GETTING BETTER EVERY WEEK! (What full moon?)
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay Fishing Report for Week of June 3-10, 2023
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FISHING REPORT
OVERALL RATING (Scale of 1-10) : 7
WEATHER – It’s been a beautiful week with mostly sunny skies and great beach weather in the high 80’s and low 90’s. However, the mornings are still a big nippy or downright cold with windy conditions worthy of a sweatshirt or light jacket you can take off when the sun comes up.
WATER – Waters are still colder than normal. But, they are a bit warmer every week with more blue water showing up. Water temps in La Paz Bay is only about 68 on the surface, but outside the bay up to about 73 degrees. It’s still cooler than it should be.
SPECIES CAUGHT THIS WEEK – dorado, roosterfish, pargo, snapper, cabrilla, marlin, tuna, pompano, trevally, bonito, jack crevalle, amberjack, rainbow runner, yellowtail
LAS ARENAS FISHING – More variety in the fish catch. No fish predominant, but you have a good chance of getting some of everything. In fact, most of the fish in the list above might be caught.
LA PAZ FISHING – Much more dorado with schools of school-sized fish north of he city and in the channel between the peninsula and Cerralvo Island/ Espirito Santo Island. If you hit the right spot, it can be crazy wild. Some larger fish also being found up to the 40-pound class.
MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO REPORT –
THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…
Maybe one of the most stunning dorado many of us have ever seen. This completely irredescent blue bull dorado caught off Espirito Santo Island by Hunter Burkhart from Tennessee while fishing with Captain Rogelio is simply incredible and rare.
First-time amigos from the Sacramento area, Mario and Tony Lerma with their buddy Mike Wilson who started out their week on the tuna school east of Cerralvo Island. Said this week was the “best fishing trip they ever had.”
Steve Bryan our amigo from Seattle WA rightfully earns the title of “Roosterfish King. ” Each year he comes down for about 2 weeks and fishes about 8-10 days only for our bigger roosterfish. This year, he caught 8 of these giants and released all of them like the one pictured here. Most of his fish are in the rest of this week’s report.
There are some bigger model dorado around these days like Robby Scale’s big bull he landed off Las Arenas in the channel between Cerralvo Island. Robby was on his 2nd trip with us from Colorado.
Our Wyoming amigo, Brandon McGarr with a large striped marlin while fishing with Captain Pancho. The marlin was released. He also had a big blue marlin on as well as a big bull that all broke lines close to the boat after long battles.
Texas in the house with Brett and Paula Watts and a great variety of good eating cabrilla and snapper and a big triggerfish headed to the freezer.
I love these folks and the photos they take every year. Never ever boring! This is Jeanne and Ray Cabales from San Diego with a pair of dorado and looking like they need some lunch!
Brett and Paula again with a different day and a completely different catch with a cleaning table full of yellowfin tuna.
Maybe one of the prettiest photos of the week. Captain Pancho and Robby Scales just outside of Bahia Muertos with a big boy roosterfish. Catch and release!
A very happy Cecilia Casias from Los Angeles with a beautiful dorado on the gaff. More unusual is a photo of our captain Arcangel who has been with us almost 30 years and rarely ever smiles in photos!
Tanya McGarr from Wyoming looks a little tapped out because this monster rooster is the 3rd big rooster of the day. She never handed off the rod or asked for help and battled all 3 fish to the boat by herself before releasing them!
This is our popular Captain Gerardo. This massive rooster was actually caught by Bill Raddock, but Bill was so tired after 3 big fish he could not lift this big beast. Even Gerardo who is about 6’2″ and maybe 230 pounds has issues lifting it up. He says it’s the largest rooster ever on his boat. The fish was released.
Behind the mask, that’s John Vondrak (I think!) with another rooster in the boat for a quick photo and release.
First-time visitor, Tony Lerma from Sacramento with a big boy bull dorado he caught and landed not far from Las Cruces north of La Paz.
It’s those people again…Jeanne and Ray Cabales celebrating on the beach with another good day catch of rainbow runner, pargo, snapper, cabrilla and triggerfish.
That’s gonna make some tasty sashime or seared steaks. Yellowfin tuna caught by Paula and Brett Watts from San Antonio TX.
Henry Vuong has been fishing with us for years and brought his girlfriend Cecilia fishing and, of course, she lands the most and biggest fishes. Henry always fishes with Captain Arcangel and is coming back for a 2nd trip in September.
Love the face that Bill Raddock is making here! He really wanted a big roosterfish and caught three right off the bat one day and released them all. Bill is from Kentucky.
Drew Reesor from Tennessee is a hunting guide from Tennessee, but made his first trip to visit us in La Paz. Fishing with Captain Rogelio produced a number of dorado including this big macho bull dorado.
We all remember this special days when dad took us fishing! It’s hard to tell, but I believe this is young Hudson Cileu from San Diego who gets a hand from Captain Rogelio on his dorado.
Captain Pancho posing with Tanya McGarr and another yellowfin tuna. There were 2-3 days when we had a nice healthy bite of tuna off Cerralvo Island.
More new friends from Texas, this is Randy and Linda Stolte with an incredible variety of fish on the table including dorado, snapper, pargo, rainbow runner, yellowtail, cabrilla and triggerfish. They donated all of their catch except for some they brought back to our Tailhunter Restaurant to cook up!
Jason Cileu from San Diego had just one day to fish with his young sons and they got a mess of dorado and Jason also got this nice little roosterfish as a bonus. He let it go after the quick photo.
I lose track of all the big roosterfish Steve Bryan catches every year when he visits us. I think this is number 7 or 8. He gets so many big fish everyone calls him “Rooster King” and tease him that he’s catching the same fish over and over because he sportingly releases all his fish.
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I suppose this is just another week where you can just look at all the photos and know we’ve been catching fish! And let me tell you this is just a fraction of the photos I wish I had more room to post.
For all the “full moon” talk, we had a huge big moon this week, but if it had any effect, I can only imagine what the fishing might have been if it was not so full. Who really cares? Fishing was pretty solid!
We’re still not at full speed. However, with each week, we’re edging forward and overall, it sure seems to be getting better. Lots of smiles and folks that want to take fish home are taking fish home. They might not necessarily catch the particular species that targeted like “giant roosterfish” or a “wahoo.” But that’s why these are trophy fish! They are harder to find and definitely fight harder!
But, whatever might get missed, other species seem to fill the gap.
And we are still catching a whole pallet of species. Dorado schools are becoming more prevailant with school-sized 5-10 pound fish bunching up, especially north of La Paz. Larger free-swimming fish up to the 40-pound class have also been making their presence known with some very large fish getting lost.
We’re seeing more billfish with some big striped marlin getting hooked and released and some larger blue and black marlin well over the 300-pound class breaking lines and hearts!
Also, while folks are having fun with the smaller roosterfish that can be a real kick on light tackle, we caught some of the largest roosterfish of the season this past week. There were easily fish running 40-60 pounds and some arguably up to 80+ pounds. It’s hard to know exact weights since we’re releasing all the roosters and can only estimate these massive fish sizes!
We’ve also had several nice jags of tuna show up. They’ll pop up for a day or two then disappear, but we’ve already caught more tuna this year so far than all of last season combined! The size of the fish varies from little 5-8 pound “footballs” up to 30 and 40-pound class sluggers.
If you wanted to stay inshore you have have fun in the “aquarium” fishing for snapper, cabrilla, triggerish, pargo, jacks, pompano and more!
SHE SAID “YES!” (Catch of the Week!)
Yvonne, Gerry and Captain Armando. And some nice tuna!
Quick shout-out to Gerry Hermosillo who proposed to his lady Yvonne Sockyma over dinner while here this week! He proposed to her at the same waterfront table where they had one of their first dates. Congratulations to them both! Oh…and they also caught fish this week too!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Tailhunter Sportfishing
Mexico Office: Tailhunter International, 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter Sportfishing
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
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