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POSTCARD 1: Hi Mom! This is what a 46 pound dorado looks like. I know. I put it in a scale. It dwarfs the angler, Ray Holguin from Los Angeles who fought it for 25 minutes (without and shirt resulting in a horrendous sunburn that made it hard to slap him on the back to congratulate him!) Ray took the fish outside off Las Arenas. Not many dorado this week, but there were a few quality fish like this one!

NOT AS WINDY AS LAST WEEK BUT WATERS STILL STIRRED UP AND GREEN OUTSIDE FORCED MOST ANGLERS TO FISH INSHORE WITH GOOD RESULTS!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for the week of June 22, 2008

POSTCARD 2: Take a look at this photo and the next. Talk about a banner day! Guys come from all over the world to get even one of these babys and they come year after year only to be eluded, frustrated and disillusioned! Well, Makani Fisher from Utah not only gets two big pargo…this one being a pargo liso (mullet snapper), but one of the largest you’ll ever see! It was scaled at 46 pounds! They get bigger, but rarely do you see them landed! Even Captain Victor is straining to lift it off the deck.

POSTCARD 3: Here’s Captain Victor giving Makani Fisher a hand again. Hey…if the kid can horse in TWO of these toads, he can hold up his own fish! Again, a spectacular catch of a pargo. This one is a dog-tooth or cubera snapper. Like a giant goldfish on steroids! A real prize!

POSTCARD 4: Tom Romanello is our forest firefighter amigo from Idaho. We didn’t do too well fishing directly out’ve La Paz this week, but Tom sure had an excellent day with his dad getting several nice dorado including this nice bull. However ,they had to run waaaaaay north going almost 70 miles north of La Paz just to find the cleaner warm water. That’s normally a ridiculous distance to have to run for our fish, but Tom and his dad made the most of it!


POSTCARD 5: Another good week on big roosterfish! This has to be the best year for the big boys we’ve seen in ages. It’s been on now since March. These fish are in relatively shallow waters. Kamika Fisher from Utah (that’s his son in the photos above) holds a big pez gallo. Kamika is a big guy himself! Note the gaff held by Captain Victor. Our captains have been gaffing the roosters in the lip so that they can be released. On this particular day, their smallest rooster was 35 pounds. Their largest was close to 60 pounds.

POSTCARD 6: Montebello, California in the house! June Akike and Julio Cornejo from Montebello CA came down specifically to try for pargo. When I first saw their gear, their artillery was way too light so I beefed them up some 60 pound test and my personal “meat sticks.” They lost their first 4 fish to the rocks, but finally hung these two beauties!

POSTCARD 7: It must have been a good week for pargo judging from all the photos. It wasn’t! There weren’t that many caught. Most kicked the hell out of anglers who simply could not stop the powerful fish. However, it seems that many of the ones that were caught this week were all heavyweight champs…like this pargo liso held by Kamika Fisher from Utah.

POSTCARD 8: PHIL COO from Duarte CA grins with his nice amberjack. We’re seeing more and more of these big cousins to the yellowtail. We got several last year that were over 100 pounds. Great eating and a nasty fighter too! These guys use rocks to their advantage.

POSTCARD 9: This is George Romanello from Duarte CA. George had a great trip nailing this roosterfish held by Captain Archangel (released) but also getting numerous other species as well. I really wanted him to have a good trip. Last year, George was all set , but had to cancel when his passport did not arrive on time! It got there one day late! He made up for it this year.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Check it out! Click this:

THE FISHING REPORT

Well, in terms of the pesky winds, it was surely a better week than last week. They finally laid down a bit and gave us a break. You would think that would mean a stellar week of fishing.

NOT!

Well, it was a bit better. In fact, the inshore fishing was very good. However, offshore, after several weeks of winds, there’s alot of dirty water; green water and alot of it is cold as well with upwellings from down deep caused by the winds. Also, I’m not a big believer in the idea that the full moon screws with the fishing, but I’m not going to discount a full moon combined with the winds, the cold water, etc. are going to have a detrimental effect on the fish.

In the span of a few hundred yards, water temps can be all over the board both horizontally as well as in the vertical water column as well. Therefore, while there were flurries of bluewater fish such as dorado, sailfish and marlin, it was nothing to get excited about. The fish are there. They were just lockjawed and you can’t help but feel that it’s about to bust loose if the water temps rise and the winds stay down for a bit.

Probably 95 percent of the better fishing was with our Las Arenas fleet, not my La Paz fleet with many of our anglers opting to stay fishing out of Las Arenas where there was at least alot of action on big pargo, big roosters, bonito, skipjack, cabrilla, snapper, amberjack, big eye jacks, jack crevalle and pompano, among others. Plus there was always the bonus that the occasional dorado or billfish would hookup as well.

Out of La Paz, our boats had to run as far as 60-70 miles north of town just to find the better water and bigger fish. That’s almost unheard of. There’s a school or dorado hanging just outside of Las Cruces that’s alot bigger, but many of those fish are punky 5-10 pounders that are probably best released. The water there sure looks good and given a bit of time, it looks like it’s ready to blow up.

That’s my story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Phone: (626) 333-3355

FAX: (626) 333-0115

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

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

“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.”


PHOTO 1: Dan Flatt from Atwater CA is a school teacher who was on his first trip to visit us. Despite some tough winds, Dan and his wife, Susan (photos below) got into some of the nice dorado that showed up north of La Paz between the islands around the sargasso patches near Las Cruces.

ANOTHER TOUGH WEEK OF OFFSHORE FISHING AGAINST THE WINDS (GO AWAY ALREADY!) BUT DORADO ARE HERE FOR SURE AND INSHORE FISHING FOR ROOSTERS, JACKS AND POMPANO STILL HOT!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for the week of Sunday June 15, 2008

PHOTO 2: Susan Flatt, like her husband, Dan, (above) is also an educator from Northern, California. She’s holding one of the nicer dorado taken north of La Paz this week where a spot of mahi was found around Las Cruces.

PHOTO 3: One of the funnest guys of the week and light tackle enthusiasts, Jonathan Speir from Sonoma CA holds up the kind of roosterfish that made Las Arenas famous as the “roosterfish capital of the world.” If the rooster doesn’t look that big, consider that Jonathan is about 6’4″ tall and the tail of the rooster is barely touching the deck of the panga! The rooster was released as were most of the big roosters all week.


PHOTO 4: Another great example of a real pretty rooster taken near the lighthouse off Las Arenas where fish between 10 and 80 pounds have been hanging for the past 2 months. Dan Flatt from Atwater CA does the honors.

PHOTO 5: This is Charlie and Greg Gibson holding up a sample of some of their catch after fishing a day out of Las Arenas. Left to right: barred pargo, amberjack, snapper and pompano. This particular day they also hooked two sailfish. Charlie’s broke off, but Greg hooked, fought and released his. Both had a blast using lightweight spinning rods for all their fish. Greg also spent the week completing his PADI scuba course certification.

PHOTO 6: Smile says it all. Nick Fantozzi holds up a nice snapper here. Great eating and highly prized in the markets and restaurants and much sought after by the commercial panga fishermen, these fish are a tough fight out of the rocks.

PHOTO 7: Wendy and Cara Fantozzi got out on the water a few days with us this week. High winds made it difficult and tough to get out some days to the outter buoys where the larger dorado lurked, but some breezing school-sized dorado like these held by the ladies have moved closer to the beaches and island.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Not many hightlights to show you this week, amigos. Alot of big fish broke off or were released so there wasn’t much to video on the beach! Wahoo bit off a few guys. Lots of roosters were let go as were billfish (good job!) So, click on this and enjoy!
THE FISHING REPORT
I know this is sounding like a busted record. We thought we were done with the winds a month ago when the fish literally exploded out of the Sea of Cortez. Not so fast, Bucky! They were back again this week…from the south. Not every day, but enough to make it tough to get to some of the spots with the bigger fish like the dorado and billfish. Additionally, the constant swells and chop pulled up more cool water and turned over alot of stuff so the water vis was off-color as well.
If you made the right choice on the days that the wind didn’t blow and hit the outside areas or the sargasso paddies between the islands you could encounter some big slugger-style fishing with big bulls, sailfish and marlin. If you decided to head out there and the winds blew, either nothing was there or you’d have to turn around and come back to fish inshore and be late on spots where other fishermen had already worked the area over.
If you stayed inshore, most days there was dynamite action for big roosterfish, pargo (losing many to the rocks), jack crevalle, pompano and cabrilla. In fact, some guys did ONLY that kind of fishing and really hammered well. On the other hand, you could also still have great action almost non-stop, but if the only fish biting were jack crevalle, you’d have really sore arms from all the pulling and fighting, but not much to show for it in the ice chests since the jacks are notoriously bad eating.
Some wahoo were hooked and lost, but not many coming back to the beach. More dorado were showing up for our La Paz fleet in a spot between the peninsula and Cerralvo Island, but many of those fish were dinks spaced by some quality mahi. That was still encouraging to see the fishing picking up in that area.
Bottom line…it was a tough pick of a week. Some guys did pretty good and some not-so-good. Just depends who you spoke to and where they fished and what species they targeted. If we could only get maybe a week with no wind…that would be the key! We’ll keep you posted!
That’s our story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“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.”

PHOTO 1: Jerry Reiter and John Torascio from the Ventura CA area hold up some of the nice class bull dorado we hit this week. Both anglers were on their first trip down here and tangled with some nice fish. Dorado fishing wasn’t great, but the fish that were caught were usually trophies like this!

A TOUGH WEEK OF FISHING MARKED BY INCONSISTENT WINDS AND DROP IN WATER TEMPERATURE – BUT STILL SOME NICE DORADO AND INSHORE SPECIES!

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for the week of Jun3 1-8, 2008

PHOTO 2: On his first fishing trip ever, Andy Ewing from Seattle WA rips this 50 pound class roosterfish off the beach near Las Arenas. Trophy roosters like this moved in a few weeks ago in shallow waters. Andy released this fish after taking this great shot. Note the flat waters!

PHOTO 3 : One of the biggest problems this week was the falling water temperature. Inshore waters went cold lockjawing the fish. The warmer water was outside around the buoys where toad-sized dorado like this one held by Joel Ofrancia of Seattle WA were hanging out. Joel hit three good day of this kind of fishing. The problem with getting outside to the warmer water was the fact that sometimes the winds were blowing so hard, it was impossible to get across in all the chop and wet. I put this fish on a scale myself and it went 42 pounds!

PHOTO 4: Just too pretty of a photo to pass up. This is a hooked dorado next to the boat. It was unhooked and released.


PHOTO 5: Now here’s a great shot. Our amigo, Doug Oclassen from Boulder CO is hooked on a striped marlin. Captain Victor looks on. Cerralvo Island in the background. They tried to release this fish but were unable to and the meat was donated. However, during the week they released other billfish and numerous dorado, roosters and jacks.

PHOTO 6: Butch Lawson always seems to do pretty well everytime he comes to see us. He’s here with Captain Jorge and a dorado they picked up. Butch is from the Monterey CA area.

PHOTO 7: Dave Newman doesn’t get to take his shirt off very often. He’s from Chicago, Ill. and is constantly sending photos of his frozen yard. However, he’s dynamite on light tackle whether from a panga or the beach. He’s standing here on Las Arenas beach just around from the lighthouse where schools of jacks and roosters congregate. He’s holding up a nice jack he nailed on 15 pound test and a Shimano Calcutta 400 reel!

PHOTO 8 – Not sure if this needs explanation, but I promised someone I’d post it. Kids, don’t try this at home. Seen often in Baja Mexico, it’s a pink-eyed Pacific Pargo Belly.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Check out some of the dorado action this week. You will see a marlin here that got taken, but almost all marlin this week were released as were most of the roosterfish. The one you see in the video swallowed the hook and the meat went to folks who needed food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYsBqoaB4qM

THE FISHING REPORT

Right up front…IT WAS A WEIRD WEEK! It had all the makings to be an outstanding week, but for a few glitches mother nature threw at us.

Here’s what happened. Those pesky winds hit us again. One day from one side. Next day from the other. Sometimes it seemed like they sucker punched us from different angles at the same time. What occured is that water temperatures dropped. That resulted (I think) in alot of the fish going “lockjaw” on us. I mean…they were there, but just wouldn’t open their mouths to take a bait!

The warmer waters were outside by the buoys or around the islands. BUT…to get out there, you had to be willing to get your teeth kicked in going out there and getting battered around. Most guys opted to stay close to shore where the aforementioned cold water took it’s toll and even needlefish didn’t bite on some days.

This was mostly at the middle of the week with the funky weather. At the beginning and the end of the week, there was some good to great action on BIG dorado outside as well as marlin and sailfish with most billfish getting released. Inshore, especially along those shallow beaches, jacks and roosters and pompano (basically, almost all the jack family) were there varying in sizes from small 2 pounders up to 60 pounders. This made for some great inshore action.

No wahoo to speak of this week and that flurry of tuna seems to have gone back down to the trenches. The thing we’re watching is that if these winds stay down, it looks like the La Paz side fishing is actually starting to heat up with some dorado located in warm water betweeen Espiritu Santo and the north end of Cerralvo Island.

Fishing tips….

Flurocarbon leaders

CD 18 sized big Rapalas in dark colors for wahoo

Hook sizes #1 to 2/0 for most baits

Don’t forget zip lock bags for your fish

That’s my story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Phone: (626) 333-3355

FAX: (626) 333-0115

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

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

“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.”

PHOTO 1: Ever seen 60 and 70 pound roosterfish? Those are the estimated weights of these two bruisers being held by Joe Dubler from Palmer AK, and Jeff Regnart from Anchorage AK. There’s a reason they call this area the “roosterfish capital of theworld. ” The world record 114 pounder came out of these waters and fish like these are not uncommon. In fact, considering it’s early in the season we’re getting banner numbers of the big fish. Here’s the best part of this. On this particular day, Joe and Jeff got FIVE of these fish including this double hook up. THEY RELEASED EACH FISH! They rock!

DORADO BIG ROOSTERS AND OUR FIRST WAHOO OF THE SEASON HIGHLIGHT A WEEK OF HARD FISHING – FEWER FISH BUT BIGGER FISH!

LA PAZ / LAS ARENAS FISHING REPORT FOR JUNE 1, 2008 for the week of May 25 to 31, 2008

PHOTO 2: Mike Booth from Riverside CA holds up the kind of dorado that showed up this week. Nice BIG FAT BULLS! Several spots outside of Cerralvo Island, especially the elusive 88 spot and the inshore buoys some days held fields of fish and other days not a ripple. However, it seemed to be a week of all big fish in the 25 to 40 pound class!

PHOTO 3: What happend to all the small fish and females? As the boats unloaded each day, it seems like it was bull after bull after bull in the boxes! No one was complaining. Joe Dubler from Alaska hung this beauty on a live bait outside the island. Most all the fishing has been from the Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay side. Late in the week, schools of these big mahi ravaged through the bait schools. Marlin and sailfish were also in the same areas, ignoring baits one day then romping on anything thrown in the water the next day!
PHOTO 4: Not so many big pargo this week, but no doubt they were still there! This has been an incredible pargo season with lots of big fish early including fish like this pargo liso, but also big dog-tooth and paro mulatto have also been getting into the boxes. There were lots of fish hooked but so many lost in the rocks…as usual. This nice one is being helf up by one of our best pargo captains…the very popular Captain Manny Archangel.

PHOTO 5: As waters have gotten warmer, we’re seeing the appearance of more amberjack…the bigger and tastier cousins to yellowtail, pompano, jack crevalle and roosterfish with the same bad attitudes when hooked. This one is being held by Jim Nass who also got roosterfish. Some of these fish will get over 100 pounds and hang out along the rocks and pinnacles near high spots. Great eating.
PHOTO 6: OK…can you say, “Happy Birthday?” Mark Bonami from the San Francisco Bay area celebrated his 43rd birthday with us. He goes out and nails one of our first wahoo of the season as well as this 50-60 pound roosterfish (released). YEOW! We knew the wahoo were in the area, but none had been hooked yet only some short biters that fell off. Mark got our first of the season (see the video) on a black and purple trolled Rapala!

PHOTO 7: Dennie Dyer and Matt Lederer hold up some of the best inshore eating fish we have. The silver ones are African Pompano and the reddish fish is a barred pargo. Dennie came down with the specific intent to somehow get in the fishing report. You made it Dennie! (Also check out the video this week too!). This was an incredible week for the pompano that moved into the waters right off the beach areas where the sand sloped to deeper waters. A small sinker and live bait got anglers through the needlefish schools to the fish zone!
PHOTO 8: No small fish! Chris Silva, “Texas” Bill Sharp, and Mike “I only drink Corona” Booth all from Riverside CA hold up a trio of dorado bulls typical of the kind of quality dorado that showed up this week off the buoys outside of Las Arenas and Cerrlavo Island

PHOTO 9: Jeff Regnart spent a whole week fishing with us and went home with a load of fillet and lots of variety. He got the best of this big bull dorado. As one angler said, “We pulled up on one area and there were flying fish everywhere. Bull dorado in an area half the size of a football

PHOTO 10: Dave Rose trekked with his family all the way from the Denver area. These little roosters are as hearty and feisty as their big brothers. If you want some light tackle fun, there are schools of these youngsters off some of the beaches that can be hours of incredible fun until your arms fall of!

PHOTO 11: Wahoo!!! Yup…they’re here. (check the video). Dave Newman is a frequent amigo of ours and lives in Chicago. He often sends me photos of the incredible winters they have up here so it’s always good to see him down here in the sunshine. His first day out he spanks this nice wahoo. The south end of Cerralvo Island in that high spot that kicks out so many of the skinnies each year again looks like it’s holding fish!

THE WEEK IN VIDEO!

Video 1: The week in review. Check it out. A collection of clips from the week.
Video 2: Pete Savarese on light tackle goes head to head against a big jack crevalle on light tackle. Note the gaff technique in the lip by Captain Adolfo so that the fish could be released.

THE FISHING REPORT

Well, amigos…if you read the captions to this week’s photos, you get the gist. I won’t blow smoke…
It wasn’t a great week of fishing. It was a GOOD week of fishing with some GREAT fish! Some guys did better than others. The fish really did play games.
One day all the good fish were on one spot and a few boats would get them. Then, the next day EVERYONE would shoot there and the fish would POP UP SOMEWHERE ELSE. The guys who just happened to be at the new spot would get slammed. The next day everyone would shoot to the new spot an the hot bite would turn up somewhere else!!! It was like “musical fishing chairs!”
But no one could argue about the quality.
Lots of guys got their biggest…roosterfish…dorado…marlin…sailfish. Happy to say that almost all the marlin/ sailfish were released…even by the rookies (good for you!)…as well as the bigger roosters and some game guys were even releasing their big dorado too. You rock!
Some guys who knew they already had too much fish were also letting fish go. One day it seemed each of our pangas had at least one marlin/sailfish hooked, released or lost and the only ones killed were the ones that were deep hooked or were already going to die. The rest are hopefully still swimming to fight another day. A good portion of the billfish that were brought in were given to folks who needed the food.
Most of the fishing spots centered on the area around the Arenas lighthouse for the roosters, pompano and jacks. Punta Perrico and the SE end of Cerrlavo Island held the pargo and rockfish. The outter buoys were the spot to go search for the big dorado and billfish.
Almost 99 percent of our fishing was out of Muertos Bay to fish these areas. We haven’t fished the La Paz side very much because of the winds or inconsistent fishing. However…FLASH…this week we did fish a bit more on the La Paz side and got some nice dorado…a few tuna…and even some larger yellowtail so we’ll keep an eye on that for you!
That’s my story! Have a great week!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“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.”

PHOTO 1: Now this is the right kind! Guys dream about nailing one of these bad boys. Many bite, but few are taken! This is a pargo. It’s a pargo liso (mullet snapper) to be exact. Big schools of these big fish are up on the shallows right now. Jeff Regnert from Anchorage AK pulled this one out’ve the rocks in shallow water with live bait.

WINDS RIP ANGLERS IN LATE SEASON BLOW ALMOST AS HARD AS THE BIG PARGO and YELLOWTAIL!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Report from Tailhunter International for May 24, 2009

PHOTO 2: Wally Huang and Frank Lui from the Los Angeles area hold up a 45 pound roosterfish taken off the lighthouse at Punta Arena. The big roosters have definitely moved into the area now. Lots of small ones around, but the big bad boys are cruising the beaches too! Most are getting released, but we’ve had some taken this week up to 70 pounds with larger ones being lost.

PHOTO 3: Another good one for the table, this is another type of pargo. It’s called a pargo mulatto…barred pargo. They get alot bigger and can be tough in the rocks. Jeff Santa holds this one. Jeff is from just south of San Francisco. CA.
PHOTO 4: Don White has a charter business up in Oregon, but comes down to check out the sunshine and fish without slickers on! Here he’s holding up a pargo taken off Punta Perrico. It was another week of good bites for the pargo. Perhaps this is one of the best pargo seasons in a long time.

PHOTO 5: This is Dimitry Postovalov. He’s from Russia. But he currently lives in Utah. He’s pretty funny and has himself a good time. . .all the time. He and his buddy Mike are favorite amigos of ours. He likes vodka and has been known to eat live bait from the bait tank as well as eat fish raw just after they are caught. He loves sashime! He also loves to flyfish and light tackle fish. This day he got a small roosterfish, but released over twenty. (See the attached video).
PHOTO 6: Here’s a real typical catch this week as strong winds late in the week really kept alot of our fleet confind close to the rocks and beaches where a number of rock species were hanging out and thankfully still eager to chew. Jeff and Jason are from the Orange Co. area of S.California. They are holding a nice fat cabrilla (dark brown seabass), a nice amberjack (cousin to yellowtail) and have several nice pargo as well.

PHOTO 7: Lately Captain Jorge has been on fire with the pargo. He’s holding up a nice pargo pero (dog tooth snapper) on the gaff that was taken by our amiga Sara Moss from British Columbia.
PHOTO 8: Spring time is when all species of jacks seem to come into the shallows near the sandy areas. They make for great fun as all of them are natural fighters. These include the yellowtail, amberjack, big eye jacks, jack crevalle and this one…a pompano. Kent Petre from the Denver Co area holds it up off Muertos Bay.

PHOTO 8: Once again…Captain Jorge…on fire with another big pargo taken by Joe Czechan who lives up at Lake Isabella, California, and happily tells you he “fishes every day now that I’m retired.”
PHOTO 9: One of our best guys here is Wayne Moss who always hammers fish. Wayne is a commercial pilot from British Columbia who took this nice roosterfish on his flyrod south of Bahia de Los Muertos. He said he must have released more than 30 fish one afternoon but “stopped counting after awhile.”

WEEKLY VIDEO CLIP

Give this link a click and check out some of this week’s fishing action.
THE FISHING REPORT
There were some nice fish caught this week, especially big pargo and roosterfish. However, there’s alot more that weren’t caught. We’d have done ALOT better but the big story this week was the 3 of 4 days of extremely high winds that came tearing through here.
We haven’t had winds like this since winter and I kid you not…if you know how calm it normally is here…these were the biggest waves and chop I have ever seen here in years that weren’t attached to a hurricane. However, the sun was out. Not a cloud in the sky, but winds came through like a freight train. Chop…gusts…dust…furniture getting blown over…big waves…what a mess! What a pain to be out on a panga! The guys who fished with us this week were gamers…hats off to them. They hung in there despite conditions that had most of us dressed in hooded sweatshirts and long pants shivering. I guess the weather is all screwed up this past week with tornados in California and the mid-west; snow in Los Angeles and other messed up weather patterns uncharacteristic of this time of the year.
However, as I tap out this report, things have calmed and it’s looking and feeling more like Baja again!
There’s no doubt there’s fish here, but if you’re getting bounced out’ve the panga; getting soaked in the waves; or the wind is blowing you off the spot, it’s gonna be hard. However, the pargo are still here. No doubts. I mean…BIG BIG SCHOOLS of BIG FISH FISH! Most anglers who have never felt the power, don’t have any idea of what these big fish can do. No B.S. guys were busting off 60 and 80 pound test on these fish and guys with 50 pound test and fully buttoned-down drags could only watch helplessly as the heavy gear failed to stop the fish from heading into the rocks! Excercises in frustration! You can see the fish. You can see the inhale your bait, then it’s like trying to stop a baby freightrain with a piece of string and a stick! Many bites…few fish. It wasn’t altogether bad fishing. It was bad catching!
However, roosterfish again stepped into the gap and provided great action inshore on small schoolie fish you could catch more than a dozen or the bigger bruisers up to 80 pounds lurking along the beaches. Shaping up to be an incredible roosterfish season. Most do
n’t taste good, but few would argue that these bad boys know how to slug it out when hooked.
Other than that, it was hard to get outside to the buoy spots because of the wind, but a few dorado were hooked and lost and there’s a ton of marlin cruising outside that just wouldn’t eat. We were almost running over the lethargic fish content to basically sit on the surface and sun. I have a feeling they’re ready to bust loose.
Inshore, more sierra, small cabrilla and snapper rounded out the catch.
Newsflash…we’ve been catching just about every species lately…except two…wahoo and tuna. I kept saying it was jut a matter of time. Sure enough some of the commercial guys got wahoo juswt south of the island and a pop of 40 pound tuna rolled off the east side of Cerralvo Island…just before two commercial Mexican seiners dog piled on the spot and wrapped up everything. Exhale….rat bastards…right in front of the fishing pangas! They wrapped up tuna, bonito, skipjack…three days of it. We never even got a shot at them.
Hopefully, the fish will move to a high spot and get out’ve the blue water. The commercial guys can’t fish on the high spots. As you remember, last year, we had several months of tuna in about 30 feet of water. That’s what we’re hoping for again.
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico

“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.”

PHOTO 1: Talk about a whopper! YEOW! Sara Moss from British Columbia has the knack every time she comes down. Captain Jorge gives her a hand with this 40 pound class dorado picked off the outer shark buoys. Sara nailed this on a light salmon rod with live bait. We normally don’t see this kind of quality bull dorado until a bit later, but the fish are here and show all signs of busting loose!

INCREDIBLE VARIETY OF SPECIES MARKS THE WEEK WITH SOLID FISHING AND A BIT OF EVERYTHING FROM MARLIN TO CABRILLA AND ROOSTERFISH TO DORADO RIPPING LINES!

LA PAZ – LAS ARENAS FISHING REPORT FOR MAY 18, 2008

PHOTO 2: Hard to beat a photo or a fish like this. Our amigo, Wayne Moss, a commercial pilot and former fishing guide in British Columba holds a coveted dog-tooth snapper. This horse of a fish is a rarity. They are hooked, but difficult to drag out’ve the rocks not to mention they have sharp gills and armor plating and they don’t call ’em dog-tooth snappers for nothing…they have fang-like choppers. Great eating.

PHOTO 3: A great week for roosterfish. They ran the gamut of fish from this school-sized 5 pounder up to 60 and even 80 pound fish. The smaller guys are balled up south of Muertos Bay where you can have a day of catching several dozen but the big bull roosters are hanging out in the place they call the “Roosterfish Capital of the World”…The Punta Arena lighthouse where the world record 114 pounder was caught and were several of our anglers got tagged by fish up to 80 pounds this week.
PHOTO 4: At first, I thought these were two of the largest cabrilla (Mexican seabass) I had ever seen in all my time here that weren’t underwater when I was scuba diving. Surely the largest I’ve seen on hook and line. Dr. David Jones and his son, Brian Jones from Sylmar CA hold some doozies! Brian (right) for sure holds a HUGE cabrilla. However, the more I look at Davids fish (left) I see something that tells me it’s NOT a cabrilla and I don’t know why I didn’t notice it when we were on the beach. Perhaps there was too much commotion and excitement about the fish, but now I think it’s a broomtail grouper. Look at the tail! Either way…wow…great catches! Smiles say it all. (See the video below)

PHOTO 5: William and Robyn Bristol from the Los Angeles area had a day to spare so they came out fishing. Not only did they nail this trophy pompano, but also got yellowtail, pargo, cabrilla and numerous jacks. William says Robyn caught all the fish to which Robyn agrees, but says she handed the rod to William when this particular pompano got the best of her. Numerous species this past week were the name of the game. I got over a dozen species logged.

PHOTO 6: A helluva day no matter how you look at it. Scott Foster from Los Osos CA holds an amberjack (big cousin to yellowtail) on the left and a pargo perro (dog-tooth snapper) on the right. It seemed we got an inordinate number of great dog tooth this week which is pretty rare. Usually we get more of the pargo liso (mullet snapper). Also, we’re seeing more amberjack now too. These guys are in the rocks with the pargo and May and June are excellent months for them. They get big! We had several between 70 and 100 pounds last year.

PHOTO 7 : Now THIS is a pargo liso (mullet snapper) unlike the dog tooth snapper (pargo perro) in the photo above. Len Veahey from the eastside San Francisco Bay area holds up a nice pargo liso headed for the grill. Great week for pargo. They were biting off Punta Perrico as well as the SE end of Cerralvo Island. Big schools could be seen like dark red moving balls in the shallow water with fish boiling on thrown chummed sardines. However, dead bait seemed to work particularly well for them.

PHOTO 8: More pargo. Darned good week for the big snapper. Scott Foster on the left and Tyler Sikes on the right hold a nice pair of big fish that are up on the shallows schooling right now. Both anglers are from Los Osos CA.

PHOTO 9 : Bob Veahey (left) and Jack Shade (right) hoist a nice female and male bull dorado respecitvely. Both guys got a wide variety of fish topped by those two mahi on their last day. The dorado are out at the buoys in several spots along with marlin and sailfish. The problem is one day they’ll bite and the next day they’ll just look at you and your bait and swim away. They also got a sailfish and released it.

PHOTO 10: Jim Stewart was on his second trip with us. He’s sometimes from Arizona and sometimes from Wyoming! He hooked two sailfish while on a panga with Captain Gerardo (on the left). He was able to release one, but not this one and the meat was divided among alot of hungry folks back at the captains pueblo. Jim and his wife Judy also got quite a few snapper.

PHOTO 11: Dr. Ralph Kettlekamp hails from San Luis Obispo CA and had a spectacular few days with us this past week. He got numerous pargo like this one here as well as other inshore species like cabrilla and amberjack. His topper was his last fish of the trip…a 50 pound dorado.

PHOTO 12: While a couple of the guys were fishing…in fact, had a fish on the line, this “baby” whaleshark felt like playing and checking them out. Gentle and plankton eating, this baby could grow to be over 50 feet long and will often let divers swim with them. These are real sharks and are the largest of their species. They don’t bite people, but are the favorite food of killer whales and are killed as food in many countries since they are easy targets.

PHOTO 13: How good was the pargo fishing? This is a shot of pargo under the panga swarming. These might not look big because there’s no perspective, but these are 20-50 pound fish in shallow water!

THE FISH REPORT!

I guess this is one of those weeks when I can just let the photo images do the explaining! It was a solid week of fishing. Can’t believe the variety too! Not every species was biting every single day and the winds sometimes dictated where you could and couldn’t fish. There might also be a day when you decided you were gonna go for a home run and head off shore to the buoys for dorado and marlin and they wouldn’t bite…and you’d come back skunked. Everyone who stayed inside had pargo, cabrilla , sierra and yellowtail in ther boxes…oh well.

However…here’s the ticket. If you fished 2-3 days like most of our clients, everyone is hooking fish! Not every fish is a keeper. By that, I mean there’s some fish out here that are full-on warrior fish…ask anyone who has battled one of our 30 pound class jack crevalle or taken on a a big bonito on light tackle. They will kick your butt! But they don’t taste real good so you might toss them back. But…wow…no shortage of action! Hard to complain when every other bait in the water gets bit by SOMETHING.

You might also be one of the guys who hooks say…5 big pargo and loses every single one of them in the rocks. You then hook 3 big cabrilla and those pop off too. When you come back to the beach, you ‘ve only got some 12-inch snapper. That wasn’t bad fishing. That was bad catching! Just one of those days. But you might also have hooked 3 jacks that you released as well as 10 bonito that tore you up as well and you threw those back too!

Here’s just some of the species we got: dorado, sailfish (released most), marlin (released all…or they released themselves!), amberjack, pargo liso, barred pargo, cabrilla, broomtail grouper, yellow snapper, red snapper, sierra, roosterfish (up to 60 pounds), jack crevalle, china maru, African pompano, big eye jacks, small yellowtail and dog-tooth snapper.

THE WEEK IN VIDEOS!

We have two this week. Click these!

That’s my story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: http://www.tailhunter-international.com/

Phone: (626) 333-3355

FAX: (626) 333-0115

E-Mail: Riplipboy@aol.com

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

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

“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.”

PHOTO 1: The smile says it all. Nothing better than a kid who catches a fish! Sebastian Villareal is 12-years-old and came down with his family for the first time to La Paz. It was a great week for roosterfishing as shown by this striped pez gallo! Larger roosters moved into the shallows with fish up to 50 pounds. Note how close the panga is to the shore! The fish was released.

BIG ROOSTERS PACE HEAVY INSHORE ACTION FOR SPECIES BECAUSE WINDS KEEP ANGLERS FROM HEADING OFFSHORE!

LA PAZ / LAS ARENAS FISHING REPORT FOR MAY 111, 2008

PHOTO 2: Mark Langley from Orange Co. CA makes it down almost yearly with his wife (see below) to fish with us. Check out the burly rooster he got here just outside Muertos Bay. the fish was released.

PHOTO 2: The beauty of working the shoreline. Check out the variety of fish in front of Mo Langley! Someone is gonna have a smoking-good barbecue! In frnot of her are nice pargo (big red fish), yellowtail and cabrilla. The small yellowtail made several big charges this past week with boats getting 10-20 of the fish.

PHOTO 3: Even sideways, this is a nice fish for Scott Luker from Santa Maria CA. There’s a reason that the Mexican name for these members of the jack family that fight like crazy. The English name is “jack crevalle.” The Mexicans call them “toro.” (bull). Extremely tough on light tackle.
PHOTO 4: Josh Kiffe from Grover Beach CA holds up another nice jack crevalle. These fish often hold up in some fairly large schools. Where there’s one…there’s others! It can last for hours if you keep them around the boat and often they are close enough to fish from the beach.

PHOTO 5: You don’t know jack! Yes…along with yellowtail, roosterfish, jack crevalle and others, this African pompano is also a member of the jack family and has the same bad attitude when hooked. Sebastian Villareal from Rosarita Beach holds him here.

PHOTO 6: Beach spread! Sebastian and Pablo Villareal pose in front of a fine day of inshore fishing. Pictured here are yellowtail, African pompano, barred pargo, big eye jacks, and yellow snapper. They also got many jack crevalle and roosters that were released.

THIS FISHING REPORT

Well…the fishing wasn’t great. It wasn’t bad either. But winds that had been good to us for several weeks came roaring back just to remind us with a kick in the keister that it’s still spring! “In like a lion and out like a lamb.”

Consequently, most of our fishing was out of Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay where it’s more protected and we didn’t do that much fishing from La Paz.
That also meant getting to some of the outside fishing spots was an excercise in misery unless you like getting wet and getting your kidneys jarred into your lungs. So….we stayed inshore where we know there’s fish!

Therefore, you won’t see any dorado or marlin photos this week, but some excellent stuff close to shore. In fact, just to let us know they’re still around, the roosters came on several days like gangbusters and they brought bigger cousins with them. Several fish in the 40-60 pound class were hooked and most of them either busted off or released. The hot spot seemed to be around the Las Arenas lighthouse in that long stretch of white beach that’s famous as the “roosterfish capital of the world.”

Also…not many of the big yellowtail around anymore either. For about 3 months the AVERAGE horse was about 25-40 pounds. Part of that might be the waters getting too warm and the other might be that we just haven’t been fishing in the yellowtail spots because of the wind. However, for several days, punk yellowtail in the 5-10 pound class were like mad puppies charging the boats with double and triple hooksup as fast as you could bait-up! Most boats ended up with 10-20 of the smaller yellowtail and had a blast. I guess it’s too soon to say the yellowtail bite is dead!
If the winds flatten out this week, I think we’ll have a better bite. We’ll keep you posted! The late breaking report for the last few days of the week were big dorado on the outer banks up to 40 pounds so we’ll be scouting that plus there’s marlin hanging there as well! Praying for no wind!
Have a great week!

That’s my story…

Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
E-Mail: Riplipboy@aol.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“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.”

PHOTO 1: There weren’t as many dorado caught this week, but we shouldn’t normally even have dorado this time of year yet. However, those that were landed turned out to be gems like the deuce held here by Sherry and Carter Crossland (are you happy now?) from Yuma AZ. They fished 5 days here this week and seemed to hit about every species we had to offer. Including these bulls taken at the 88 spot buoys, they hit a triple hook up on sailfish; nailed numerous roosters; jacks; pargo, sierra and everything in between

NOT SO MANY BIG FISH OR QUALITY FISH THIS WEEK BUT IF YOU WERE LOOKING FOR LOTS OF LIGHT TACKLE ACTION IT WAS NON- STOP FOR NUMEROUS SPECIES OF INSHORE FISH!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Sunday May 4, 2008

PHOTO 2: One of our poster-boy regulars over the years is Marty Johnson of Atascadero CA. I think he’s caught about everything that has eye-balls and a face down here in our waters and comes each year specifically looking for something new. Here he holds up some of our inshore species…a barred pargo on the left (pargo mulatto) and a china maru (China face) on the right. Both great eating fish. Marty loves the flyrod and light tackle, but put them down and pulled a rapala through the rocks to get those two.

PHOTO 3: Not so many of the big pargo this week. Part of it was windier and roughter waters. Part of it was a lack of luck and fishing experience among anglers and some was just plain nastiness of these big snapper! However, Don Winklepleck from FLA holds up a slugger pargo liso.
PHOTO 4: No shortage of roosterfish for sure. All sizes and shapes. There are so many in some spots they foam to get the baits. Most are released with some of the smaller ones taken for the table which make pretty good frying or sauteeing!

PHOTO 5: Some days there are so many little roosters, they are like hungry little puppies. Other day, the big baja bad boys cruise the shores like this 50 pound class rooster Doug Shearer got fishing with Capt. Victor. You can often see these characters just on the edge of the schools of smaller fish. One of our clients, Carter Crossland (photos above) was in the middle of the smaller roosters, but had hooked a sierra mackere. Just as he was about to pull the sierra to the boat, a rooster estimated at 50 pounds came up and wolfed the sierra! Hook up on the big rooster, but Carter had on the light tackle so it didn’t last long, but that’s just insane fishing!
PHOTO 6: Dave Elliot and Eric Massey, hold up one of those monster pargo that are lurking off Punta Perrico and the SE corner of Cerralvo Island right now. Despite winds, they got int a variety of species, but none better than a prized pargo liso. These are hooked every day, but few are landed.



PHOTO 7 and 8 : I couldn’t ignore these photos by Brent Wisniewski from Oregon. At just the right moment he hit the shutter button and caught this sailfish hooked by Pat Ireton as the fish came out of calm water and tail walked. There’s quite a few billfish considering how early in the season it is. One day you’ll se dozens and they won’t eat a thing. The next day they are fighting to get a single piece of bait on your hook!

PHOTO 9: Yes, the rumors are true. This old guy can still catch a fish now and then. There’s a spot in front of Boca de Alamo we found about 2 weeks ago. Unlimited light tackle small roosters for HOURS!!! Catch and release as fast as you can go. (But there’s bigger ones hanging on the fringe, but the punk fish zip in too fast!). Anyway, I threw a white and fluro orange splasher with a small Krocodile into the melee and the fish exploded on it. This was the lucky guy…who was lucky I wasn’t hungry because this size is very good eating. We released about 30 of them this round.

PHOTO 10: Texan Rob Burns showing off again the incredible variety right now. Here he holds up a toad of an African pompano. Super fighter. Great eating. Busts your chops on light tackle and capable of snapping a rod with burst of speed. Look at this guy…he still looks pissed off (the fish, not the angler!)

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK!

Click on these links to check out our video clips from the week!
1. Weekly round up of variety:
The first angler in this video is Mike Hossack long time-drummer for the Doobie Brothers who got in a day of fishing with us.
2. Sherry and Carter Crossland were hot sticks:
THE FISHING REPORT:
I won’t lie. It wasn’t spectacular fishing this week. It was VERY good fishing, but not like it had been with the big pargo and giant yellowtail. In fact, I’d say the great yellowtail bite of 2008 is probably over as water warm.
But…
Dang…when it was good it was good! If you wanted action, this was an incredible week when almost every bait that hit the water some days blew up with something. There were some rough spots and some days that the fish were a bit stingy, but over all, if you put in a few days at the rail, there was some good rod-bending to be had.
I lost count of some of the species… dorado, small yellowail. some marlin, some sailfish, cabrilla, sierra, big eye jacks, bonito, skipjack, roosterfish, rainbow runners, jack crevalle, barred pargo, yellow snapper, pargo liso, sabalo, pompano, china maru, chilecanos…what variety!
The biggest detriment was that there were times this week when it was too windy to go outside to the dorado or marlin spots. For sure…we almost did NOT fish the La Paz side because winds produced mostly a long boat ride for only a few yellowtail, cabrilla and alot of bonito. Almost all our fishing was from the Muertos/ Las Arenas side where even if the wind was blowing, at least the fish were close up and not to far away.
The other part is that not every fish bit every day. One day the yellowtail would foam, but the next it would be sierra day or roosterfish day. If you went out to the yellowtail spot. you might have a bum day. The guys who went for roosters or sierra would’ve had a banner day!
Live bait and small rapalas did the most damage. Flurocarbon leaders were definitely bit more than standard mono. Flyrodders and light tackle guys had a ball. We didn’t catch alot of the big pargo this week, but that’s also because so many continued to be lost in the rocks.
Water temps are moving up! Air temps are in the mid-90’s now.
ALASKA AIR REDUCES RATES FOR LIMITED TIME!
Alaska Air announced another surprise sale. For a limited time, fares have dropped almost half for flights here to La Paz. Alaska flies Monday/ Wednesday and Saturaday. Seats must be purchased by May 8 and used before June 25. Their phone is 1-800- AlaskaAir. Jump on these. Seats are limted and so are our spots here for boats and rooms.
That’s my story!
Jonathan
JONATHAN ROLDAN’s
TAILHUNTER INTERNATIONAL
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico


“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.”

PHOTO 1: A new king is crowned! An incredible week of pargo fishing for the big elusive and frustrating fish was topped by this beast! We had more pargo and bigger pargo this week than we ever normally see! Barry Wood from Orange Co. CA with an assist from Captain Armando hefts a HUGE 49.6 pound pargo liso (on the scale!) he pulled out of the rocks near Muertos Bay.

BEST WEEK OF PARGO FISHING AS INSHORE SPECIES GO OFF WITH OFFSHORE SPECIES STILL GETTING BETTER!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for April 27, 2008

Photo2: Dan Cook was on his first trip to Mexico and first time fishing La Paz. The 18 year-old graduates from high school next week but skipped out for some early R n R to go fishing all the way from Boston MA to hang with his dad. Efforts rewarded! Check out the slugger of a pargo he got as well as roosterfish and lots of other species!

PHOTO 3: These fish are all over the shallows right now, but usually almost impossible to yank out’ve the rocks. Lee Cook and his son Danny (photo above) from Boston got FOUR of these huge fish off Cerralvo Island on live bait.
PHOTO 4: You may not recognize this guy, but he’s famous! Mike “Moogie” Alperin used to have a very popular fishing TV show on FOX TV. But he’s better known for being the inventor of the famous “banjo lure” that you used to see advertised on TV. Don’t laugh. He sold millions of these little plastic lures and laughed all the way to the bank enabling him to retire and do what all of us want to do…fish whenever he wants! He came all the way from Massachusetts to fish light tackle with us putting numerous species on line as light as 6 pound test. (Releasing almost all fish!) However, he knew enough to put down the little rods and grab heavy artillery to nail this HUGE pargo liso. He got four of these monsters in a single day. Almost unheard of!

PHOTO 5: Caryn Aizawa gets a hand from Jeff Sakuda both from the Los Angeles CA area with this nice bull dorado taken off the offshore buoys near Cerralvo Island. Dorado have show up early this year! Last year we had a decent dorado season, but not many big bulls. This year, we’ve already seen larger fish in the last 3 weeks than we’ve had all last year.

PHOTO 6: Not bad for a first fishing trip. Dan Cook is 18 years-old and ripped all kinds of species this past week including this trophy dorado.
PHOTO 7: Mike Alperin holds up a nice little roosterfish taken on 6 pound test. If you wanted roosters this week, we found a spot south of Muertos Bay with unlimited roosters. Alperin caught and released so many roosters “we stopped counting.” This is a perfect size for light tackle. Alperin also lost a fish estimated at over 50 pounds that chomped a huge ladyfish bait.

PHOTO 8 : Keith Mufford from British Columbie and Kelly Ashmore from Valencia CA hold up a pair of dorado they got at the outside buoys. Mufford had never fished salt water. Ashmore is constantly on the water. In addition to a box of dorado on this day, they also hooked 3 marlin including a double hook-up and released all fish.
PHOTO 9 : Just to show more of the inshore variety, Joe Fong from Laguna Beach holds o a jack crevalle (left) and a nice cabrilla (seabass on the right). Inshore fishing included sierra, jack crevalle, big eye jacks, snapper, pargo and pompano.

PHOTO 10: Yes, there’s still big yellowtail around, but since the dorado and pargo showed up, the focus has fallen off the great yellowtail bite. So, not many yellowtail on the books these days. However, outdoor writer and guide Ronnie Garrison from Atlanta GA holds up a fat yellowtail and lost many more to the rocks. Captain Jacobo lends a hand. Here’s what Ronnie wrote…
“. . .we went out with our local guide and fished all day in our old clothes. It was a fun trip. After buying live sardines for bait we headed to a ridge to fish. On the way we spotted a marlin and I found out why the outfitters are called Tail Hunters. As a marlin swims on the surface feeding its tail waves around and gives its location away. It was early in the season and the marlin did not bite.
We did land a 35 pound yellowtail. Linda hooked it and the guide took the rod from her when it looked like it was going to pull her in. He then handed it to me and I managed to land it. I found out how lucky I was when we hooked eight more yellowtail and every one cut our line on the rocks.”
PHOTO 11: Monica Calin originally from Romania and now living in La Paz always seems to do well. She was fishing with her boyfriend Kevin Beehn in the channel between the islands and got a nice bull dorado.

PHOTO 12: We had folks from all over the country this week. Rob Burns from Texas had a great few days of fishing with his family and hung a few of these big yellowtail.

PHOTO 12: We have a tremendous number of billfish in the area right now. One day they will barely give you a stare. The next day they are almost jumping in the boat! Pat Ireton from Pacific City, Oregon got this sailfish with Captain “Yofo” Adolfo and then released it.

WE NOW HAVE VIDEO!

Check out these clips from the past week. We’re doing our best to keep it fresh for you!

Click these links too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRqLV4o2wAg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS5o-BNn2TI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_krVmqoXp-4

THE FISHING REPORT!

Check out the photos and it tells the story! Every week there’s another surprise. For a number of weeks the story was the great bite of big yelllowtail. Then dorado showed up and edged the yellows out of the spotlight. This week, it’s big pargo and roosterfish. This early season is the best we have had in ages!

Here’s the scoop…honestly, we had FEWER fish caught this week. However, the QUALITY of the fish was great. Big pargo…normally hard to catch…were breaking lines and rods. As one angler put it…”The waters were’t red with pargo! They were BLACK because the pargo were so thick!”

Additionally… We found a spot of roosterfish that yielded some of the BEST roosterfishing I have ever seen. With light tackle, the waters foamed around the pangas with as many 5-10 pound roosters as you could have wanted. I was on the water and we literally lost count of all the roosters we caught and released!

Are the yellowtail still there? I have to believe they are…but…we had a few days of wind which prevented anglers from heading to north Cerralvo. Further, folks were out chasing the dorado, pargo and even marlin and sailfish that have shown up a the outer buoys.

In all honesty…there are a few slow days. It’s not wide open. It depends on what variety of fish you are chasing and where you go. But EVERYONE is catching fish. I counted over 18 varieties of fish this week. Just alot of great fun.

One fishing tip…bring flurocarbon leaders! It makes a big difference with your bite. It’s very expensive to buy here in La Paz. You don’t need much. Just a few feet at the end of your line can make all the difference.

That’s my story. Have a great week!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: http://www.tailhunter-international.com/

Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115

E-Mail: Riplipboy@aol.com

U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico

“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.”

UNEXPECTED FISHING FOR YELLOWTAIL, DORADO AND EVEN MARLIN KICKED OFF THE WEEK BUT SHUT DOWN WHEN WINDS STARTED LATER IN THE WEEK.

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for April 20, 2008

PHOTO 1: Good- sized dorado…early for the season, continued to show up in surprising numbers. Spencer Lasley (L) and Jerry Smith (R) from Santa Rosa CA packed their coolers with dorado, yellowtail and a number of other species. These dorado were picked off outside Cerrlavo Island

PHOTO 2: All the way from Kansas, Marc Richert and Chris Richert are helped by Capt. Victor with one of their dorado. The pair had never been out’ve the country and were originally thinking of going to Cancun! Insstead, they came to La Paz and got dorado, yellowtail, roosterfish and marlin. Marc fought one striped marlin almost 3 hours on 30 pound test before it broke off.

PHOTO 3: This is the “right kind!” Note the colors on this young bull dorado held by Pete Schuller of Pacific City, Oregon. Check out the flat waters too. Captain Pancho is in the background. This dorado and others were taken off the 88 spot buoys outside Cerrlavo Island.
PHOTO 4: This is a typical nice inshore catch here by Mike Mamman and Scott Carpenter from Beaverton OR who came down for their birthdays. (They each got tatoos to commemorate the event!). In the photo you see dorado, sierra and pargo. All great eating fish!

THE FISHING REPORT

The week started off with a bang. Just like last week, the sound you heard was the sound of fish exploding at all points. The yellowtail (20-50 pounds) continued to rip at the El Bajo Seamount north of Espiritu Santo Island. Sardines worked, but if you had the bigger caballitos it was almost instant bendo as fish fought for the baits.

The surprising thing…dorado in the channel as well as marlin! This is a first for the year. Again…way earlier than normal, but just like the dorado and billfish that showed up far outside at the 88 spot, these fish are normally pretty dormant until later in May or June. However, I’ve been watching water temps and the sargasso weed building up north of town.

Wham! Sure enough, boats early in the week got into both species big time with some great battles on light tackle and some anglers getting their first dorado and marlin. So, it was a good grab bag…yellowtail in the morning then grand slam with a dorado or marlin in the afternoon!

As well for my fleet out of Muertos, early in the week, the big bite at La Reyna north of Cerralvo Island continued to kick out those monster yellowtail with boats taking 2-6 of the big fish each. Outside at the 88 and a few spots in the channel around buoys or clumps of grass, dorado were milling and ready to eat like hungry wolves!

Then the winds came up…

We’ve been living on borrowed time the last few weeks with not much in the way of winds, but late in the week, the seasonal winds we normally have started blowing making it downright uncomfortable if not impossible to get out to some of the big fish spots.

That meant back to inshore fishing.

So…roosters, sierra, cabrilla, big eye jacks, jack crevalle, bonito, skipjack punctuated by big pargo were the game toward the latter part of the week. The counts did not look good but that’s also because a lot of these fish, especially the pargo would take anglers to the rocks. So, lots of hook ups, but not so many fish brought into the boats. Lots of action! Winds will be intermittent all week so we’ll play it by ear.

It’s a warm 95 now! Break out the shorts!

ON A SADDER NOTE…

In a huge shock to all of us here in La Paz, fish brother, competitor and friend, Francisco “Pancho” Aguilar owner and operator of the Baja Pirate Fleet here in La Paz died suddenly this past week.

He was a good guy. Always smiling. He was out on the boats when hit by a massive heart attack. He was only 42 years old and left two kids including a newborn.

Pancho and I did a lot together in the mid-90’s and worked together. We’d laugh at each other seeing each other at 5 a.m. every morning then seeing each other in town at midnight the same day laughing our heads off figuring we were the only guys in town still working that long or that late.

As our respective fleets grew larger and business interests got more complicated we saw less of each other except the occasional bump into each other in town or see each other at the trade shows. But he always had a joke or we’d bitch about wind, bait or some “special” customer and again…crack up.

I will miss him. I don’t think I had seen him happier than in the last year or so after his marriage to La La.

His partner, Leonard Phillips, is setting up a educational trust fund for the two kids, Andrea (14) and Kamila (5 months). The trust is being administered by Bank of America and Bancomer for the benefit of the kids. (Andrea wants to be a chef!). You can donate by sending a check or calling in a credit card to:

Andrea & Kamila AguilarC/O Baja Pirates10016 Pioneer BoulevardSuite 110Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670Or call (866)454-5386

God bless our fish brother. Make each day special. Every day on the water is a gift.

That’s my story…
Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: , 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“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.”