WEIRD BIG FISH… NO FISH?
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Bahia Suenos Fishing Report for Week of May 18-25, 2026
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FISHING REPORT
WEATHER: Erratic. Anything from sunny and warm mid-90s daytime weather to cloudy day. The winds…never seen them so strong in May. One day they blow from HOT HOT HOT. Next day calm. Next day the wind are cold. We even had a rainstorm that was not predicted with lightning.
WATER: Dependent on the weather. There were times during the bouts of wind that it was very very rough. Other times, flat and blue. Surface temps around 80, but if the wind is blowing it can get tough to find patches of clear blue water.
FISH HOOKED THIS WEEK: Dorado, tuna, wahoo, marlin, sailfish, roosterfish, dog-tooth snapper, amberjack, cabrilla, bonito, jack crevalle, pompano, trevally, yellow snapper, triggerfish
FISHING SCALE 1-10: 4.5
THE MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO FISHING REPORT
THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…
Triple-tag team! What a beast! Gary and Kirsten Holtberg and Captain Armando…they tossed their first live bait at 7 a.m. into the water. The big yellowfin tuna that many of my captains estimate at between 250-280 pounds bit and they battled it until after 12. p.m….MORE THAN 5 hours! They had quite a week. Scroll down for their other photos from 3 days fishing!
Randy Choate and wife, Barb, were with Captain Hugo at the buoys soaking a bait when this huge 100 kilo (220 pound) yellowfin bit both of their baits and took off! Both of them battled on 2 rods for over 2 hours to subdue the beast!
Another view of Randy’s large tuna with Captain Hugo
First time visit from Cian Stack from Reno and he had a great time. Nice bull dorado. Cian was on a quick vacation before heading back to start the football season where he’s the long snapper for the University of Nevada Reno football team!
Captain Hugo has been on a hot streak putting our folks om some big dorado like Steve and Grant! Alot of bull (dorado) for the ice chests!
Just one of many big big roosters caught by Brian O’Neil from Atlanta over 6 days on the water with Captain Pancho. All the fish were released!
That’s a happy fella! Captain Pancho and Eric Diegert from Eagle ID with the holy grail of fish here…a wahoo…taken off Cerralvo Island.
Brian Caughlin with us for the first time with a legit trophy cabrilla! Brian often runs the sport boats from San Diego and a good angler.
Just yards off the sand at Punta Arenas, Mark Bonsack with Captain Victor with another big trophy roosterfish for the quick photo and get it back into the water.
You gotta be kidding! Captain Armando and Gary Holtberg with a massive wahoo…maybe the largest I have seen in years estimated at about 80 pounds! Taken off the backside of Cerralvo Island.
It takes two! It was great to have Cian Stack and his dad, Chris come down to visit. They had 4 productive days and took some nice dorado like this one. The guys are from Reno.
Dr. Bruce Trapp with Captain Armando and his roosterfish. Bruce came all the way from Ohio to catch this one rooster finally! Photo and release to swim away strongly!
A good day and big smiles for Dean and Dawn Zamora visiting us for the first time from Idaho. They got some nice meat to bring home.
Brad Felger came all the way from Panama to take a shot at a rooster and got this fish estimated at almost 90 pounds. A quick photo and then a clean release for Brad and his prize!
Captain Gerardo doffs his hat to Doug Fowler and Tom Ames with two of their dorado after fishing with him.
One of the most delicious fish from our waters, Chris Stark was fishing with Captain Alfredo when he hooked this nice one!
First day out, young Tatum Widmer was with his dad, Treve when he hooked into this striped marlin for quite a battle. They were not able to release the fish and were with Captain Jorge. they also got the dorado you see on the cutting table.
That’s alot of rooster in his lap! Jim Stahlman with one of his 3 big roosters on the day. All released.
I think Randall Stitt was the happiest angler of the week! From San Diego, Randall was just tickled to be here and it was pretty infectious. Captain Rogelio stands behind him with a grin for the nice barred pargo.
Bruce Trapp came all the way from Ohio to hopefully get that one rooster! Here he is with his trophy with Captain Armando. The fish was released by Bruce!
Big smiles from Cian and an armful of roosterfish in the shallows off Punta Arenas. Cian released the rooster.
Mikel “Hawk” Hawkins from Texas was hoping to get at least one nice rooster and was with Captain Armando when he finally pulled on in! Photo and release! Great to have him visit!
Four marlin in 2 days for Gary and Kirsten. All but one released. Fishing with Captain Armando.
North Dakota in the house! Famed taxidermist, Brian Kadrmas, with his first of several bull dorado. Good to have him down. He fished alone, but comes back in 3 weeks with more friends!
We love Barb Choate from Boise ID. In all the years she has visited, she never stops smiling. All the more reason with Captain Hugo and this big bull.
Leif Dover has been coming 1 or 2 times for years to fish with us for a whole week and never fails to score big fish like this catch-and-release rooster. Just one of several he caught over the week. Leif is from Atlanta GA.
Mark Bonsack with a bull dorado for the box! Mark is from Cle Elum Washington and has been fishing with us for years.
Jim Stahlman from Idaho has been visiting us for years and this trip wanted to get at least one big rooster. He got three of them with Captain Jorge like this one and released all of them.
Two handed dorado for Cian on the beach at Muertos!
A good start on day 1 with 3 dorado for Mark and Mason Njaa. Good to have them back! They had 3 days of big dorado!
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No sense in sugar-coating it. Not my style after 31 years down here.
The fishing this past week and so far this season has been pretty sketchy. I’l even go so far as to say it has been bad. Not that doesn’t mean it will stay that way…this is (after all)…Baja! But, holy cow, this has been a strange and unpredictable season so far in these early weeks.
You would think that with all the great photos this past week, fishing has been crazy good. It’s not. To be blunt, it’s not great fishing. It’s unseasonably poor.
Yes, there are some spectacular catches of great fish…even historical catches…like the 200+ pound tuna this week or the 80-pound wahoo and all the giant dorado. But, for every boat that gets that trophy, there’s several others that get nothing. Not even a bite. Not even a pelican or seagull!
How is that happening? In 31 years, I’ve never had a start of the season like this one.
Also, for all the big fish you see, that could be the ONLY fish on the boat that day. So, if you hook up, it could be the catch of a lifetime. If you break off or lose it, well…that’s kind of the end of your day. You fishing buddy, might not get a bite.
Also, things change from day-to-day. Nothing is predictable.
A hot boat one day can go ice cold the next and vice versa. A hot spot of fish one day, can turn into an empty ocean the next. Blue water turns green. Flat waters get rough. Rough areas turn into glass!
The biggest variable is the weather.
It SHOULD be hot, sunny and calm every day now with blue seas.
It’s NOT!
One day it’s hot, but has cold mornings. ( I actually had to put on a sweatshirt and turn on my car heater in the morning several times. For the first time in decades). Or the winds actually blow HOT like out’ve a furnace.
One day the winds blow from the north. Then, the south. Then the west. Sometimes, it changes that much in the SAME DAY! So currents are affected. The ocean is affected. One day it’s flat and the next day for the first time, I have experienced anglers getting…SEASICK!
I don’t know what the weather is like where you live but this is crazy weather here. It even rained on afternoon when the forecast said nothing about rain. It rained in another area that had not had rain in over 2 years, but several miles up the road, not a drop fell.
Live bait…our bread-and-butter for fishing down here. One day, it’s available to buy or catch. The next day, it takes hours to get bait. Or the bait is right on the beach. The next day you’re driving the boat an hour to the other side of the bay to find bait. Or the baits are too big…or too tiny. One day, it’s sardines. Or tiny sardines. Or mackerel. Or frozen ballyhoo. Or caballitos. Or chunks of dead bonito. We’re scrambling to have bait.
All we can do is keep putting lines in the water.
Yes, we did get some big fish.
You saw the big monster tuna. In 31 years here, most of our tuna are the fun 10-40 pound size. Over the years, we’ve had maybe a dozen tuna around the 100-pound mark. But this week…you gotta be joking…two tuna between 200-300 pounds?? WOW!!!!
And a wahoo…80 pound wahoo? Most are about 20-30 pounds.
In fact the couple that caught the wahoo had an incredible week. Gary and Kirsten Holtberg from San Francisco area, went out the first day. They got a marlin, a huge dorado and the giant wahoo!
Quite a day!
Day 2 —hard to get bait, but they hook and release 2 more marlin.
Catch-and-release another one!
Day 3 —again with Captain Armando. They put their first bait in the water at 7 a.m. and it gets picked up by a freight train tuna estimated at maybe 280 pounds after battling it for more than 5 HOURS!
Those same days, other boats got…NOTHING…goose-egged. Fishing the same spots!
Same with the dorado. There seem to be no small dorado right now. They are all 20-40 pound fish. We put several on the scale that were almost 50 pounds! But, one boat might get 2 or 3. Another boat might get one. Other boats won’t get a bite.
Just the way it is. But, that’s the report. That’s the way it has been. Doesn’t mean it is staying like that, but I wish I had a better crystal ball. The captains are busting their butts. The guests are being patient. Not gonna catch anything if we don’t have lines in the water!
That’s my story
Jonathan
755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter Sportfishing
8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178 La Mesa CA 91942
Tailhunter Fish Report 