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Wow! What an excellent photo. This is our amiga from Oregon, Debbie White, with Captain Pancho. She always seems to do well here and take great photos like this (actually, husband Don takes the shots!), but check out the colors on this big bull dorado she got fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet. There's some nice bulls out there!

It was a good week for the ladies to show the guys a thing-or-two! First timer amiga from San Diego, Leanne Pleasants, fished off Espiritu Santo Island for a day and took limits of dorado with her family including this nice mahi!

That's our son, Jarrett Pfost, with a nice dorado and standing behind him is first timer and new funny amigo, Gary Pleasants from San Diego. They spent a day working the sargasso weeds north of La Paz for some limits of dorado.

Yes...there's still tuna around. Check out Don and Debbie! Debbie was actually on a fish estimated over 100 pounds for an hour and it came off right next to the boat. The tuna bite has been sporadic at best. One day there's fish and then several days of nothing but empty ocean. Fish have ranged from 25-150 pounds and are around Cerralvo Island with some schools moving closer.

It was another good week for marlin and sailfish for both of our Tailhunter Fleets. Most of the fish are breaking off or are getting released. Rick Hosmer took this underwater shot of one that ate his jig. We had two fish estimated over 300 pounds bust off and we also had our spearfisher buddy, John Peretti, who has had several spearfishing records line up and take a shot on a fish estimated over 1000 pounds...and miss. The water was so clear he unfortunately misjudged the distance and the spear shaft dropped short! He said, "I missed the fish of a liftime!" He said he saw the big blue eating big bonito beneath the surface.

Fish Brother, Ray Laney, spent an entire week with us and fished every single day! He had a spectacular week fishing with our La Paz fleet hooking 5 or 6 mariln/sailfish and numerous dorado like this big bull!

Big smiles from Diana Pleasants with her first roosterfish which was released. It was another good week for the roosters, especially around the Las Arenas area. Diana is from San Diego.

Just after Stan Andre took this photo of his buddy, Terry Hawk and his dorado, he dropped his iPhone in the water. It started working two days later and they were able to save this photo of Terry and his nice bull dorado!

For those of us who consider needlefish the curse of the ocean, take a look at this beast being held up by Captain Raul!

PARTING SHOT! Everyone tries to take photos of leaping fish, but it's harder than it looks. First to take the photo. Second to make it look good! These fish are moving faster then it looks! Rick Hosmer caught this one perfectly in mid-flight!

VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK

Click the link to see some of the video and still images from the week:

Video 1:  Debbie White struggles with a 100-pound tuna!

Video 2:  Some summary shots and clips of the week

SLIGHTLY OFF-WEEK AS FULL MOON HITS BUT DORADO STAY STRONG WITH OTHER SPECIES FILLING IN!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 10-17, 2011

Maybe it was the full moon coming up on us, but it was an up-and-down week with the fishing here.  It wasn’t bad.  It just wasn’t exactly off-the-charts either.  Weather was hot and muggy and very tropical and we had some little showers here and there ,but overall pretty nice weather, but the fishing was good some days and so-so on other days.

 

Like previous weeks, dorado led the way and were the predominant catch.  Our La Paz fleet continued to do the best.  There’s quite a bit of sargasso formed up along the current lines and you just have to find the right spots.  The general pattern seemed to indicate that fish were all over under the weeds, but the best bite was usually late.  A common comment from many of our anglers was that they were “bored” or “almost giving up on the day”  as captains tried to get the reluctant fish to bite.  All of a sudden somewhere between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. fish would start hitting.  Maybe it was 1 at-a-time.  Maybe it would be a whole slam school that hit the boat and all craziness would break out.  But, at the end of the day, folks would look in the fix box and go “Hmmmm…I guess we DID get some fish!” and grin.  Most of the fish were not big fish but there was alot of action and there were some spots where we hooked into some 30-40 pounders.  We also lost quite a few fish as well for whatever reasons! 

 

For our Las Arenas fleet, the elusive tuna continued to be the bug-a-boo for anglers.  One day, they’d hit the 88 spot that has been producing tuna for several week and nothing would even sniff.  Not a fish…not a bird…no porpoise schools…NOTHING!  Next day, guys would go out there and 20-150 pounders would be all over the place!  Go figure.  So, it was either hit or miss with the tuna.  There’s definitely some big boys still out there.   We had several larger models get away and one fish straightened a hook on an angler of ours.

 

If the tuna weren’t working there were scattered dorado schools to be hunted out at the buoys just offshore from Las Arenas and pangas will leap-frog each other trying to find some fish that will bite.  There’s also ALOT of billfish activity working all areas as well.  A number of smaller striped marlin and sailfish were hooked and released this week and several blue marlin in the 300-pound category were also hooked and lost.

 

As well, if you want a roosterfish, those have been our saving species on days when other stuff just wasn’t biting.   Find some sandy areas of beach or some drop offs and it’s been a good season for roosterfish, especially for the school-sized fish in the 5-40 pound class.

 

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jill

 

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

 

TAILHUNTER FISHING FLEET #1 Rated on Trip Advisor

TAILHUNTER RESTAURANT BAR #1 Rated in La Paz on Trip Advisor

 

Now follow us on FACEBOOK TOO

 
Website: www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:
https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/

Tailhunter YouTube Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pangapirate


“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”

 

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It was pretty much a candy store out there this past week if you wanted to catch a dorado. Most days, it was pretty hard not to catch one. Some days were better than others, but no question that dorado season is in full swing with fish ranging from 5-50 pounds. Sacramento amigo, Jim Klein poses on Las Arenas beach near the lighthouse ith a nice female he caught his first day fishing.

I don't have any photos of big tuna to show you this week but this pair of yellowfin were "big enough" for first time La Paz visitors Anna and Shaun Ramirez from Oregon. The tuna were sporadic all week, but they were closer to Cerralvo Island than having to head all the way out to the 88 spot. We seemed to scratch out a few every day with most fish in the 15-30 pound class.

This was probably the best week for marlin and sailfish of the season . Justin Whisler got this one just off Cerralvo Island. Every day we hooked a few and some days, the fish were so voracious and pesky that the guys complained that the fish were literally following them from one spot to another. The problem also was that the guys would be fishing for dorado on light tackle using sardines and all of a sudden a striped marlin or sail would grab the bait and swallow it...FISH ON! But, it's hard to release fish that swallow the whole bait and get gut hooked. Fortunately, most of the billfish all week were released which is why I don't have more photos and also because we encourage catch-and-release. This one nice sail is one of those that could not be released and looks ilke a perfect wall mount just taken off the wall for this picture. Cerralvo Island is in the background.

The week started out a tad shaky for our La Paz fleet, but once it got going, it was pretty much no-brainer limits most days if you headed north from the city and put a line in the water. Dorado were on fire. Arizona amigos, Shaun Preston and Rex Smith show off a pair of good mahi. The got limits almost every day fishing 4 days with Tailhunter International.

Every year, Mike Sontag makes it down to visit us from the Phoenix area and this year brought first-timer Dan Baldwin standing here at Las Arenas beach with two of the nicer-grade yellowfin tuna we picked up this week. Fish were closer this week.

From Monterey CA, Ear Lawson gets an assist on a big bull dorado from Captain Joel. They were fishing north from La Paz towards Espirito Santo Island.

That's alot of bull...dorado! We got quite a number of sizeable fish this past week with both our La Paz and Las Arenas fleets. Jeff Huff from Washington poses with his largest bull of the week which was estimated in the 45-pound class.

San Diego in the house...Dave Garibay on the right. Chas Wilson on the left with three of their yellowfin tuna they ended up bringing back to our Tailhunter Restuarant for a big dinner for their respective families.

_________________________

VIDEO CLIP IMAGES OF THE WEEK:

Just click this for the video clips:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6x5Fhlo4Yo

________________________

BIG WEEK FOR DORADO AND BILLFISH TO START JULY!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 3-10, 2011

No question, it’s summer down here with temperature firmly
in the upper 90’s every day now and feeling very tropical with occasionally
short strong showers here and there breaking way to blazing sunshine.
And, if it’s summer, it must be dorado season because that’s what lead the
charge all week.  For both our La Paz and our Las Arenas fleets, the
majority of the fish were dorado.  Some really nice fish too.  There
were fewer of the small schoolies and more legit 10-20 pounders coming up but
also some great bulls in the 25-40 pound class.

Fish are spread out.  For our Las Arenas fleet, the
fish could pop up everywhere, but the most targeted areas were the commercial
buoys not far offshore where our pangas play leapfrog over each other checking
out buoy-after-buoy as one boat would get ahead of another.  But, more
often than not, if one buoy didn’t play our or was occupied by a panga or two,
the next would be “available” and could hold 1, 2 or perhaps a school
of hungry mahi.  Just throw a few baits!  If they come up, throw more
with hooks in them.  If not, move onto the next one.  Not every day
was productive and not every boat did as well as others, but if you fished
several days, no question you’d have a good load of dorado to take home.
Actually, the biggest problem was getting live sardines.  Some
days were easier than others to get.

For our La Paz fleet, no problem with the baits and the
dorado schools were swarming most days with most of the larger fish being taken
north of town and around the eastern corner between Punta Mejia and Las Cruces.
But the fish could pop up anywhere or anytime.  Often, the key might be
finding a patch of weeds; a current line; or keeping your eyes peeled for 2 or
3 birds dogging a fish or two that might be pushing bait to the surface.
All it takes is finding one and often others would also be in the area.

Not much in the way of tuna, but we did get into a few off
Cerralvo Island.  We didn’t have to go all out to the 88 spot to find
them.  Most of the fish were closer into the island and in the 20-30 pound
class.  Everyday we seemed to get a few, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly
where they would show up or if larger schools were moving through the
area.  Sometimes live smaller sardines worked.  Sometimes slow
trolled feathers produced a bit.  Other times, chunking dead sardines in
an area or chopping up bits of bonito produced hookups.

The biggest surprise, might have been the billfish bite this
past week.  It got to the point where several clients were getting a bit
frustrated with hooking so many sailfish or marlin while trying to catch
dorado!  Some boats hooked 2 or 3 a day and were getting tired of fighting
the fish and having to deal with trying not to harm the billfish so they could
be released and sometimes it wasn’t possible.  Not to mention burning up
time fighting a billfish on light tackle using up time when the guys wanted to
be targeting other species.  But, the marlin would often follow the pangas
around.  They’d sweep in and grab any bait tossed in the water (like
sealions!) or grab the smallest feather or hootchie trolled behind the
boat!  None of the fish were especially large.  Most were in the
80-120 pound class, but fortunately we were able to release most.

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

 

TAILHUNTER FISHING FLEET #1 Rated on Trip Advisor

TAILHUNTER RESTAURANT BAR #1 Rated in La Paz on Trip Advisor

 

Now follow us on FACEBOOK TOO

 

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com

U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745

Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:

https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/

Tailhunter YouTube Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/pangapirate

“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only
moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to
try.”

Read Full Post »

Lead off picture of the week was a "no miss!" What a great shot and great colors on this dorado taken by 18-year-old Jess Miller who was here as a graduation present with his grandfather. Captain Jorge adds and extra smile. There weren't alot of big ones this week, but there was enough activity with the dorado to keep folks happy. Jess caught this fish with our Las Arenas fleet.

Amy Sawaske from Bakersfield is our poster girl of the week. She told everyone (husband and father-in-law) that she was going to "kick everyone's backside with more and bigger fish". She talked up the smack big time. And...she backed it up! She actually did have a great week. Even when dad and hubby were getting queasy, she was still standing up and pulling on fish. Take a look a the collage we did of Amy below in the other pictures. Here she's got a decent dorado she caught north of La Paz. Fairly typical of the fish this week. There were some bigger dorado out there including some 30-50 pounders hooked...but not landed. Most tended to be school-sized fish in the 10-15 pound class which were great fun when they swarmed the boats!

This tuna held up by Captain Victor of our Las Arenas fleet and caught by Earl "Butch" Lawson might be the biggest fish of the week for us for reasons that have nothing to do with the size of the fish! About 20 months ago, Butch was on life support in a Las Vegas hospital and the doctors basically telling the family they were going to do a 6-way-by-pass but to say good-bye because he probably would NOT survive the surgery. His son, Earl had this to say, "He was in surgery all day and received a 6-way bypass. Sometime the next day he was starting to come around so I decided to try to lift his spirits. I held out a couple fingers and told him to grab my fingers with his left hand. I told him to pull them toward him, then (when he did) I said, "Reel! Reel! Yeah, you're gonna be okay." The smile on his face was priceless. Getting back to La Paz has been his goal during his recovery." So, this trip was his "coming out" party and he was all smiles! Congratulations, Butch. Gracias a Dios!

During the winter, our good amigo, Jim Newman from Chicago sends me pictures of frozen Chicago and frozen Lake Superior! I love the way he fishes...light tackle...inshore...and throwing lures! He gets hammered by fish like this huge jack crevalle that's one of the toughest fighters around. And he releases almost all his fish too! He got this badboy fishing with our Las Arenas fleet.

Mike Crisp from San Antonio, TX was one of the lucky guys who put one of the big-boy tuna into the boat. He got this nice fish near Cerralvo Island.

After you've fought a few of these big tuna, it's alot easier to just lie down next to them for the photo op then trying to pick them up when someone wants a photo! Will Long from San Francisco area got two nice tuna out by Cerralvo Island.

As I said above, Amy Sawaske from Bakersfield CA "walked the walk" and "talked the talk" when she came for the first time this week with her husband and father in law. She smack-talked them all week about catching more and bigger fish than them. Check the photos. Not bad for a first-timer! The rooster WAS released as were ALL the roosters she caught (I think about 8 of them). And truth be told, her family could not have been happier that she outfished them. She's surely this week's poster-gal!

After 9 days of diving over 100 feet and holding his breath up to an incredible 5-minutes each time and 6-8 hours in the water, Johan Jacobs from S. Africa shot these two pargo near the north end of Cerralvo Island. He said he has the "bug" for pargo now and said he saw so many fish down there hiding in caves and under ledges that he did not shoot or were impossible to shoot. Many days he did not shoot any fish. But says he is hooked on chasing the elusive pargo and cabrilla.

TUNA ELUSIVE BUT DORADO PICK UP THE SLACK!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of June 27-July 3, 2011

Let’s put it this way.  Everyone is catching
fish.  But, there’s just no consistency to the fishing right now.  If
you walked up to me this past week and asked whether to fish Las Arenas or La
Paz or what you might catch, I would have to shrug my shoulders.
Ask me about the wind or the weather and you’d get the same
response.   The fishing and the weather has been all over the boards
this past week.  But…everyone caught fish…as long as they fished more
than one day.   If they only fished one day…there’s a chance that
it could be one of those off-days.  At least if you fished several days,
you had a good chance of getting into fish!

Compared to last week, we surely did not get into the big cow
tuna out of Las Arenas from the 88 spot or along the buoys.  In fact,
nothing over 100 pounds this week.  But then again, we didn’t really work
the area very hard because many days it was just too windy!  Several times
when we did go out there,  it was just too rough to hang or else the drift
was so strong.  So, it was hard to give the area it’s proper
workout.  Still, we did manage up some decent tuna in the 5-45 pound
class. Quite a range.  It was funny because one boat would get the 5
pounders and the next boat would be hanging the 40 pounders.

For our Las Arenas fleet, if the 88 spot wasn’t happening,
there were some decent dorado at the buoys.  Of course, you had to wade
through the “dink dorado” that were about the size of big trout, but
the larger fish in the 15-30 pound category were out there.
Inshore, roosterfish continued to put on a good show.  Our largest fish
released this week was estimated at 50 pounds, but lots of little 5-10 pounders
caught and let go.

For our La Paz fleet, about the only consistent thing to say
was that if it was windy, the fishing was tough.  If the winds laid down,
then we found dorado.  Again, lots of punk fish, but we also had some good
20-40 pound bulls as well as a few marlin hookups as well.   Some of
the rocky areas are really holding some nice pargo and fat cabrilla.  But,
the dorado bite did do much better as the week went on as we found schools
north of town near Espiritu Santo and around the Las Cruces and Punta Mejia
areas.  Finding floating structure as
well as the temperature breaks were key.

As I write this, we’re keeping an eye on the weather.  There’s thunderstorms predicted the next few
days that could mean nothing or some short quick showers.  I know we’ve seen some great lightning shows
in the morning (no rain) as the sun comes up.

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

 

TAILHUNTER FISHING FLEET #1 Rated on Trip Advisor

TAILHUNTER RESTAURANT BAR #1 Rated in La Paz on Trip Advisor

 

Now follow us on FACEBOOK TOO

 

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com

U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745

Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:

https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/

Tailhunter YouTube Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/pangapirate

“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only
moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to
try.”

Read Full Post »

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