DORADO ROOSTERFISH STILL

CENTERSTAGE!

La Paz – Las Arenas / Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay Fishing Report for Week of July 7-12, 2023

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN REPORT

WEATHER – Mostly very hot and humid.  Stay hydrated.  It’s in the high 90’s and hot.  We did have the one day storm Sunday the 9th of July that roared into here with high winds 20-30 mph and big waves.  No rain per se, but it stirred things up.

WATER – See above.  Mostly in the mid to upper 70’s now, but still some cooler water down deeper.  The storm last Sunday turned the water over quite a bit, but each day away from the storm, the waters are settling.

SPECIES CAUGHT THIS WEEK – Dorado, marlin (hooked), roosterfish, rainbow runners, amberjack, bonito, cabrilla, pargo, dog-tooth (cubera) snapper, pompano, trevally, triggerfish.

LAS ARENAS – Larger dorado coming from this area, but also the most variety of fish.

LA PAZ – Mostly school-sized dorado, but you can blow up really fast with crazy action.  Some larger fish around further out and there’s smaller roosterfish along the beaches.

MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO REPORT

THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…

Jim Stahlman, our amigo from Idaho, visits us every year and enjoys fishing with his favorite Captain Jorge. Trolling a ballyhoo produced this incredibly colored bull dorado!

New friends from Texas, Andrew and Yssa DeWoody, fished with us 5 days and show off one of their big dorado.

Yeow! Captain Pancho estimated this rooster to be about 90 pounds and was alot of fish to heft for Smiley Wooten who caught this big one on a live cocinero of Bahia Muertos.  The fish was released.

Captain Victor gives Jim and Jan Sibert a help posing this big bull dorado. Nice batch of fish for the filet table. Jim and Jan are from New Mexico.

Just a great shot of Clay Taylor from Pecos, Texas with his roosterfish. Clay was able to release this rooster strong!

Our first big dog-tooth of the season caught by our amigo, Jim Bovee from San Diego with Captain Pancho. Jim said he was almost pulled out’ve the panga when Pancho gunned the motor to try to yank the big snapper out’ve the rocks.

One of the best shots of the week! Captain Victor with 6-year-old Asher Pierson and his roosterfish. Caught and released!

Great colors on this big bull caught by Raymond King. That’s La Ventana in the background. Nice flat seas!

Two of our very fun first-timers, Richard and Piper Kelm with one of their dorado ready to put in the fish box.

It’s been a few years since Rex Smith has been able to visit us, but always good to see him. Here he is with Captain Gerardo and another big bull. Rex is from Arizona.

Corey Fujita and his son Owen with one of the best photos of the week and a big dorado to start the morning.

There must still be some cooler water down deeper. This is Gary Wagner, owner of Rancho Costa who caught this rainbow runner (cousin to the yellowtail) not far from his place in Bahia Muertos.

How can you not appreciate this awesome photo of 8 year-old Braedon Pierson with two-thumbs up!

More of our new Texas friends, Bridget Oliphant and her fiance Chris Chopelas who had a full week of nice fish including this big bull dorado to top the day’s catch.

Jan Sibert with some great-eating pompano, barred pargo and triggerfish. Fish tacos coming up!

Folks can’t believe the incredible colors of our dorado (means “golden one”) but this photo of Clay Taylor is one of the best examples. It almost looks like a mount the colors are so brilliant!

Andrew with a big smile for this roosterfish catch-and-release!

Brittany Pierson and Captain Victor with big smiles and dorado and flat seas to start the morning!

Great shot! This is 6-year-old Owen Fujita with Captain Joel and a nice cabrilla. Owen is turning into quite a prolific fisherman each year he comes to visit!

One of those rare all-blue dorado we seem to see more of this year than ever before. I think this is our 3rd of the season! Jim Stahlman with the nice catch and photo.

This is a double handful for Mika Diaz visisting us for the first time and fishing with mom and dad.

Andrew and Yssa with another photo of another day’s catch!

Captain Armando, Cathie and Dave Boos and their first-day catch of dorado. Always good to see them and have them visit us.

Smiley Wooten has himself another bull for the fish box!

Tanner and Kevry Pierson fished the day after the big storm and were fortunate to find some blue water and some dorado to start the week.

Owen with Grandpa Robert Fujita and Owen’s dorado!

Wow! Bridget Oliphant again with 2 more big bull dorado on her scorecard for the week! This lady loves to fish! She did 5 straight days on the water.

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We had a little “bump” in the weather over this past weekend (more about that “bump” below), but overall it was good summertime fishing typical of this time of year with sunny hot weather and some better than expected fishing!  Hard to complain about that!

Once again, as it has been for about 2 months now, the focus has been on the nice dorado bite we’ve been having.  Lots of school-sized 5-10 pound fish most days where you can knock out a quick and frenzied limit of fish in an hour or so if you hit the right school.  After that, it’s catch-and-release as long as it goes on or go chase larger fish or other species.

Indeed, there are some real “beast mode” dorado in our waters.

We always get some big dorado down here, but in my 30 years, I don’t remember seeing such a concentration of bigger fish like we’ve had maybe the last 5 weeks or so.

These are fish between 20 and 50 pounds roaming the waters.  Many of them getting lost after slugging-it-out with fishermen but that’s why these are larger and stronger fish!  But, easily more big dorado than I’ve ever seen.

Also, if you had asked me 2 or 3 weeks ago about larger roosterfish, I would have told you the bigger boys had moved off because we’re seeing fewer caught.

However, now I’m thinking that there are still at least some of the bigger roosterfish still hanging out.  It’s just that the dorado bite has been so prevailant and so much fun, especially for many of the families, first-timers, and kids that we’ve had, that everyone is focused on the dorado .

Sure, there’s the fun smaller-sized 5-10 pound roosters around, but the larger ones require alot more commitment.

First, you have to catch the larger baits that they like.  That would be lady fish or cocineros.  You have to put in that time.  Then, you need to slow troll those baits along the the rocks and beaches where the big roosters hang out.  Again, another commitment of time!

But, in a few cases where I’ve had an angler really wanting to go for the larger roosterfish, they’ve connected about 50% of the time resulting in 50-90 pound class fish!  Not sure how long they will stick around, but at least for this past week or so, they are still here.

As for other species, lots of fun on bonito and there’s some big schools of larger-than-normal jack crevalle that will yank anyone out’ve their socks…or flip-flops.  But, we’ve also had biters on cabrilla, pargo, a big dog-tooth snapper, a few marlin (all lost) plus trevally, pompano, triggerfish and even some amberjack and rainbow runners which tells me there might still be some cold water down a bit deeper.  Go figure.  It’s mid-July!

About that “bump” I talked about. . .

A BIT OF WEATHER: 

Last Sunday, pretty much out’ve nowhere we did have a “weather situation. ” It wasn’t really a storm per se.  But we got hit with big winds up to 30 mph from the south as well as huge waves that were described to me as “big as a house.”

We regretfully had to cancel all the fishing trips that day and I’m glad we did.

There was a big fishing tournament in town that day with over 150 teams.  They ran smack into the teeth of the rough weather.  A number of boats had to come back early.  Several boats sank or had to be towed in that were swamped by the big waves and several others came close!  Fortunately, as far as I know, everyone was accounted for.

This is what Muertos Bay where we launch looks like most days.

This is what it looked like last Sunday.  Thanks Gary Wagner for taking the video from his place at Rancho Costa.

Looks like big rain coming across La Paz Bay, but it dissipated before hitting the metro. But big winds and waves preceded it.

Dramatic footage of one of the boats that went down with guys clinging to the bow (not wearing the one lone lifevest) and another in the water.

I was pretty worried about what a “storm” like that would do once we got back on the water.   I was also worried that over 150 teams criss-crossing the ocean would scatter the fish as well.

However, we were able to get back on the water the next day and things had calmed down although it was still a tad bumpy and the waters were turned over.  But, we did find fish in patches of blue water and it seemed that each day further away from the storm over the weekend, things continued to settle down.

That’s my story!

Jonathan