It was a pretty good week for long drawn out battles and bent rods! Rod Brown, our Alaska amigo, and popular Captain Jorge who can only watch as the minutes start to pile up!
Typical of this week's tuna, Sed Roldan and Bob Dominguez of Hacienda Hts. CA heft up a few of their yellowfin tuna taken just south of Cerralvo Island. Most days the boats averaged 1-4 of these fish per day, but the fish were a nice-grade 25-45 pound fish that often took close to an hour to put aboard, especially since the fish preferred light line!
John McVay from Valencia CA finds his way to us each year for about 5 days of hardcore fishing. Hard to argue with a first day of 8 fat tuna. Maybe one of the best days that any of our amigos have had all year with the yelllowfin. About day 3, John actually hurt his elbow on these slugger fish and had to beg off his last day to get some therapy on his arm! John's a good angler. These fish can be pretty brutal.
The last thing a sardine sees before it goes into the pie hole of a big tuna! All the way from S. Caroline, Luke strikes a pose with his yellowfin at Muertos Bay.
Most of you reading this report will see this photo and the next and say..."What in the world is THAT?" In 16 years down here, I've rarely gotten to see a photo of one myself, but these are the much sought-after fish called the SNOOK! (ROBALO). Highly treasured gamefish and great eating, they're normally found around structure or in pilings or shallow water or in the channels, of bays or in the mangroves. They are supposedly great eating and can get up to 40 or 50 pounds. In all my years here, only a handful have been caught. Rod Brown and his brother Jeff (photo below) were fishing the island with Captain Joel and they said, all of a sudden, the school of snook came up and tore into them!
Jeff Brown from Minnesota, joined his brother, Rod (photo above) and Captain Joel and show off more of the snook they caught at the island. A remarkable catch. The fish only stayed around for a short while, but you can see how close to shore they were fishing.
We keep getting asked if there are roosterfish still around. Hmmmm...you think? That's Punta Perico in the back. Thanks for our buddy, Roger Thompson, for the shot of Larry Rose from Long Beach with this bad boy that they released. We actually got some nicer grade roosters at the end of the week in the 30-60 pound class.
Oh yea...this one too! Mike Wythe and Captain Hugo with another beast. (released).
Lest you think we're not catching dorado, actually yes...we're getting good numbers of dorado with our La Paz fleet. Dorado have been our bread-and-butter fish. Pretty reliable if you want to have some fun and want some fillets for the cooler! Also, for those who wonder if I still got game and get out on the water...yes I do! This is me and my dad who visited us this week.
Cute couple of the week and also first-timers with us...Lance and Kim Miles from Utah had some good days of fishing with us!
Childhood friends who now live in 3 different states, Jonathan Duc Le, Matt Trinh and Hau Pham from Texas, Colorado and New Mexico try to get together at least once a year. This year they picked us to visit and got into some good doardo and tuna fishing.
Randy Sharon and I went to law school together and it's always great to see him. Captain Armando helps out with this thick fat yellowfin tuna.
It's a long way from S. Carolina to Baja and Jerry Wansack planned the trip for 3 years to make it down...and then made it worth his while by fishing the whole week getting tuna, dorado and roosterfish for his efforts.
WEEKLY FISHING VIDEO CLIPS!
Got some GREAT stuff this week including underwater shots of tuna and dorado. It’s a bit longer than normal, but turn up the sound and check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEq_4b1gydI
FULL MOON KINDER TO US THIS TIME…FISH CHEW NICELY!
La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Oct. 9-16, 2011
It wasn’t too bad of a week of fishing, alll things considered. (Full moon…high tides…some winds left over from the hurricane!) We were surely a bit nervous as the week kicked off.
First, we were surely watching the full moon which was big as all get-out. Normally, the full moon is no biggie, but this year, I don’t know what it is. The full moon has really played games with our fishing.
Second, we were glued to our web pages and weather channels following 4 different storms to the south of us (including Hurricane Jova that ended up dumping alot of water on Puerta Vallarta) that had our phones ringing and our e-mails buzzing. “Should we cancel our trip?”
Fortunately the storms failed to materialize except for one day of strong winds that stumped the fishing and the full moon didn’t yank our chain too hard…and the fish bit!
The tuna bite off Las Arenas was hardly over-the-top, but it was a decent week for fish in the 25-45 pound shot. These were thick muscular stubborn growling fish. Most folks had a shot at 1 or 2 and that was pretty much it. No mas! Either the bite shut off or folks were done and wanted to fish for something a little more forgiving. I mean, most of these fish were close to an hour to put on the boat! That’s a long time for most people. The bite was off the south end of Cerralvo Island. Some days it started really early. As soon as baits were put in the water…WHAM! Hook up!
Other times, the bonito went crazy until about 11 or so then the tuna moved in. The one hitch in everything was the sardine situation. The sardines are smaller than your little finger. They are so small you can’t put them on a hook without impaling them and killing them so we’re fishing them dead. Just chunking and drifting big handfuls in the water and making the tuna come up for them. Except for one day when we literally got only 1 bonito per boat/day, most days it’s been 1-5 yellowfin tuna per boat/day with our Las Arenas fleet.
With our La Paz fleet, well, the dorado were off just a tad, but overall, still pretty reliable fishing for dorado in the 10-20 pound class with occasional 30 pounders in the box. Sometimes we’d hit a big school and it would be crazy as every rod goes off. Other times, it was a pick bite with 1 here…1 there…and at the end of the day, there would be a box of dorado on the boat. You could never tell. Our hot spots moved from Las Cruces off Cerralvo Island to the waters west of Espirito Santo Island.
With other species we had a nice batch of sailfish and marlin hook ups this week. No one was really fishing for them, but the billfish came up and bit. Most of the fish were lost or released, but made for some good unexpected fun. Also, good bites of pargo , cabrilla and roosterfish, some larger ones late in the week, in the shallows.
That’s our story!
Jonathan and Jilly
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
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