NICER WEATHER BUT TOUGHER FISHING LAST WEEK!

(…BUT WAIT…SOMETHING HAPPENED JUST BEFORE I POSTED THIS! HURRICANE COMING)

La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Bahia Suenos Fishing Report for Week of Sept. 15-22, 2026

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN REPORT

WEATHER: Some of the prettiest weather we’ve had in weeks.  Sunny and warm, but not crazy 120-130 degree weather like the previous weeks.  More like 95 during the day with less humidity. A few passing thunderstorms, but nothing big or flooding .

WATER:  Mostly pretty flat and calm, but 10-15 degrees warmer than normal ranging from 90-95 degrees on the surface.  Great to swim.  Not so great for fishing.

FISH HOOKED THIS WEEK (Not necessarily landed):  Dorado (mucho little guys), tuna (3- none landed), wahoo (1 not landed), sailfish (1 – not landed), 2 marlin (not landed), dog-tooth snapper (lost most of them in the rocks), pargo, rainbow runner, triggerfish, bonito (lots of them)

BOTTOM LINE:  Scale of 1-10, I give it a 2.  Everyone catching fish and lots of action, but not much quality fish. Tons of bonito, but tough on dorado.

MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO REPORT

THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…

Our Canadian friends, Vern and dad Gerry Eichhorn pulled on several big dog-tooth snapper and finally got this one out’ve the rocks . Great eating and difficult fish!

Always great to have Doug Nuffer from Utah visiting us. This time, he brought daughter Maddie. First day with Captain Gerardo produced some nice dorado action .

Armando with our good friend from Colorado, Brett Bleichrodt and his roosterfish (released)

Texas in town! Rob and Coley Taylorand Tyler Knutson with some trophy barred pargo and some schoolie dorado.

Always good to see Curtis and Connor White with us.

Tailhunter friends for several decades, David and Michele Conklin with a double-rooster hook up. Both fish were released.

Joe Moreno, Captain Armando and Josh Moreno visiting us for the first time hit 3 days of action. Really great guys!

Warner Phipps visiting us for the first time with one of his dorado. Warner came to us from Colorado.

Peggy Albee from Montana. She and husband Ron were great fun all week even though the fishing was tough. She has a fine triggerfish here.

__________FISHING REPORT PART ONE ____________

OK…I had to break out the fishing report into a weird format this week.  Just was I was about to publish (it takes a few days to put these together) a bunch of things happened and it was too late to change what I already had or re-do another video.  So read Part One…then go to Part Two and Part Three…

Since the last report, we had more changes to navigate.

After weeks of localized rains and thunderstorms that hit almost every day somewhere in the area and sometimes causing some big flooding problems, we hit some of the prettiest days I have seen in a long time.

Instead of 115-130 degree weather we got more manageable days that produced relatively “cooler” temps in the low 90’s with lots of bright sunshine.  Occasionally, there were some showers in the mountains or parts of the bay, but otherwise we could not have asked for better weather.

But, true to form, the unexpected hit.  You would think we had super fishing conditions.  Well, that’s so…

…but the fishing got even worse!

For the most part alot of tiny dorado…a few rockfish…roosterfish…and that was all.

These dorado were maybe 5-pound fish on the average!  So many were released.  Some days they were all around.  Other days they had to really look for them.  But nothing really to write home about or take photos, let alone much to take home to the freezers.

Again, we think with this SUPER EL NINO, the waters are just way too warm to sustain any of the larger fish.  With ocean temps up to 94 degrees, that’s just 10 or more degrees warmer than normal.  That’s not bath water.  That’s jazuzzi water.  Great to swim, but not so great for the fish as the heat depletes the oxygen supply to the fish.  We think the bigger fish have all gone down deep to cooler waters that are more oxygenated and only come up when they really need to to grab something to eat.

I’m actually hearing this in many places along the Sea of Cortez.  Fishing is just sticky (stinky?).

It is what it is and it seems every week or every day there is another change we have had to deal with this season.  Just trying to always be honest about things.

__________FISHING REPORT PART TWO________________

Just as I was about to publish the report above lamenting the lame fishing…yet another surprise change!

Our Tailhunter Fleets at Las Arenas hit some quality yellowfin tuna.  These were a nice grade of fish in the 20-50 pound class.  After a super tuna bite from May to July, we had not seen tuna since the last week of July!

Then, they left…but check these out…

Maddie and Doug were with Captain Gerardo

Gerry and Vern Eichhorn were fishing with Captain Victor

____________FISHING REPORT PART THREE_____________

Once again, I was just about to publish all the info above with the new vidoe and WHAM!  Hurricane Polo shows up to the south of us!  It’s looking pretty angry…

Here’s the deal…

In a matter of hours it ramped-up from  a tropical storm…to a full hurricane…then kept growing into a Category 5 storm!  That’s the highest biggest hurricane rating they have with winds approaching 200 mph!

As of the moment I am writing this, Polo is moving slowly north. It is already impacting parts of mainland Mexico.  Currently, the eye will NOT hit Baja.

However, the peripheral storm bands have us all watching carefully.

We’ve dodged 5 hurricanes this year that either drifted out to the Pacific or went up the coast to California (sorry Socal!).

The bands of Polo are still likely to hit us with heavy rains, high surf, strong winds and big waves.

…or it could completely miss us.

..or it could change directions suddenly like Hurricane Odile in 2014 that reversed course and blew southern Baja off the map.

It’s going to be an interesting next week.  As of today (Wednesday) reports say that Cabo San Lucas will start closing the port/marina for the next 5 days.  We’re pretty sure that La Paz will probably do so in the next few days as well.

The next few days will tell, but as of right now, that’s the story.

And that’s MY story!

Jonathan