STARTING TO FEEL LIKE SUMMER FISHING AT LAST!
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay Fishing Report for Week of May 26-June 2, 2023
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FISHING REPORT
WEATHER – Warming up. Still very very cool and breezy in the mornings and evening but sunny and pretty most days into the high 80’s and low 90’s. Very comfortable time to be here.
WATER – Definitely clearing up now that the winds are diminishing. More blue water. Sargasso weeds building up north of town which draws in the dorado and billfish.
FISHING (Scale of 1-10) – 6
SPECIES CAUGHT THIS WEEK – barred pargo, pargo liso, yellow snapper, dog-tooth snapper, cabrilla, jack crevalle, bonito, striped marlin, wahoo, dorado, yellowtail, amberjack, pompano, trevally, triggerfish, rainbow runners
LAS ARENAS FISHING – Definitely the spot to get the most species and variety.
LA PAZ FISHING – Better for the most dorado mostly but inshore are the usual, pargo, cabrilla, rockfish.
MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO REPORT
THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…
Right off the rocks, Todd Beckman from Vancouver WA got his first and biggest roosterfish with Captain Gerardo. It’s a big fatty! The fish was released.
Load of YFT…yellowfin tuna off Cerralvo Island for Andy Harrison and Joe Vondrak who have been with us many years and had a great 3 days.
Oh man…that’s alot of bull! Dorado that is! Chris Salanga on his first trip with us shows off two of his big bull dorado plus there’s another one on the table. But, he only has 2 hands!
Steve Bryan from Seattle, is our roosterfish king. He comes every year for 2 weeks to fish for big roosters and has been here a week and taken about a half-dozen big fish…so far! Other photos of his roosters are in this report. Steve releases all his roosters
Matt and his dad Jason Correia from San Diego started off their 3 days fishing with a super variety of fish with Captain Gerardo. On the cutting table, I see yellowtail, rainbow runner, cabrilla, snapper and pargo!
Kolby Zipperer from Colorado with his buddy Robbie Scales says it’s a “catch of a lifetime” with this striped marlin off Las Arenas. He was hunting the tuna schools when this striper hit the baits. The fish was not able to be released.
Jan and Chris Sommer from Orange Co. CA took home a nice load of fish over 3 days like this full table of dorado and snapper!
Two of the nicest folks…Dave and Diane Kosnowsky…from Washington State always do well fishing with us and show of a couple of dorado they caught with Captain Alfredo with our La Paz Fleet.
First one is a trophy! Matt Correia took this roosterfish not to far off the Las Arenas point and released it!
All the way from North Carolina, Emmett Ball was with Captain Victor when he hooked this colorful bull dorado.
Katie Olson lives up in the Sierra Mountains near Mammoth CA and has been our sweet amiga for many years. This lady knows how to fish and has fished all over the world! Her last day she got an box full of limits of dorado north of La Paz including a couple of legit bulls.
This is Johnny Stone…always fun to have him down from San Diego and he always gets fish every year like this double-fist of dorado from near Espirito Santo Island
Todd Beckman says he must have caught about a dozen species fishing all week with us. This table alone shows trevally, rainbow runners, snapper, pargo, cabrilla and there might even be a triggerfish buried in there as well!
The “right kind” for Jeff Correia on this legit roosterfish for a quick photo and release.
Steve Bryan with another big catch-and-release roosterfish. He is still fishing a few more days as I write this, but I think he has 7 big fish from last week. All released.
Captain Boli gives Jan Sommer a hand and a gaff with another dorado in the box! That’s Espirito Santo Island in the back north of La Paz. Check that flat ocean!
We call this a good start to a week of fishing. Dave and Diane again with some great eating pargo, snapper and even a little yellowtail in there!
Captain Armando is not small. He just looks that way next to Jon Eide and John Vondrak posing with a table of yellowfin tuna.
It might not be the heaviest dorado of the week, but boy…it sure has to be the “longest” dorado of the week and definitely the biggest dorado Steve Bryan has caught in all his years fishing with us. It’s still a beast!
It’s Doreen’s birthday and she has a pretty nice rack of fish on the cutting board to pose with including yellow snapper and some trophy cabrilla.
That’s alot of fish to clean! But, Rey Salanga and nephew Chris had a great day and great week of fishing with super variety like this!
Keaton Lesnik and his dad only had 2 days to squeeze in on a quick turn-around trip, but rocks the fish with dorado, cabrilla, snapper, pargo and yellowtail.
Captain Jorge with Jim Elrod and his big dorado!
Chris Salanga and the magic touch for big bull dorado all week!
The dorado fishing north of La Paz ramped up nicely for fish like Jason Correia’s that he put in the boat.
Chris, Captain Pancho and a mess of football tuna to get on ice!
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We are still not quite up-to-speed with where we should be with the fishing but it sure has improved tremendously over the last 2 weeks or so from what we had in April and May!
This all has to do with the weather. It’s still chilly and breezy in the mornings, but overall the air temps have improved and we’re now in the high-80’s and low 90’s. Waters have cleared up and we’re finding more blue waters now. Winds have abated tremendously.
And the fishing has improved as well.
Still a tremendous amount of variety with cold water species like yellowtail, sierra, amberjack, pargo, snapper, rainbow runners and others still in the fish catches with some good sized catches and trophy fish if you want to stay fishing over the rocks and reefs. This can be all-day fun and action.
However, it’s the other species that are really starting to take off a bit and we’re hopeful it will continue to improve.
Dorado, for one, started showing up in bigger numbers about 2 weeks ago. Most were school-sized 5-12 pounders. If you found the right school, you could take limits very quickly of eager fish with many smaller fish getting thrown back.
However, the larger models started to make their presence known with with in the 20-40 pound class some some perhaps larger that got unbuttoned or broke lines.
North of La Paz, the sargasso weed patches are starting to form up which is good news to bring in more dorado to the area.
Additionally, it looks like the waters have warmed up enough that the marlin are finally feeding. For weeks they have been sunning on the surface oblivious to everything. This week, however, we’re getting some fish willing to finally go! Blue marlin around Cerralvo Island as well as striped marlin in several areas are now showing up with several hooked, landed and released. The same areas are also producing some wahoo hook-ups although this past week nothing was landed. We know the fish are there!
Likewise, with each week, we seem to get more of the large trophy roosterfish. The smaller 5-10 pounders have been around for weeks, but only the last two weeks are we seeing the bigger models move in to feed on the large ladyfish that have moved into the beach areas as well. So the big roosters are following their food source.
The nicest surprise were the football yellowfin tuna that popped up for several days. These were fun-sized 8-15 pounders that put on a nice show. Not big enough to hurt anyone, but alot of fun bending rods and a real treat. We hope this is a good sign of the start of a tuna season.
We got a full moon this week. It will be interesting to see how that affects things. Last month it put the brakes on things, but that was also because we had big winds and strong tides and currents. We don’t have those right now. Fingers crossed.
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Tailhunter Sportfishing
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