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Posts Tagged ‘Espirito Santo Island’

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter Fleet for Week of Feb. 23 to March 2, 2014

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In 20 years running our operations in La Paz, I’ve not had anyone pull up a big broomtail grouper like this. Leif (“Don’t  call me “Garrett”) Dover from Atlanta GA has been fishing at least 2 times a year for many years and always sticks fish with us. He said this fish slammed into his jig and almost pulled him out’ve the boat. This is not just a trophy fish, it’s also an unusual catch!

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Fishermen come for years trying to stick a trophy wahoo. Don Asp came down on his first trip from Minnesota and rips this sweet ‘hoo! He’s just trying to catch some sunshine and get in a little fishing. Instead he gets on of the most prized fish in Baja. He’s on the beach at Bahia de Los Muertos. Lots of wahoo this week. Unbelievable.

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Ken Gragg (left) is one of our best amigos who fishes with us at Tailhunter several times a year and came down this past week with his son, Steve. They found the schools of big pargo liso off the rocks near Las Arenas. Tough fish to put in the boat!

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Brian O’Neil gets a funny look from our Tailhunter Moncho as Brian struggles with a wiggling big amberjack and not get stuck by the jig. First big amberjack of the season for Brian!

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OK…this one turned out to be the biggest amberjack of the week…maybe the year! Look at this beast that Capt. Hugo hung!   The amberjack is the delicious big cousin of the yellowtail. These are generally not caught in our waters until later in the spring!  Amigo, Roger Thompson,  was on the boat and took the photo.  Thanks, Rog!

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Shellee Mittan from northern California and her husband, Bill, only had time to squeeze in one day of fishing and got some cabrilla (released) and these two nice sierra.

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We have missed our amigo, Daryl Valdez from Bakersfield CA who usually visits us every year, but hasn’t been down in a bit. Great to see him and he got the largest pargo of the week…this fish estimated at 20-25 pounds.

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Nice forktail! Joe Arata from Pacifca CA dropped a blue and white iron overboard and stuck it to this fat yellowtail off Cerralvo Island. The yellowtail haven’t been as prevailant as normal as water temps and bait conditions have been variable.

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Dave Lue and Chad Gagnier were visiting us for the first time and fishing with Tailhunter and show off their first day of fishing with 2 wahoo plus dorado. The anglers are from Georgia.

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First day hot stick, Leif Dover and Captain Moncho pose with another wahoo taken off Cerralvo Island.

THE MOST AMAZING CRAZY WINTER WEEK OF FISHING!

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Feb. 23 to March , 2014

This might have been the craziest week of winter fishing we’ve seen in our many years here.  Mainly, it’s because it wasn’t winter fishing! I’m not sure what to call it or what to say about it!

In all honesty, the fishing action was really only so-so.  We had a good number of anglers out there and it wasn’t crazy wide-open by any stretch.  And it was better earlier in the week than later when it seemed to taper off.

However, what it lacked in numbers was made up for in quality.  Great quality. Unbelievable quality.  Just look at the photos!

Now, normally this time of year, we’re chasing cold water inshore fish.  Species like sea bass (cabrilla), pargo (snapper), jack crevalle, pompano, sierra and the like.  If conditions are right, we’re also getting the big pig yellowtail as well.

Well, the last few weeks we started getting some really strange biters and I think it culminated this week.  In fact, it was a great indescribable week relatively speaking.

We did find the pargo.  Some big ones right off Punta Perrico.  But, we also got…get this..(drumroll)….wahoo!  Dorado!  A 180-pound striped marlin!  Amberjack!  And even a huge broom tail grouper!

What’s going on?

Maybe it’s the water temps being a little warmer than normal.  Maybe it’s the lack of mackerel that usually draw the yellowtail up from the trenches.  But, I have never seen a winter like this where we’re getting these species.  Sure, every now and then someone gets one, but to have all of these species biting at the same time?  Literally unheard of!

But, the anglers sure stuck some fish.  Bait was still an issue, but using ballyhoo and slow trolling Rapalas and also those guys who dropped yo yo iron did well.   Hot spots were all around Cerralvo Island, around the north and south ends were especially good.  But also around Punta Perico fish were found.  We’ll just have to keep an eye on things!

BRING ON THE BIG SHOW – TAILHUNTER HEADS TO LONG BEACH FRED HALL SHOW

Jilly n JR Long Beach booth

Thanks to all of our new and old amigos in Boise who came to see us at the Idaho Sportsmans Show! We were slammed and had the best show of our 2014 sports tour! Lots of reservations for fishing with us this year and we’re looking forward to all the visit!
But now…we head to the big boy show of shows…the FRED HALL FISHING and HUNTING SHOW at the Long Beach Convention Center starting this Wednesday to Sunday!

We can’t say enough about this past week show at the Idaho Sportsmans’ Show in Boise Idaho.  Thanks to everyone!  The show was packed and our Tailhunter booth was slammed.  We had some of our best day of the 2014 tour this past week and booked lots of new reservations for fishing this year!  Just spectacular!

And now….

We head to the grand-daddy of shows!  The Fred Hall Fishing and Hunting Show starts Wednesday and goes through Sunday at the Long Beach Convention Center.  This show is huge so bring your walking shoes!  There’s tons to see for the whole family.  It takes some folks several days to walk through all the displays; check out all the gear for sale; check out the seminars and make their way through the whole show.  This is a huge party.  If you’ve never attended it’s the Woodstock of fishing shows on the West Coast.  Come see us.  We’ll be in our booth in our usual place in the middle of tackle row, next to Izorline fishing line and Whopper Stopper fishing rods.   This is gonna be fun!

Here’s more details:  Fred Hall Fishing Show

That’s our story!

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Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA  91942

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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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La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International Fleet for Week of Feb. 16-23, 2014

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Yes! It’s February and we’re catching dorado! Normally, warm water fish, apparently, no one told the dorado as we keep running into them like this nice bull taken by our Washington amiga Carol Darby with Captain Gerardo.

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Another surprise this week! Wahoo once again showed up near Cerralvo Island like this speedy ‘hoo with Captain Archangel.

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Apparently, this is turning into one of the best whale-watching seasons in recent years! The whales are solid at Lopez Mateos at Bahia Magdalena and we’re running daily trips out to see them! Contact us for a trip of a lifetime getting close to these magnificent animals!

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Thanks, everyone who came to visit us at the University of Phoenix stadium in Phoenix, Arizona. We had another great time at the ISE show! We also booked lots of La Paz trips too! We’re filling fast! Now we move onto Boise, Idaho! See the details below and come see Jill and Jonathan!

STRANGE MIX OF FISH AGAIN SURPRISE ANGLERS

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Feb. 16-23, 2014

Generally, not a bad week of fishing for our anglers, but again, just like the last few weeks, some unusual catches.  It’s almost getting to be an old record but the catches just don’t seem to make sense!

This is winter and catches are generally inshore and consist of inshore COLD water species.  Well, the bite has certainly been inshore, but the CATCH has been rather unusual.  For the past few weeks, and again this week, we caught dorado!  Dorado are warm water fish.  We catch them in the summer and fall when the waters are warm.

What else is unusual is that the fish were mostly caught pretty close to shore…while fishing for WINTER fish like the cabrilla (sea bass) and sierra and species like that.  We did indeed catch the sea bass, sierra, pargo and jack crevalle.  But in the middle of that, it’s pretty surprising to also get dorado.

Likewise, also got a few wahoo as well.  So, go figure.  Again, the wahoo are usually trophy fish that we pursue in the warmer months!  The wahoo ware taken off the north and south end of Cerralvo Island.  We’ll just have to keep following this.

All week, we’ve got a full week of fishermen so we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on with the bite.  Hopefully, find more pargo and yellowtail too!

TAILHUNTER TOUR MOVES ONTO BOISE, IDAHO!

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Come visit us at the Boise Sporstmans Show in Idaho this week. They have some great taxidermy displays there!

Jill and I have been on the road now for 2 months and had some incredible shows in Sacramento, Denver, Puyallup (Seattle), Portland, Yakima and just finished one of our best shows ever in Phoenix at the University of Phoenix Stadium.  Thanks to all our amigos who stopped by and everyone who came by to talk to us about fishing with us this year in La Paz.   We now move to our 6th show in Boise, Idaho at the Idaho Sportsman Show at the Boise Fairgrounds.  This is a great show and we’ll be there from Thursday to Sunday!  Here’s some additional info.  Click the link:

Idaho Sportsman Show

Come visit us!  There’s always alot to see and great fun for the family.  We’ve got new Tailhunter t-shirts and hats that Jilly designed plus come chat about your La Paz vacation this year!

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

combo signature 2-proc

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA  91942

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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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La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of Feb. 2-9, 2014

mark martis wahoo 2-14 tags

Mark Martis visits La Paz several times a year and our amigo has been fishing with Tailhunter for well over a decade. He often surprises us with his great catches, but this surprise catch this past week with Captain Victor was this spectacular wahoo taken off Cerralvo Island.  Officially our first wahoo of the season!

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Seth Caillat got our first official Las Arenas yellowtail of the season. In fact he got two of the plus dorado using live ballyhoo out’ve Bahia de Los Muertos.

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Whale watching season with the gray whales in Magdalena Bay is in full-swing right now with lots of whales in the shallow calm waters! Let us know if we can set up your whale watching trip for the experience of a lifetime! Whales usually hang out until the middle of March.

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The Tailhunter Tour showed up for the Pacific Northwest Sportsmans Show this week in Portland Oregon and got slammed with a freak 4 day snow and ice storm that virtually froze everything in the city and shut down much of Portland. We still had a great show!

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Like I said, we still had a spectacular show in Portland with lots of amigos visiting Jill and I including Matt, Tim and Phil who stopped to say hi and take a quick photo at our Tailhunter booth. Next stop…YAKIMA, Washington.

A WEEK OF SURPRISES FOR FISHING WEEK!

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Feb. 2-9, 2014

I’m not sure how to describe the week.  OK, we got some fish.  Yes, it was a little breezy and yes, it was a little bumpy some day out there.  But that’s typical of this time of year.  In all honesty, we didn’t get ALOT of fish.  So, best to be truthful.

However, that’s not what made the week remarkable.

What made it remarkable was the quality of the fish we got!

OK, we got a few cabrilla and some bonito and some sierra.  Ho-hum.  That’s about par for winter fishing right now.  But, whereas we got those big pargo snapper last week and I thought we were going to go zipping into pargo season, the pargo didn’t show.

Instead,  it was a week of FIRSTS!

…we got our first yellowtail of the season…some nice 25-pound fish.  These fish ate some slow trolled big Rapalas as well as slow-trolled ballyhoo that caused the fish to blow up.  Secondly, we also got…(hold on…drumroll…)  WAHOO!!!  Yup.  Wahoo, in winter at the south end of Cerralvo Island. Our first wahoo of the season!

On top of that we got dorado still biting.  Dorado are SUMMER fish!  What’s up with that?  I have a feeling this could be a wacky start to the season.  Every week, we’re running into something different.  That just makes it fun.

TAILHUNTER TOUR LEAVES PORTLAND SHOW AND MOVES TO YAKIMA WASHINGTON!

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It was an incredible crazy snow-filled week in Portland as a freaky 4-day snowstorm pretty much shut down the city! We still had a great time and booked lots of La Paz fishing trips and saw lots of our amigos!

Our 3-month Tailhunter Road Tour says adios to one of our favorite cities in Portland, Oregon where we had a crazy week of an unusual snow and ice storm that pretty much froze the city…and us!  But, we had a great show and now move onto the CENTRAL WASHINGTON SPORTSMEN SHOW in YAKIMA, WASHINGTON!  The show is a fun 3-day event from Friday to Sunday, Feb. 14-16th.  Come say his and let’s talk about visiting us in La Paz this year…where it’s WARM!

For more details, click the link:  CENTRAL WASHINGTON SPORTSMEN SHOW

Hope to see you then!  Have a great week!

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

combo signature 2-proc

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA  91942

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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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La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of Oct .13-20, 2013

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Another good week of dorado fishing as the season seems to be tapering off. But, the dorado still bit strongly. Both our Las Arenas Tailhunter Fleet and La Paz Tailhunter Fleet kept finding fish some of the schools very close to shore with fish ranging from 8-40 pounds. Thanks to Gary Wagner for the great underwater shot.

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Some guys come for years trying to get one little sniff of a wahoo. George Kasee from Georgia was on his first trip and put this flyer in the box fishing off Cerralvo Island just before the storm hit. There’s still wahoo in the waters feeding off the high spots.

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Yes…thats’ our famous Captain Pancho all wrapped up in the bandana, but he’s lending a hand to Kevin wearing his lucky fishing shirt that paid off with this marlin just outside of Bahia de Los Muertos.

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Captain Gerardo with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet gives a hand to Michele Edwards from Loma Rica CA who was on her first trip with us in La Paz. She was here celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary and many thanks to them…they not only donated all their fish from the entire week of fishing but also brought down an incredible amount of toys, sporting goods, school materials and other things for the several charity groups of kids in La Paz.

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This is what we’ve been using for bait the last few weeks…giant squid! They have worked great, not to mention saving some up to have it cooked up at Tailhunter Restaurant . But this is how we have often started our days with having to catch the giant squid like James Edwards here with Captain Gerardo.

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Big smiles from Tera and Virgil Redwine from Washington State hold up some of their catch fishing north of La Paz.

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It doesn’t take much in La Paz for the streets to flood. After just a few minutes, we’re plowing through several feet of water like this past week when Tropical Storm Octavo dropped rain on us for a few hours. But then, as fast as it comes, it stops and the streets dry up.

ANOTHER LITTLE STORM PASSES THRU BUT DORADO AND OTHERS STILL COME TO PLAY!

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Oct 12-20, 2013

Well…another storm has come and gone.  “Octavo” rose up out’ve nowhere and blew in…and out.  It wasn’t as bad as anticipated. But, it still made for a day of rough seas…some crazy rain for about a day…and some winds.

Fortunately, since we have our two fleets, we were able to adjust folks and move them so that pretty much everyone who was supposed to fish got to fish instead of sit around the pool or hang out in their rooms.  Las Arenas was too muddy and too rough to launch so we had everyone fish with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet and, at least we got out there and most folks were still getting fish.

And that’s the story…these storms are called “Toritos” (Little Bulls) that rise up out’ve nowhere when warm waters hit the right air and suddenly there’s a little blip on the weather screen that starts to swirl.  It’s the nature of thing down here in tropical zones.  They blow in and roar.  And just as quickly they blow out.  We had that one day and the next day the sun was out and the waters were calm and it was “fishing business as normal!”

Dorado were still the main attractant.  Most days, it was limits or near limits of the mahi for both fleets.  One day, however, it would seem like all the fish were the smaller school-sized 8-15 pounders.  The next day, the fish were all 10-20’s.  Some days the bite was late with literally nothing going on for hours then a frantic 11th hour free-for-all.  Other days, it was pick…pick…pick with a fish here and another there…and two…then one…resulting in a full box.  Other times, it would be an early melee then nothing the rest of the day resulting in searching for other species.  We generally instruct our clients to just hang in there and be patient and do what our captain suggests.  He wants to catch fish as badly as they do.  The days when folks didn’t do well were the days when folks decided to do something different an chase species that were harder to get…like cabrilla…pargo…or tuna.  But, in most cases folks know they take the chance and aren’t disappointed when they might strike out a bit.

One of those fish that is normally elusive this time of year is the rooster fish.  However, several days this week, rooster fish showed up and these were a nice-grade 20-50 pound fish.  We found these bruisers around the Arenas lighthouse area.   They weren’t there every day, but when they were there, they bit pretty readily and were a great surprise since normally, we don’t’ see roosters this time of year.  However, for alot of our clients who got them it was great for them to get one of these exotic fish!

The other big surprise were the number of marlin and sailfish we hooked this week.  I mean…wow!  Several days it seems like almost every one of our pangas hooked at least 1 or 2 billfish each.  Again, an unexpected thrill and sometimes when I would see the numbers or a panga and see that they didn’t get many dorado, I would check and it turned out they spent a good part of their day tied up on marlin fighting the fish for several hours!  Well done…most of the billfish were released also or broke off to fight another day!  I think many of these fish are in the area chomping on the small dorado in the area as well as  the squid.

A few wahoo hooked and lost as well this week so the fish are still here as well, but conditions are changing and the waters are clearly cooling down as we got a few more pargo and cabrilla as well as sierra which are all cool water fish.

 

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, P.O. Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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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La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of Sept. 28-Oct. 6, 2013

dorado in sand tags Ken campbell 10-13

This is my new favorite photo! I think I am going to frame it. After the hundreds of fishing photos I have published this is one of the most creative. Ken Campbell wanted to show everyone the big dorado he LOST! Anyone can have a photo of the fish they caught but how many have a photo of the the fish they lost? Bravo, Ken! (He did catch plenty of other dorado, but this would have been the biggest and was a heartbreaker!)

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Our amigos, Rick Hosmer (tail) and John Nagy (head) always do well. It’s Rick’s 4th trip this year and John’s 3rd trip this year and they always fish with Captain Mundo. They stuck this hefty blue marlin with a live bait estimated at about 200 pounds. Attempts to release the fish were not successful. They are posing with the fish at Bahia de Los Muertos near Las Arenas. Lots of billfish this week!

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Yes! There are still roosters around! Steve Sibayan helps his son, Nathan, with this nice rooster caught near the Las Arenas lighthouse on live bait. The fish was released and the Sibayan family was on their first trip to fish with Tailhunter in La Paz (see photos below)

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Our Tailhunter family! Son Jarrett Pfost and his girlfriend Diana Pleasants from San Diego spent the week with us and did well with the dorado bite at Las Arenas.

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“Dancing Don” Busse is one of our favorite amigos who visits us each year. Don fished several day this week and poses with one of his larger fish from his first day fishing from Las Arenas. The nice dorado swallowed a chunk of chopped squid.

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Devon Boatman was another new amigo who gave us a try this week for the first time. He spent an hour-and-a-half on this striped marlin…his first. He got it to the boat and figured it was about 100 pounds and could easily heft it into the panga for a photo. NOT! It was heavier than he thought! So…a quick photo and a nice strong release for the marlin! Well-done!!! Devon is from Lake Elsinore CA .

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I love family photos! The Sibayan family with some of their dorado catch after a great day on the water. Nathan, William and mom Victoria on the beach!

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From the mountains near Sacramento, John Kennedy, fished with us pretty much the whole week and had great outtings on the big dorado bite that’s been going on about 2 weeks now.

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Al Basye and his future son-in-law-to-be Ehab Abufaire from Orange Co. CA fished 3 days this past week and got a bit of variety in the catch with dorado plus the nice barred pargo.

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Gary Bryson from northern California gets a hand with his first-ever billfish taken near Espirito Santo Island north of La Paz by Kevin Hale, son Eric Bryson and Jeremy Lord. The fish was hooked on a live bait and could not be released. It was a great day. In addition to the sail, they also got a box of dorado; caught and released a hammerhead shark. They also saw a huge whaleshark and jumped into the water to swim with it. Quite a day!

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From Aloha, Oregon (love that name!), Dorothy and Terry Humphreys were visiting us for the first time and came to spend Dorothy’s birthday in La Paz. Although they live in Oregon, she had not fished in 30 years even though she loved fishing. So, they came to visit! And they did great on dorado!

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Angela Olivero is another of our first-timers this week. He’s from Murrietta CA and with Captain Pancho running the panga poses with his largest dorado of the day. That’s Bahia de los Muertos in the background.

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Great shot. Fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet, three dorado grab air from Eric Bryson, Kevin Hale and Jeremy Todd while on the beach in Balandra Bay after a day of fishing.

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Amigo, John Kennedy, took this great photo of the fishermen mixed up with the commercial fishermen at dawn’s first light all fishing for giant squid near Las Arenas. This is how we start the day catching these big squid for bait. The dorado have been eating these like crazy!

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Jeremy Frieze holds up one of the big squid that we catch in the morning and use for bait. It’s actually alot of fun and harder than most people think to pull one of these huge cephalopods up from the deep.

DORADO STILL THE MAIN PLAYERS AS SCHOOLIES SWARM THE PANGAS!

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 6, 2013

I’m not sure how to explain this, but fishing “slowed down” this week…compared to last week!  But it wasn’t bad!

Last week, our Tailhunter anglers were catching triple and quadruple limits of dorado as fast as they could bait hooks so the bar had been set pretty high!  This week started like that but, as the week went on it “tapered” to only single and double limits.  So, there was some disappointment.  But hey…still catching and releasing 10 or 15 dorado a day is NOT a bad day on the water!

Not sure what happened.  The waters didn’t change . The temperatures didn’t change.  I didn’t see any noticeable differences in the winds or other variables, but no doubt the fishing dialed-down just a notch or two.  Most noticeably, this was for fishing out’ve La Paz where the pangas had to work a little harder to find and catch fish.

For Las Arenas, for the most part, limits were still the rule rather than the exception with some fast action most times and for most pangas although there were some blips here and there.

Still, it’s alot of fun, especially on light tackle to get into a voracious school of 10-15 pound dorado.  Guys would tell me that they could see bigger bulls on the periphery of the marauding schools, but the younger bucks would zoom in so fast that the bigger fish had no chance at the hooks!  But, we still did manange to get a few 20-40 pound fish every day.

For Las Arenas, there is still no live bait to be had.  But, that has not slowed the bite. What we’re doing is jumping into the squid holes in the morning and hauling up some of those giant squid.  Using cut up squid for bait works just fine.  The dorado don’t slow down at all.

For La Paz, we’re still getting some mackerel and caballitos for bait since we go out earlier than some of the other fleets.  So, we hook a few dozen of them.  Then we go buy some sardines from the bait guys.  After that, go jig up some bonito to use for cut-bait.  That gives us 2–4 different varieties of bait to offer once we’re at the fishing grounds.

For other species, the biggest comment is more for what we are NOT catching.  Tuna just have not come to the party this year.  That’s what most guys are asking since this is traditionally tuna time.  We’re getting some wahoo and every day a few billfish are hooked and released most of the time.  Many of the billfish are hooked while anglers are in the middle of a dorado frenzy and the marlin and sailfish show up to join the party by eating the chummed squid as well as feeding on the dorado themselves!

Roosterfish are still along the beaches although no one much has been fishing for them since they’re not good eating and the dorado are so rampant.  We’re also seeing a few more pargo and sierra as the waters are now starting to cool down.

That’s our story!

Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

http://www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, P.O. Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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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La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of Aug. 18-25, 2013

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Happy guy…Johnny Gilbertson from the Sacramento CA area gets a hoist from Captain Chito from our Tailhunter La Paz fleet. Once again, dorado were the centerpiece of our bite that produced a great week until the late week storm arrived.

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Kevin Shiotani has a habit of tangling with beasts! Several months ago, he caught a 135-pound estimated amberjack that might have rivaled a world record. He ripped again this week with this huge 57-pound dorado. He trolled completely around Cerralvo Island on a long day and was just about to go back to the beach when he stuck this beast dorado with his last bait of the day!

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Eric Legaspi and Steve Chun got in on the big dorado bite this week showing off some of their catch of mahi. Both are from the Sacramento area. These fish were caught off Las Arenas.

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It was another pretty good week for billfish with striped marlin and sailfish getting hooked every day and most getting released or breaking off. This pretty fish was taken by Rick Hosmer, our amigo from Manhattan Beach CA, who took the photos and then released the fish while fishing near Las Arenas.

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Yes! At least before the storm hit, we were still catching the giant squid near Punta Arenas and areas south. Grayson Richmond has a big smile for the camera after he wrenched up this big cephlapod from the deep. Captain Adolfo helps out. The squid are great for bait, but also some brought back to be cooked up!

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Debbie White from Oregon, often visits us 2 times a year here in La Paz and always does great with a habit for big fish like this beautiful dorado she caught near Cerralvo Island.

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Two of our funnest recent visitors, Diane and Frank Kunze from Colorado, pose with some of their catch from Las Arenas. Fishing 3 days, they took home limits of dorado!

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Check out the colors on this dorado…clearly, one of the most colorful fish in our waters with golds, yellows, greens and a myriad of other colors including this shimmering blue. Wade Gomes fishes with us every year with a great bunch of amigos and had a great several days of us.  Our amigo is standing on the beach at Balandra north of La Paz.

don dorado 8-13 small tags

Easy to see why these fish are so photogenic. Our Oregon, amigo, Don White was on his 2nd trip to us this year in La Paz and targets big fish. He’s usually pretty successful. He got this nice mahi off Cerralvo Island.

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Sailfish were willing to bite again this week with all of them getting released. This great shot of Don Lemieux’s sail was taken just before he released it.

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This 30-pound class fish by Rudy Soto from Carlsbad CA was stuck while he was fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet and he said, “It gave me a sore arm!”

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The had several days of limits of dorado fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet where fish got closer to the bay this past week. Dean Sims (right) and Johnny Gilbert (left) hold up some of their catch.

FULL MOON AND WINDS DON’T HURT BITE…until the storm hit!

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of Aug .18-25, 2013

You would think that with some windy days…a full moon…AND a week-ending Tropical Storm named “Ivo” we’d have an off-week of fishing!

On the contrary, if you were looking for dorado and loading up on the fillets, it was a great week to be here in La Paz with Tailhunters and a rod and reel in your hands.  In all honesty, there weren’t alot of BIG fish, but it made up for it in quantity and furiousness!   Especially for our anglers who fished with our La Paz fleet, there were great stories of double…triple…even quadruple hook-ups with fish as fast as a line could be thrown in the water or catching-and-releasing as fast as they could go!

For the latter part of the week, the amazing thing was that several schools of 10-15 pound fish were found right IN LA PAZ bay!  Literally just near the mouth of the bay by Balandra Beach.  That’s only about 3 minutes from where we launch our pangas.

The guys would spend about an hour getting bait but then get on the fish schools and on several occasions be BACK on the BEACH and eating breakfast at the hotel by 10 or 11 p.m.!   They’d get all the wanted.  Throw back others.  And tell the captain, “No mas!” and head back in.

Others would wind it up and go out towards the island to troll a little or look for other species where we encountered wahoo, billfish, sharks and even some pargo.   (all billfish released…all wahoo lost…all sharks broken off!)

Even for our Las Arenas fleet, we had a better than normal week with dorado, sailfish, marlin and those big giant squid come up.  What it lacked in quality like La Paz, Las Arenas has the larger fish this week with a few toads that were 30-60 pounds.  One fish could fill an ice chest!

At the end of the week, Tropical Storm Ivo came up the coast and went outside into the Pacific dropping rain on Southern Baja.  By Sunday it was gone.  There was some flooding.   We did have to cancel a day of fishing because the port captain closed the port and there were 30 knot winds outside the bay.  At Las Arenas the southern swell was too big and we would not have been able to push off the beach.  But the storm passed through quickly and I’m just sorry for some of the disappointed anglers, but fortunately, most of them had been fishing earlier in the week and were able to get into the fish earlier.

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, P.O. Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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 »

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Tailhunter International for Week of Aug. 4-11, 2013

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Joey Fuschetti and Kent Hawkins from Orange Co. California had a great 2 days fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet. They got big racks of dorado, plus sailfish and pargo as well. They’re on the sand here in Balandra Bay. Joey has been fishing with Tailhunters now for 18 years!  Joey has been in the fishing report for many years but says he has NEVER been the first picture!  So…here you go, Joey!  Thanks , guys!

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From Ogden UT, Marcus Yoo, only had time to come down and squeeze in two quick days of fishing but made the most of it with 2 big days of dorado fishing and big bulls like this one…his personal best…that he caught off Las Arenas.

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Finally had the big squid show up this week and there’s nothing like starting the day out pulling these bad boys up from the deep to use for bait (or saving for eating!). The dorado and tuna both love them. Big grin from Russ Blount visiting us from Oregon holding up another big beast. The squid are just off Las Arenas.

dorado maricris bugatan 8-13 tags

First time in Mexico. First time fishing. First fish ever…a trophy bull dorado! The smile says it all. Maricris Bugutan gets a hand from Captain Adolfo from our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet in posing with her trophy bull dorado.

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Our good amigo, Craig Corda, has visited us many times from his farm in the Imperial Valley CA and always seems to do well. He shows off one of his dorado with the classic pose and grin on the panga fishing off Las Arenas.

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This is a big fish and you can tell because Russ Blount is also a big guy! This bull dorado was one of several he caught along with a marlin his first day fishing with us this week.

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Not sure she wants to touch it! Maricris laughs at another big squid hauled aboard! This one ended up cooked up with garlic at our Tailhunter Restaurant that night for dinner!

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Captain Chito poses with my long-time friend and fishing buddy, Bob “Tio” Horton from Palm Springs CA The fish were caught around Espirito Santo Island and Las Cruces on a late-day bite.

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Yes…I still get out! (Thanks, Jilly) I’m showing off this bull mahi on the beach at Balandra Bay after a great day of dorado fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet We got limits that day.

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One of the best highlights of the week! Paul and Mike Zech from Sacramento CA like the street-cart hot dogs we serve at our Tailhunter Restaurant and showed up with these funny shirts! Just had to take a photo!

DORADO HELP WEEK FINISH FAST!

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of August 4-11, 2013

The fishing week started out OK, then got kinda picky but everyone still got fish.  It was just one of those weeks where a boat would get 1 or 2 fish and the next boat got 4 or 5 fish for no rhyme or reason or you would go fishing and put 1 in the boat…then an hour later another fish…two hours later 2 fish….2 hours later 1 fish…and the day would go on like that.   And you would think, “Geeze…fishing is slow!”  Then you would look in the fish box or get back on the beach and realize you had nearly a limit of fish!

It might have had something to do with some strange cooler and greener water that just shows up mid-week. We didn’t have any storms.  There was no strong winds.  There was nothing that would tip-the-hand to show why patches of great blue water suddenly went dry on us!  Conditions were otherwise great…flat glassy seas…brilliant Baja sunshine…decent bait…patches of sargasso…but strangely very reluctant or absent fish.  You really had to work it hard to find them.

I made it out one day and we got a limit of nice dorado, but we must’ve put 50 miles on the panga going up, back out, in, around…we covered a lot of water.  By 1 p.m. we had only 3 fish in the box.  But, as our captains often do, our fleet hung out there and at 3 p.m.-4 p.m. the fish started feeding!  And we put another 5 nice-sized dorado in the box that topped out the day.

That is one big difference for us…especially for our La Paz fleet.  We’re out on the water at 6 a.m. and getting live bait.  We see some of the other fleets…some of them…not even getting out on the water until 7 or 8 a.m. when the sun is already up blazing and you can’t get bait that late.  Then, they’re back on the beach at 1 or 2 a.m. when our guys are still out there pushing to keep finding fish.  It really makes a difference when the fishing is picky.  And it often means the difference between 1 or 2 fish and a limit of fish…having live bait and staying out the extra time!

But, the nice thing too is that as the week went on, we got a great charge of fish at the end of the week.

Our La Paz fleet started finding better spots of dorado in the 10-20 pound class with some larger bulls to 30 pounds.  Using the bait we catch…caballitos, mackerel…then some sardines as well as fresh-caught bonito, we have several options most days for offering different baits to the fish.  The larger baits, I think, also are the reason we get more sailfish and marlin hook ups as we did this week with all fish being released.

For our Las Arenas fleet, it was also scratchy early-on with just a few dorado per boat, but pretty much all of them decent to monster bulls.  So, what we lacked in quality, we made up for in quantity.  However, later in the week the fish turned it up a notch and we not only got into dorado, but also had some wahoo hookups, some billfish hook ups and even a big 60 pound tuna found way outside.

The difference at Las Arenas, I believe, were the giant squid that finally came up out’ve the deep trenches.  We started catching these beasts, which not only make for great eating, but cut up in chunks are good for chumming up dorado around the buoys and chunking for tuna.  Hopefully, they’ll stick around.  Historically, when the big squid come up from the deep, the tuna often follow them up as well!

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, P.O. Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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 »

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of July 28 to Aug. 4, 2013

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Yes, Ziggy! You finally made the first photo in the fishing report! Our amigo, Ziggy Haspod from Santa Barbara spanked the nice dorado all week fishing with Captain Boli and our La Paz fleet with limits every day including this sweet bull dorado.

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Best wahoo season in my memory in years! There’s still wahoo on the high spots around Cerralvo Island. Darryl and Kathy Pietek pose with Captain Armando and one of 2 skinnies they hooked. They lost another one that busted the Rapala off. The Pieteks are from Loma Rica CA.

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Sometimes, when you don’t try so hard, good things come to you! Mario Salazar from the Los Angeles area was on a billfish frenzy the 3 days he fished with our Las Arenas fleet. I think the final count was 8 marlin and sailfish in 3 days. I lost count. He was fishing with our Captain Archangel with our Tailhunter Fleet. This was a release so you get the great photo of him fighting the fish! Most of the billfish we’re hooking these days are all getting released.

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Richard Sellers came to visit us all the way from Australia to do some freediving and spearfishing. It started slow but by his last day he said, he had dorado and marlin swimming around him like he had never seen before. He did get this nice bull dorado and also another “mystery fish” none of us had ever seen before. Scroll down to the last photo in the report!

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Big smile from Steve Heune from Modesto CA was on his first fishing trip with us. As per my report this week, his first day, he fished with our Las Arenas fleet and they ran into one of those days when the fish were lockjawed. We switched them for their 2nd day to fish with our La Paz fleet and they stuffed the fish box with a limit of dorado!

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Might be my favorite photo of the week. It’s all about smiles. Dane Fuller pulling on his first marlin ever. Dane’s from Childress, Texas and was on his first trip to La Paz where he got his first marlin, and first dorado…and biggest dorado. Just a great Kodak moment in Baja. It’s not about fish in the box, it’s about smiles on the face and good times with amigos.

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One of our favorites guys…Donnie “Coach” Rea from Ventura CA always does well fishing with us. He’s showing off another big bull he got this week fishing with our Captain Marcos and our Tailhunter La Paz fleet.

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That’s alot of mahi! A thirty-pound-class dorado for Mike Figley from Arizona that he caught north of La Paz. There’s some nice big bulls around right now.

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Lance Heune from Modesto CA holds the gaff on a day when he put a nice limit of dorado on the boat in short order fishing north of La Paz around Espirito Santo Island.

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Late breaking news…just as I was putting together the fishing report Sunday night, our pangas hit giant Humboldt squid off Las Arenas. They made great bait for the dorado (and great eating!) and usually means that if they stay around, often the tuna rise up out’ve the trenches and follow them up! Hope they stick around. Captain Archangel hangs one of the big squirmers here!

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Our Australian amigo, Richard Sellers (photo above with the dorado) shot this while spearfishing. He called it a “triple tail” but none of my captains or anyone we knew had ever seen one. In almost 30 years fishing and diving here in Baja, I’d never seen one or heard of one so we ran to the books and internet. There are very few mentions of photos of them in Baja but folks from the Atlantic and Caribbean know all about them where they are much more common and, in Australia, of course! At first, I thought I knew what it is. But, it looked like a cross mutant between a pargo and cabrilla! The triple tail was good eating!

 

LAS ARENAS FISHING PICKY BUT OUR LA PAZ BOATS FIND GOOD ACTION ALL WEEK!

La  Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 28 to Aug. 4, 2013

It was a pretty decent week of fishing. Not the greatest, but not bad either.  Let me explain…

I have to say that I’m thankful we have our two fleets with one of them in La Paz and one of them at Las Arenas.  It gives our clients some choices about where to fish and we can also move them if necessary to get them the best conditions or to find fish.

As sometimes happens, weather or fishing dictates that sometimes one side will be better than the other.  It happens.  Normally, this time of year both our fleets are bendo and deep into all manners of fish.

However this past week, Las Arenas really sorta dropped off the fishing map.  Not one was it rougher from some long distance storms to the south that brought in some chop and swell, but there was a lack of bait.  Additionally, the better fishing was either outside at the buoys or all the way out at the 88 spot.

One the good side, the buoys held some decent dorado and the 88 produced more of those monster bull dorado and a number of hooks ups on striped marlin, sailfish and even a few big blues (all billfish either released or broke off).  But that’s a long way to run and if it was one of those bumpy days and you were one of the pangas that scratched, it’s a long long day.

Las Arenas just wasn’t happening.  The captains worked hard and busted humps looking for fish or trolling, but it was just one of those weeks.

But, like I said, thankfully, we had our La Paz fleet.  So, folks would try a day or two at Las Arenas then we’d have them switch over to our La Paz fleet.

And everyone got fish!  Limits or near limits of dorado from punk-sized schoolies to 30-plus pound bull mahi as well as some stripers and sailfish and even a few sharks hooked up.  The fish were well north so it was a bit of a ride and the bite was often late…well past 1 p.m. So, often I had to tell our clients, just be patient and let the captain fish.  Don’t jump the gun.  Sure enough…the late bite came in and there would be the feeding frenzy!

Sometimes our pangas weren’t coming back until 4 or 5 p.m., but that’s because our captains were working it hard.  We go out at 6 a.m. often several hours before the other fleets and my guys are willing to stay the extra hours to wait for the bite when other fleets are coming back at 1:30 or 2 p.m.  It made a difference and all of our clients this week still went home with full ice chests!

Bait as tough for our La Paz fleet as well, but going out extra early, we’re able to jig up some mackerel and caballitos then go look for some sardines.  Then go hook a few small bonito.  By the time you hit the fishing grounds, you’ve got 2 or 3 different types of bait aboard and gives you an edge.  Add in some trolling and now you’re cooking with gas!   But, as I said, we just had to tell folks “be patient.”  Our captains are all working hard to find the fish.  And we found them.  It was just later than normal!

MORE ON MEXICAN FISHING LICENSES

A few weeks ago, we started telling you about the big SNAFU with Mexico not printing out enough fishing licenses for the whole country.  Big Oops!  They’re trying to find a KINKO’s to handle it, but in the meantime, everyone is scrambling.

Baja still does not have any printed fishing licenses to sell.  They keep telling us “in a few weeks” but we’ve been hearing that for awhile.  In the meantime, the only way to have fishing licenses is still to purchase them online or find a tackle store there in the U.S. that sells them over-the-counter or online (some will mail them to you).  However, for southern Baja, they now have their own website to sell them that works pretty well.  Here’s the link:

http://apps.bcs.gob.mx/finanzas/finaweb/fonmar/

Just remember that the amounts are in pesos so divide the number by about 11 or 12 and you won’t have a heart attack!

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

http://www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, P.O. Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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 »

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of July 21-28, 2013

Kirk and ben rose wahoo 7-13 tags

It was a banner week for wahoo fishing this past week as we are in one of the best wahoo seasons in recent years. Kirk Rose and son Ben with Captain Armando just had one day of fishing to squeeze in with us and had never fished the area before and came up with the mega hat trick of three trophy wahoo fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet off Cerralvo Island

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On vacation from college at St. John’s University in New York, Marcos Holguin had two days of double wahoo fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet.

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Mike Figley spent the week with us fishing 4 days with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet. This was his 2nd trip with us and I had just been telling him how strong tuna can be. He goes out the next day and tangles with this nice yellowfin that kept him bent for almost 90 minutes! He’s a believer now. He also got some great dorado fishing in! Mike’s from Arizona.

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Jorge Romero, our La Paz amigo, only had 2 hours to get in some fishing so he jumped on one of our pangas and between 9 and 11 a.m. he put 3 nice bull dorado in the box fishing north of La Paz. He was trolling some small hoochies behind the boat because he left so late there was no more live bait left.

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This trio had some fun! Tom Heaslet from Oregon along with Kathy and Darryl Pietak from the San Francisco Bay area, got 2 nice wahoo off Cerralvo Island. They also fished 2 days with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet and plugged the panga with dorado each day.

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Dan Fuller from Childress, Texas, had a great week with us for his first visit with Tailhunters. He got his first dorado. He got his biggest dorado. He got his first billfish! He’s here with big smiles…a big bull dorado…and Captain Rogelio from our Tailhunter La Paz fleet.

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This might be my favorite photo of the week. Big smiles from Bob and his son Bo Heinke from the Los Angeles area showing off big bull dorado on the beach at Bahia de Los Muertos.

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Steve Holguin visits us each year but missed last year. He made up for it with two days of nice wahoo like this one from his first day fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet.

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These two amigos had 4 of the best days fishing…they got dorado, sailfish, marlin and several other species. Rex Smith from Arizona and Mike Sontag from N. Carolina had not shortage of big bull dorado like these two on the beach at Bahia de los Muertos.

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Group shot! Mike Figley, Bo Cullwell and Dane Fuller fished four days and on their fourth day had one of those wild banner dorado days that was a complete frenzy and will make for good story-telling filling 3 pangas with limits in short order and multiple hook-ups. They’re starting to unload one of the pangas here on the beach at Balandra Bay.

SLOW START PICKS UP STEAM AS FULL MOON RECEDES

La Paz- Las Arenas Fishing Report For Week of July 21-28, 2013

The week started slow…picked up some steam…then sort of evened out as the week went on.  It took us a bit to recover from last week’s full moon with sporadic fishing, but some good catches of billfish for both our Tailhunter La Paz and Tailhunter Las Arenas fleets as well as some big dorado and even a few nice spots of 20-50 pound tuna that showed up north of La Paz.  As with previous weeks, although there might not have been a lot of fish, the quality of the fish gave many of our anglers personal bests in terms of their biggest fish ever caught or, for many, their first billfish caught and released.  It still wasn’t spectacular good fishing.

Then, the week suddenly turned on a switch and boom!  We had dorado going nuts for our La Paz boats where it was virtually one-stop shopping once the spots were located and dorado came crashing to the pangas with multiple hook-ups and our captains plugging the pangas within an hour of frenzied fishing and tired anglers coming back with frayed lines and big smiles plus ice chests full of fillets!

As well, we had a big-time flurry of wahoo and billfish late in the week for our Las Arenas fleets as well with some of our pangas getting 1-3 wahoo hookups per day and just as many sailfish or marlin.   Overall, the fishing for our La Paz fleet was better for sheer numbers while our Las Arenas fleet produced the trophy fish.

Some fishing suggestions if you’re headed down:

Bait has been hit or miss lately.  We’re doing a little more trolling than we’re used to.  Our folks are doing fine with what we have and use down here, in fact, most clients bring absolutely nothing with them.  However, if you’re coming down and want to fine-tune things a bit, I would suggest:

  • Some small trolling feathers.  Not many.  Surely two…a light one and a dark one with at least 60-80 pound leader
  • Little plastic “hoochie” skirts have been on fire.  We use them to sometimes catch bonito for bait, but the bigger dorado and tuna have really shown a liking for them the last two weeks
  • If the tuna are around, plain unpainted cedar plugs have resulted in some nice tuna catches as was as enticing some of the larger dorado and another plus is that the bonito don’t seem to like them
  • If wahoo are around or you want to chase them, Yo-Zuri Magnum lures or Rapala Magnum CD’s in black/purple or black/silver/white have been hot.  If you can or know how or can get your tackle store to do it, wire them up and take the treble hooks off and replace with single Siwash hook
  • Hook sizes for the varying types of bait we are using…#1, 1/0, 3/0 and 5/0 hooks.  Not circle hooks.  “J” style hooks
  • Flurocarbon leader in 30, 40 and 60 pound test.  No spectra

FISHING LICENSES

The Mexican government at CONAPESCA keeps telling us, “maybe in a few weeks” they will have printed fishing licenses again.  I guess that will happen when it happens.  However, for the foreseeable few weeks, the only way to get your fishing licenses to fish down here is to purchase them online before you come down.  The government did not print enough licenses for the year for the whole of Mexico so until the situation is remedied, you must purchase fishing licenses online.

Here is the link:

https://www2.ebajacalifornia.gob.mx/Pesca/

  • Click the American flag and it will be in English
  • You want to purchase the fishing license for the “FEDERAL ZONE.”
  • Do not be alarmed at the price…it’s in pesos!!!  So just divide by 11 or 12 and that’s the rate in dollars and it will show up on your credit card statement in dollars.
  • If it’s slow or doesn’t work at first, try again later.  With this announcement, everyone in the whole of Mexico has to purchase their licenses online.  

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, P.O. Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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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La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report from Tailhunter International for Week of July 14-21, 2013

Mike Sontag dorado huge tags  7-13

Nice way to start out a trip! All the way from North Carolina, Mike Sontag, visits us each year, but had an incredible week fishing with us starting right off the bat with several of these huge bull dorado that were all in the 40-50 pound class outside of Cerralvo Island.

wahoo rex smith tags 7-13

Rex Smith has been an amigo of Tailhunters for years and has caught pretty much everything in our waters, but wahoo always eluded him until this past week when he put the wood to this nice ‘hoo off the south end of Cerralvo Island in the background. Rex is from Arizona.

Alison dorado 7-13 tags

Hard to find someone more fun than Alison Nagatani. It was a little rough out of Las Arenas their first day fishing but she was still got this nice bull dorado…her largest ever. Shortly after this, she accidentally fell in the water and came up laughing. She got her first billfish this week as well.

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First-timer from Washington State, Colleen Russ, had a great week of fishing with big dorado and quite a few billfish like this one posed with Captain Victor from the Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet. This one could not be revived and was donated. Colleen was just hoping to catch “one big fish” during the week!

John Wessner dorado tags 7-13

From Delano CA, John Wessner was game. Even fishing with a recovering broken wrist, he did great on big dorado and billfish this week. He’s shown here with one he got north of La Paz fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet.

DCIM100GOPRO

For weeks we’ve seen signs of big tuna off Cerralvo Island although hooking them has been difficult. David Vicino from Cancun MX, didn’t wait for the to come up…he went down and speared this big 180 pound yellowfin! Thanks to Tim Hatler, our amigo at Palapas Ventana for the photo. Yes…the beasts are there!  For those of you not familiar with spearfishing in our waters,  all of it is done by freediving…no tanks allowed.  All breath-holding in whatever you can carry in your lungs!

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On a well-deserved break from the Air Force, Pat Russ will be heading to officer’s candidate school when he gets back to Washington but he came down for 10 days of fishing and diving and poses with another colorful bull dorado and big grins!

Jess dorado tags 7-13

Jess Escobedo from Los Angeles had never been salt-water fishing. He had never even taken a vacation in his whole life. So, it was great to have him visit Tailhunter this past week here in La Paz where he got his first dorado and billfish like this one caught near Espirito Santo Island. Check the video clip below of Jess fighting his first marlin!

dorado allen and josh 7-13 tags

Clarence Foster and his big hat pose with Allen Burgess and one of their big bulls on the beach at Bahia de Los Muertos. Both of our amigos are from Kansas and spent a week fishing with us.

VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK

From our amigo, Charles Belnavis, who owns Kelp Fishing Clothing and Shogun Tatoo in Pasadena CA (he’s the best of the best for inking all of us up in the fishing industry!)  http://shoguntattoo.com/

He shared this fun clip of himsel and Jess Escobedo (pictured above) getting lit up by a nice billfish!  At one point, there’s a double hook-up going!  Turn up the sound!  This is some fun video and not very long!

 

 

BIG DORADO BILLFISH

TUNA HIGHLIGHT THE WEEK

La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 14-21, 2013

The week had some highs and lows, but overall, many more high spots than low spots with a solid week of fishing.  We even had a little rain come in on us, but it was mostly just a little bump in the overall bite.

Again, it was a big of big fish mostly.  It’s been like that the last few weeks.  It’s almost like all the fish ate steroids or something.  The dorado, especially for our Las Arenas fleet tended to be 30 pound line busters or bigger.  It was not unusual to see fish on the beach that bottomed out our 50-pound scale!  That fills up an ice chest really fast with a fillet from even a single fish.  I had one panga go out and on it’s first day get 6 fish that were all around 50 pounds and they still had 3 more days to fish!

But, the size of some of these fish has been quite a story.  However,  the showing of billfish has also been remarkable.  I’ve not seen this many marlin in our waters in many years.  As one of our anglers this week said, “I had 4…5…6 billfish swimming around the boat all the time when I’m trying to catch dorado.  It was really funny because we would move the boat away and they would either swim after us or would show up again!  They were like pigeons waiting to be fed.  My first day, I caught and released three and that was enough!”

Most of the billfish, whether marlin or sailfish, fortunately are being released by the anglers so that’s been very gratifying.  Other times, the anglers go through great effort trying to revive tired fish and it’s only the rare billfish that’s being kept.  Mostly because there was no other option.

However, one fish that is NOT getting released is the wahoo.  Like the marlin, the wahoo bite has been far better than we have ever seen in years.  The wahoo are mostly lurking on the usual high spots around Cerralvo Island and trolling early with big lures has been the most effective.  The biggest hinderance can sometimes be that there’s far too much traffic out there with boats zig zagging all over the spots.  But…ni modo…that’s just the way it is when the bite is hot…especially for wahoo!  So, the earlier you get to the spots the better the chances!

Also, we got into several nice spots of yellowfin tuna again this week.  Like last week, they popped up for a few days and went crazy then moved off, but we had spots of tuna pop up for both our La Paz and our Las Arenas fleets which was a real welcome surprise.  Nothing big, but fun 10-20 pound footballs are a hoot good time.  We saw some bigger 100+ pound guys moving through the areas real fast as well, but no one could get on them, but we know they are there!

Our biggest problem has been the lack of sardines for bait.  We’re going through one of those times again when sardines are hard to get.  But, at least for us, we’re able to jig up larger baits like mackerel, cocineros, caballitos, zebra fish, mullet and ladyfish!  That might also have something to do with why we’re getting mostly big fish!  It takes a big fish to eat a big bait!

If you’re coming down, a few tips…

1.  If you’re bringing stuff, this is one of the few times when I’d recommend bringing a few feathers.  All you need are two.  A dark one and a light-colored one  Also, if the tuna are around, the plain wooden cedar plugs have been deadly and the bonito tend to leave them alone.

2.  Bring a sabiki or lucky Joe rig with about a 4 oz torpedo sinker

3.  I wouldn’t be out there fishing with anything less than 40 pound test, although, if you’re a light tackle fan like many of our anglers, at least use 40 pound test leader or higher

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jilly

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International

Website: 

http://www.tailhunter-international.com

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

U.S. Mailing Address:  Tailhunter International, P.O. Box 1149, Alpine  CA  91903-1149

Phones:

from USA : 626-638-3383

from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.

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

Tailhunter YouTube Videoshttp://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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