CRAZY WEATHER MIXED WITH CRAZY FISHING!

La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay Fishing Report for Week of Aug 28-Sept. 3, 2023

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FISHING REPORT

WEATHER:  Typical for this time of year.  Days are hot and humid in the 90’s and there’s always a chance of a quick rain shower or thunderstorm…mostly in the afternoon.  But we got two gully-washers this week.  One dropped 2 1/2 inches of rain on us in 30 minutes.

WATER:  You would think after the rains they might be pretty muddied up with run-off, but waters are good.  Mostly blue and pretty good visibility and temps in the hi-70’s to mid-80’s on the surface.

SPECIES CAUGHT:  Dorado still the predominant species.  But we got a nice jag of 15-50 pound yellowfin tuna and our first sailfish this week.   Also caught:  rainbow runners, jack crevalle, bonito, roosterfish, triggerfish, snapper, pargo, cabrilla, trevally.

OUR LAS ARENAS FLEET:  Dorado, tuna and sailfish.  The bigger dorado caught here.  Tuna are early biters a bit of a drive down the coast.  If you’re late, you miss the bite.

BREAKING UPDATE…today Sept. 3 as I’m putting this report together something happened at Las Arenas…the bite shut off completely!   Hope it changes!

OUR LA PAZ FLEET:  Best for dorado.  Limits can come easily.  Decent inshore for rockfish

MEXICAN MINUTE VIDEO REPORT

THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…

What a team! Captain Pancho and our amigo, John Ehlers from Colorado always rocking the big fish like this bull dorado.

That’s ALOT o’ meat on the table! Baja prime yellowfin tuna for Daniel and dad, Jim Bovee from San Diego.

Another good day for Karen and Chris Uyemura with Captain Jorge and more dorado to add to the fish ice chest to take home!

Andy Malone from Montana! On fire this week with his fishing took his first sailfish and our first of the season with Captain Jorge. The sail bit a live bait and Andy did a great job releasing the fish!

Darin Moriarity and Ron Wray with Captain Armando. This was not only Ron’s first trip with us, but the big bull was his first dorado ever! There are more dorado on the cleaning table plus some surprise rainbow runners…cousin to yellowtail.

Santa Clause on vacation! Our amigo, Rusty Cain with a huge bull dorado. The photo doesn’t do justice, but Captain Rogelio estimated this fish to roll in the 50-pound-class. The head is enormous!

Hi Taryn! Taryn Mitoma is always fun when she and dad come to visit and has a great pose with a day’s catch! Her dad says, “She catches all the fish!”

Whoa!!! Beast mode! Chris Uyemura and Captain Joel with a massive bull dorado and big smiles to go with it!

Dean Alvarez was here at the start of the tuna bite and has a couple fat ones to with his dorado.

Captain Jorge with Bill Lingo had a good day on the dorado spot!

Now THAT’s alot of variety! Mark and Alex Dirbyshire have been wanting to visit for a long time from Oregon and show off about 5 different species…dorado, snapper, triggerfish, pargo and trevally.

Sherri and Bob Rowe were way fun to visit us. Their first trip and they took home a nice load of dorado fillets. Here’s 1 day’s catch! They already plan to come back!

Montana in the house! First day on the water for Shani and Andy Malone. I think this is Shani’s fish! LOL

Big headed- bull dorado on the gaff for Travis Fries from Idaho. They had 3 nice days of fishing with us and his folks and family!

Herb Preszler and Iris are alway fun visitors and pose with a nice batch of tuna and a dorado on the beach at Muertos Bay. Herb is from the Sacramento area.

Captain Armando became new favorites with Shea and Nick Brown from Utah who had several good days including this one with a pair of slugger yellowfin tuna.

John and Nancy Quiring from Sacramento always do well. First day catch of big dorado on the beach.

Don’t let anyone tell you different! Tuna will tear you up. Good thing, Jim Bovee has some experience with big fish because he battled this yellowfin on a spinning rod for 45 minutes and runs maybe 50+ pounds.

Bob Rowe with his new buddy Captain Rogelio and Bob’s big dorado of the week!

The Laughon brothers from Bishop CA stuck some nice dorado posing on the beach at Bahia Muertos.

Tyler Ehlers with grandpa John and a quiver of mahi and one tuna for the day to add to the previous day’s catch!

Captain Jorge with two more of the Laughon Brothers (5 of them came down) on their first of 3 days fishing.

Love this photo! I think Andy Malone is pretty excited to catch his biggest-ever dorado with Captain Jorge.

Our Texas friends visiting us for the 2nd time this year. Randy Stolte and Brett Watts put a double pair of tuna on the cleaning table!

Day 2, John Quiring hit the tuna honey hole that produced 4 beefy yellowfin.

The excitement! A sailfish grabbing air. Andy Malone’s fish. Caught and released!

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What a crazy week.  Could not have been more hectic or erratic!  For those of you who know me, if I had hair it would’ve been on fire this week the way I was running around…except the rain woulda put it out!

Normally, any of these could have a big-time effect on the fishing:

NOT JUST A FULL MOON – BUT A SUPER FULL MOON

HUGE TIDE SWINGS

STRONG CURRENT

THUNDERSTORMS

TORRENTIAL RAIN

BIG WINDS

BIG WAVES

We had ALL of the above this week PLUS being pretty much completely sold out and packed with our fishermen!

But, here’s the thing…most of these things thankfully, all took place in the afternoon or evenings!  The daytime conditions were not affected…hot…blue water…eager fish!

We had a couple crazy afternoons where the heaven’s literally dumped on us.  Not sheets of rain!  It was like someone just opened a giant spigot.  In one storm, we got a whopping 2 1/2 inches of rain in just 30 minutes that turned La Paz into a giant river of mud and rushing water.

• Cars and people swept away (fortunately no one seriously hurt and they rescued everyone)
• Downtown streets were raging rivers with water up to car windows
• Arroyos were category 5 rapids of mud and debris
• Winds tossed waves 6′ into the air against the Malecon breakwater dousing cars driving by
• 

Like I said, it was just fortunate that most of these things were AFTER everyone was off the water and could watch from safety with a cold one in their hands!  But, this is the time of year when these things can come up at any time.  Most lasted less than an hour (except for the full moon of course!).

As for the fishing, no effect!  It was a GOOD week on so many levels!

The dorado still bit strong with most fish running 10-15 pounds but the larger bulls still lurk up to 40 pounds or so.  Some real trophy fish still here.

We had some great surprises:

We finally got a consistent jag of yellowfin tuna!  We haven’t had much tuna in two seasons, but we had some nice-grade fish in the 15-50 pound class with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet.  I try not to get too excited because you just never know how long the tuna will stick around.  They can be fickle and move fast.   But, we’re due for a good solid tuna bite.

The thing with the tuna is that it’s a long boat ride to the spot.  You don’t have to go out very far.  But, the honey hole is quite a ways down south along the shore/ coast.  And the bite is early.  You gotta jump the spot while the fish are chewing.  If you miss it…you miss it.  That’s the chance you take and you’re probably too late to get back north and catch something else.  It’s a swing for the fences, but can really be worth it.  Or not…

We also got our first billfish of the season.  I have no idea why the billfish haven’t shown up for months so hopefully, they’re ready to go.  It was as single sailfish and it was (good job!) released so maybe we’ll see more along with marlin.

The other surprise were the roosterfish.  Normally this is NOT roosterfish season. We get the big 50-100 pounders in the spring.  If any are around this late, they are the fun 5-10 pounders.  However, some of our anglers popped some 30-40 pound fish on the backside of Cerralvo Island.

Lots of bonito to bend rods all over the place.  Inshore, we got some nice cabrilla, several species of pargo, rainbow runners, jack crevalle and trevally.

BREAKING UPDATE…today (SUNDAY) Sept. 3 as I’m putting this report together something happened at Las Arenas…the bite shut off completely!   Hope it changes!

MEMOS:

BALANCES:  If you’re coming down soon, don’t forget that your balances are due 45 days out.  Get in touch with us.

BUGS:  Everytime we have a strong rain, for about 2 weeks afterwards, bugs hatch like crazy.  This means, flies, mosquitos, moths, butterflies, etc.  Bring some repellant.  Keep your hotel screens closed!

BAJA 1000:  Is coming back to La Paz the 2nd week of November and everything has been sold out for months.  However, we have a 3 BR condo on the beach with 4 restrooms available if anyone is interested.  Contact me directly:  Jonathan@tailhunter.com

That’s our story!

Jonathan & Jilly