.  If you’re coming down, it wouldn’t hurt to throw something into the suitcase that you can wear and take off later, because later in the day it turns into sunshine and 85 degree weather.

But the winds have been blowing from the south…then switching to the west…back to the south…now from the north.  It’s all over and un-predictable!

The winds have made it rougher than we normally have it this time of year plus the winds have stirred up the waters so that they are cloudier and definitely colder than usual.

To that end, the fishing has been well…less than stellar.  Being perfectly honest.

No problem getting live bait like sardines, mackerel, cocineros and caballitos.  But, the fishing has been all over the place.  It’s hard to know what will bite or where they will bite. Every day is different.  Every spot is different.  Our captains are busting their chops and burning engine gass working hard to find fish our folks.

Some boats struggle to get a bite.  The boat right next to them is hooking fish in the same spot.  One hot spot turns cold the next day.  We go looking for one species of fish and something totally different shows up.  Some boats struggle all day.  Their friends come back talking about a fun day of action!  Go figure.

On the good side…

This our Art’s 2nd time down this month! He’s been a long-time Tailhunter amigo from Colorado and has a pig of a bonito in this photo.

We’re getting alot of different species.  That is typical of this time of year.  You can just tell by looking at the the photos!   And it’s good to be getting more roosterfish although not yet seeing those big hog roosters.   I think when the larger sabalo (ladyfish) move into the shallows, the bigger roosters will show up as the sabalo are a favorite food for the big gallos.

We also got our first wahoo of the season as well.  We’ve seen them around for several weeks, but haven’t gotten any to stick.  Also, there’s obviously some tuna in the area and billfish as well hopefully ready to go-off soon  Nice to see more dorado as well, which means the waters are warming a bit.

We are also seeing billfish sunning themselves on the surface waiting for the ocean to get a big warmer and hopefully, they get ready to bite!

UNUSUAL CATCH

Daniel Bovee’s totuava!

In the mid 1900’s  you could catch 100-200 pound totuava way up 1000 miles in the northern Sea of Cortez.  San Felipe was well known for these huge fish which are related to the smaller white seabass many southern California ocean fishermen are familiar with.  These fish were massive.  And delicious often described and “buttery” in flavor.  Parts of the fish were also popular on the Asian market as well.

Unfortunately they were also popular sportfish and commercial fish.  Unregulated fishing back then depleted the fish population almost to extinction and hence fishing for them was banned.  It’s now illegal to catch them.  The ones sometimes found on menus are supposedly “farm raised” fish.

However, this past week we caught TWO of them!

Not the massive ones, but still legit 20-pound-class fish.  In my 30 years here in La Paz, I’ve never seen even one of these.  Mostly these fish are relegated far up the Sea of Cortez in cooler waters.  So it was quite a surprise.  Both fish were released.

From what I found out later, there’s a totuava fish farm somewhere in the bay and they have a big fast hole in the net and fish have been escaping.  So this might not be the last totuava we see!

That’s my story!

Jonathan & Jilly