Our amigo, Raul Chollet, here in La Paz just recently started fishing only about 2 years ago and has the “fishing bug” big time! He’s since gotten his first marlin, roosterfish, sierra and here, his biggest dorado. It was a slow day but they got a few and this nice dorado with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet. That day, some boats did OK and others, like Raul’s , had a bit more trouble locating the bite.
Jeanette Carroll from New Mexico with Captain Victor just south of Bahia de Los Muertos caught and released this hefty 40-45 pound roosterfish on a live bait. It was her biggest and “bigger than my husband’s rooster!”
Phil Matteson was on his 2nd trip to La Paz this week and told me they had winter in Montana that was 40 degrees below zero! Weather was’t so great in La Paz this week either as we got clouds and wind, but at least it was a tad warmer than Montana. First day out, Phil nailed this big boy bull dorado with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet.
John Kennedy, our amigo from Auburn CA, had to postpone his yearly trip earlier in the year for an injury, but came roaring back with a great week of fishing topped off his last day with this nice sailfish caught and released, as well as a box of dorado, pargo, cabrilla and triggerfish releasing many.
Dick Carroll and his wife came to visit us again this year from New Mexico and couldn’t have been a more fun couple. Both of them got roosterfish with our Las Arenas fleet on the same day including this one that Dick quickly released.
Mark Martis from Redondo Beach CA has been fishing with us at Tailhunter since the early days in the mid-90’s. Under grey skies he still put the wood to this nice big bull dorado near Espirto Santo Island.
Air Dorado taking off! Great shot taken by Phil Matteson of a 40-pound bull dorado ripping off line and grabbing air. As anyone knows who has tried to take one of these shots, it’s a difficult shot to take. The dorado are moving up to 30 mph!
Happy Gal! Becky Munos from Arizona on her first day fishing and first time to La Paz just could not get enough of the fishing and beaches of La Paz. Fishing just off the beach at La Ventana, she put this nice little bull in the box. They released or donated all the the fish they caught!
Josh Matteson on his first time ever salt water fishing is from Cascade, Montana. His first cast, he nails a 40 pound dorado….among others. The next day he battles this nice striped marlin and released it after taking this great photo with Captain Pancho. They were fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet.
He’s just about to “heave-ho” this roostefish over the side to release it, but a good fish just-the-same, for amigo Jack Young from Arizona on his first trip with Tailhunters. He had a good week of fishing with both our La Paz and Las Arenas fleet. The roosterfish was caught his first day just off El Sargento.
Wayne Moss, has been my Canadian amigo for many many years and is a commercial pilot in the Maldive Islands. He’s also one of the better fishermen I know. I love the look on his face here wondering if this big bull dorado is gonna make one more attempt to get back in the water! Great colors. Nice fish!
DIFFICULT WEEK STILL HAD SOME GOOD HIGHLIGHTS
La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 14-20
It was a hard week to put my finger on. With the exception of flyfishermen, everyone got fish, but where you fished and how you fished made a huge difference. If you took our advice and did what we or the captains told you to do, you got fish and there were some nice ones to be had! Overall, I would have to say this week was slower. Last week we had the huge full moon and fishing was much better. Last week we had rainy weather and fishing was better. This week the moon was better and the weather was generally better and fishing was a bit more complicated.
Here’s the breakdown:
LAS ARENAS
The week started OK. We got some roosters. There were small to medium dorado around. There were some billfish, pargo and cabrilla. Not spectacular fishing, but it was OK. We even had bait. But, as the week went on, we had some of the worst fishing we’ve seen all season with our Las Arenas fleet.
On the surface, I could say it was the lack of baits. That includes ballyhoo, sardines and mackerel that we usually use for most of the gamefish. But, the sabalo…the big ladyfish…that we use for the bigger roosters also got hard to find. So, naturally, lack of bait had something to do with it.
Likewise, later in the week we had some tropical storm cells pass through. This made for some rougher and windier waters. It got choppy. The skies were gray. There were little flurries of rain here and there locally. We almost had another water spout form up one afternoon near Cerralvo Island prompting the panga fleets to head for the beach.
So, all that would have or could have affected fishing. I’ve seen similar situations where we had all those conditions and we still got fish.
But beyond that, there were some other variables as well which, contributed to the lack of scores on the fish.
Later in the week we had folks specifically going for “home run” fish. Those are fish that you either get ‘em…or you don’t. Instead of going for “action” they went for the top-shelf bad boys. They are trophy fish for a reason. For instance, going for wahoo. You either get-em..or you don’t. You can be the king of, if nothing is there, then you have a good shot of not coming back with any fish at all because you have to concentrate on the wahoo.
Same for the rooster fish. First, you have to spend the time trying to catch the better live bait…mullet or ladyfish. That can take time. If the baits aren’t there or are hard to come by…that’s a whole lot of time spent. Then, actually chasing the roosters takes time as well. Again, there’s alot of focus and energy on them. If they aren’t there or not biting, then you stand a good chance of getting goose-egged. That’s what happened quite often towards the end of the week.
Frustrated anglers who came back with nothing. But that’s what happens when you swing for the fences! I applaud the effort. It’s awesome. I like that kind of fishing myself. But, sometimes the big hitters strike out. Part of fishing. Part of the game. You have to be ready for disappointment. And there were some disappointed anglers this week. Who got no fish!
About the flyfishing…Frankly, it’s been tough. I’ve been singing that tune all season.
No one in Baja seems to have bait for chum for the flyfishermen. This El Nino has not been good to the flyfishers. Normally, we have sardines to toss out and get the fish going. The sardines are non-existent.
We have larger baits…caballito and mackerel, but you can’t chum with that.
The flyfishers who have been coming down and willing to be flexible and do some conventional fishing are all getting fish. Everyone is catching fish. The ones who are strictly flyfishing are not doing well. The operators here in La Paz that are strictly flyfishers have had a terrible year because they have no other avenues to catch fish. They are strictly flyfishing. I did have 4 guys who just left this morning that were strictly flyfishing.
I kept offering to switch them to fish with my La Paz fleet where we are catching fish, but they insisted on staying with my Las Arenas fleet where they has been no bait…they caught pretty much zero fish for 3 days and left pretty frustrated and angry with us. They could have switched to bait or at least fished with my La Paz fleet and done quite well…even had a shot on the flyrod, but they were stubborn. I wish I could have gotten them some fish. See below…we did find some roosters. The bonito were huge and would have been awesome on the flyrod. They could have gotten the dorado going on the bait then tossed a flyrod into the boils. These were all good guys and experienced fishermen, but I was as frustrated as them.They left for Loreto where I hear it’s been tough as well, but I hope they do better.
I feel for all the flyfishers I’ve seen here this year…lots of them fishing with our competitors. I meet alot of them at our restaurant and hear the stories. That’s fishing this year. As I said at the beginning…it depends on where you fish and how you fish.
LA PAZ
La Paz, while not as good as last week, was still very productive. There were some slow spots…but everyone got fish every day. Some of our pangas would do really well one day and others not so good, but the next day the panga that did poorly would find fish and the other would have a slower day. But the dorado were very cooperative with fish in the 5-40 pound class and some HUGE 12-15 pound dynamite bonito that put some guys on light tackle on their knees! As well, we had several marlin and sailfish hooked up and either lost or released…even a few rooster fish…plus some nice pargo and cabrilla.
The difference is that we had more live bait…caballitos and mackerel. Still a bit big to chum, but the baits brought the fish to the boat. You could even catch a bonito and then chop it up and use it for chum and then that would bring even more fish to the boat.
The one drawback with the larger caballito and mackerel is that they are well…large! One big mistake is that anglers would think they had a hookup and swing to early. There’s alot of smaller fish out there or larger fish that eat slowly! Swinging too early and the bait would literally get yanked out of the fish’s mouths or resulted in alot of short bites too where the gamefish only bit off the back half of the big bait. We missed alot of fish that way. Some of the more experienced anglers increased their hook-up to catch ratio by tying trailer/ trap hooks onto the main rig so that there would be a second hook dangling at the back-end of the baits.
But, overall, the La Paz fishing took care of everyone and got fish in the boat!
One of the nice thing about having our two fleets is that as Las Arenas fishing got slower or more frustrating, or the weather got more unpredictable, we could offer to have our folks fish with our La Paz fleet and get into the fish. That made all the difference between big smiles or frowns!
WEATHER
Normally, this time of year, there’s not much to say about the weather. The sun comes up. The sun goes down. It’s hot and sunny. End of story.
However, this year, with El Nino, we’re seeing alot of variations. Not only is the water warmer, but the tropical humidity and conditions are tangible. The air is generally heavier and muggier. We’re seeing afternoon tropical rain showers come through and sometimes drop considerable rain for a few minutes then move on and the ground steams dry. We see electrical heat storms and lightning in the afternoons, evening and early morning hours when it’s still dark. This is more like September and October weather. Other days, there’s no rain, but it’s cloudy most days. Almost like the “June gloom” seen along Southern California beaches where a marine layer moves in and everything is grey until the sun burns through in the afternoons. Crazy. That being said, it’s still 95-100 degrees every day with cooler evenings in the 70’s.
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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, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA 91942
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
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Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report: https://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/
Tailhunter YouTube Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/pangapirate
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