He looks a little tired for good reason! Sherman McDonell from Rock Springs, Wyoming had an epic week of fishing even tho’ fishing was way off. It’s hard to argue with big fish like this dorado and with Captain Armando and armed with a spinning rod and reel and 17-30 pound test, he went hand-to-hand with big dorado and roosters fighting fish for long battles of 30 minutes to over an hour and coming back a happy bloody mess each day and a big grin! I don’t think he got a single fish under 45 pounds all week. He calls La Paz his “happy place.” Big grins from Captain Armando.
Young Dan Whittlesey from Washington just graduated from high school and came down with dad and grandpa. He toughed-out a really rough week of scattered fishing but did get this incredible bull dorado with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet and Captain Victor holding up the tail.
From San Diego, Cole Chavira has been fishing our waters several times a year every single year since he was about 6 years old. He usually outfishes everyone around him and has been on these pages a zillion times! No exception here with this big rooster he caught and released off Las Arenas lighthouse.
It’s tough when you only have two hands and two big floppy heavy bull dorado, but Captain Armando helps Shelly McDonell with her catch after an epic big fish day at Las Arenas where she battled each of these fish on light tackle and spinning gear almost 2 hours each. Shelly rocks. She hunts and she fishes like crazy.
It’s always good when first-timers do well and even moreso when fishing is not that good like it was this past week. But Luke Brownlee from Green River, Wyoming put the wood to several big-time bull dorado like this one and the help of Captain Jorge from our Tailhunter fleet at Las Arenas.
When you come all the way from S. Africa and you have never ever been fishing, you make a great funny face when you land the biggest and first fish of your life like Jo Biddle holding a trophy dorado on the beach at Bahia de Los Muertos! Great shot!
Vegas in the house! Sandie Herrera really wanted a rooster and got hers here fishing off Las Arenas with Captain Pancho. The fish was released.
Great pose from Mitch Chavira, our San Diego amigo who was fishing north of La Paz when he stuck this dorado and got the great shot. There weren’t alot of fish this week and you really had to work it, but the fish that were hooked were generally all quality slugs!
Ron Burgess is our amigo who released that potential world record roosterfish last week. He fished with us the whole week and just was on fire! He also got his big dog-tooth snapper as well!
Norm Whittlesey has been fishing with us for many years. He hung in all week when fishing was really erratic but did manage this super dorado fishing with Captain Victor and our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet. Check out the colors! I think I want to frame this photo!
Jason Takayoshi was down on his first trip with us. His experience was typical of how our fishing has been this past week. His first day fishing out’ve Las Arenas, they got goosed-egged. Totally skunked. Not even a bite! And Jason is an experienced angler! But, he kept up the smiles. Next day..his last chance…he fished with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet and ended up high-boat for the fleet with some big dorado as well and amberjack and multiple hook ups including fish on the iron. He’s posing with two of the big dorado here on the beach at Balandra north of La Paz.
Talk about a “gamer.” Kris Brownlee gets the award this week. Wow…rough water and seasick and she still hung in there and was not going to be deterred from fishing and kept smiling the whole time during the whole week! It was her first time to visit us in La Paz and she got some nice fish pulling on her like this hefty jack crevalle she caught and released with Captain Jorge.
Marie McClelland from Park City UT was another of our visitors on her first trip fishing with us and outfished lots of the regulars! She took this bull dorado north of La Paz fishing with Captain Alfredo.
Here’s a big boy rooster! Darryl Herrera and Captain Pancho hold up the kind of rooster that made our area famous! They caught this guy just off the beach at Las Arenas (you can see the sand in the background) and released it to fight another day. Darryl is from Las Vegas.
Charlie Detrick came down to see us from Washington and although he didn’t fare well his first day, he smoked the rods on some nice dorado the 2nd day like this sweet slug of a dorado he’s holding on the beach at Balandra!
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Almost world-record rooster…Here’s a really well-produced video clip of Ron Burgess’ roosterfish he caught last week that might have been a new IGFA record. We will never know because he sportingly released it to fight another day! It’s not a long clip and well worth watching! Dave Lester, his amigo did a great job on it!
ERRATIC WEEK OF FISHING IS TOUGHEST OF SEASON
La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of June 23-30, 2013
This past week might have been the toughest fishing week of the season. It was a difficult week on so many levels with erratic fishing and conditions that just seemed to make no sense.
We can only attribute it to a collision of the “perfect storm” of variables that all came crashing in on us…
1. Colder than normal waters brought on by late season winds turning waters murky and green. Sometimes the winds almost like “winter winds” and the waters are so green you can’t see through it. On the surface the water can be 80 degrees, but a few feet down it’s 65! We can often see fish all over, but they are just not interested in eating!
2. The “super moon.” Normally, the full moon is not a big concern for us. But, this past week, they billed it as the “SUPER MOON.” It was the largest, biggest, fullest full moon of several years. Resultingly we had incredibly low tides and strong currents. Combined with everything else, it hit us hard.
3. Hurricane COSME…it didn’t hit us and fortunately veered hundreds of miles off-shore. However, it did bring some big swell and waves from the south as well as some evening showers. This contributed to rough water conditions for a few days as well as adding more muck to the over-turned ocean that was already in bad shape.
So…that was it in a nutshell.
On a more pragmatic level, it meant lots of our amigos had some disappointing days fishing. Rough waters and no fish. Flat seas and green water. Seeing fish that didn’t want to bite. Unusual long runs to find blue water. YIKES!!!
This is the time of year when we should be and normally are slamming fish. Instead we were scrambling to find good water and fish that were interested in coming to the party.
On the upside, the fish were were hooking were BIG! Take a look at the photos! We didn’t catch many fish, but the fish were beasts! Big roosters and even bigger dorado were the rule rather than the exception. Roosters were routinely 30-50 pounds. Dorado…wow…few of them were SMALLER than 40 pounds. There were a few days where there wasn’t a dorado smaller than 45 pounds on the beach.
That created some problems of it’s own. There’s a reason fish get BIG! That’s because they are smart and tough. If we had CAUGHT as many fish as we hooked it would have surely been a better week. I mean, hey…when you come down and the biggest fish you might have caught in your life is a bass or a steelhead or a rainbow trout and suddenly you’re hooked up to the biggest fish of your life and you’re sweating and you’re now on a fish for 30 minutes…then 45 minutes…then an hour or more…in the hot sun…and you pull a little too hard…or your button down the drag…or you backlash the reel…
A 40 or 50-pound fish is not twice as strong as a 20 pound fish. It’s EXPONENTIALLY stronger! It’s a beast that EATS 20-pound fish for breakfast and takes it personally against you that you stuck a hook in his mouth! They are mean and they are pissed off and they growl. It’s not like they’re gonna let you you just pull them into the boat!
The fish is just asking to get lost!!!
Even many of our most veteran anglers were losing these big fish. And after you fight a fish that long, it’s often too late and you’ve drifted too far to find another hook-up. You get one chance at a huge fish and if that opportunity is lost…whether by angler error or simple bad luck…that’s it! You come back with nothing! We had folks fishing 1, 2, 3 days in a row with that kind of luck. Hooking several fish a day and losing the fish. Not much can be said. That’s just the way fishing was this past week.
The majority of the fish were big dorado and roosterfish, but we did have some amberjack, good numbers of jack crevalle, some marlin and sailfish (lost) and surprisingly a number of sharks pop up (and off!). Some of our catch might also have been a function of the bait we were using. Because of the conditions, bait did become a problem…especially finding sardines along the shallows. So, we used mackerel, ladyfish, small bonito, ballyhoo, small tuna, mullet and zebra fish as bait which were all effective.
Hopefully, better things this coming week even as you are reading this! As I write , conditions seem to be improving!
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:
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from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
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Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report: https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/
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