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Posts Tagged ‘sea of cortez fishing’

First timer, Ed Vander Veer from Washington state was doing some light line fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet and got a number of roosters over several days of fishing releasing them all including this nice pez gallo.

One of the larger dorado of the week! Christine Rinaldi came to see us again all the way from New Jersey and spent more than a week fishing with us and took this nice bull not far off the Las Arenas lighthouse. It was an up-and-down week for dorado fishing with fish sometimes hungry and other times completely ignoring baits.

Earlier in the week, there was a fairly nice dorado bite with our Las Arenas fleet that got chillier when colder waters moved in, but our Arizona amigo Mike Guest did put this female in the box!

There was some good sporadic tuna fishing throughout the week although anglers really had to work hard to find the fish which popped up in varios places around Cerralvo Island, but were often elusive. Mary Heilman shows off one football yellowfin on the gaff fishing with Captain Pancho using live sardines.

Now THIS is a roosterfish...the kind that made Las Arenas famous! Dave Wehner really wanted to catch a rooster on light tackle. He had no idea, that a 60-pound class fish would inhale his little sardine while he was using 15 pound test and a little bass casting stick! Dave fought this fish for 90 minutes before getting it aboard for a quick photo and releasing it. Despite what it looks like, Dave said the fish swam away strongly!

Once a year, Kansas hunting guide, Don Snyder on the right gets to put on shorts and flip flops (although he gets to keep his cowboy hat) and comes to hang out with us in La Paz. He brought his buddy, Tom Carey from Colorado. (Tom...you dance great!). They're holding up some of their yellowfun tuna catch here standing at Las Arenas beach.

Everything is good when the fish are biting. Mike Whitlow (on the right) fishes professional bass tournaments and came down with his bud, Ed Vander Veer and did alot of light tackle fishing. Sometimes they really had to work hard to get the fish to bite during a week when fish were sometimes less than cooperative, but here, they hold up two nice dorado they picked up off Las Arenas.

Marlin jumping off the stern of a panga (see the photo below for the story)!

A blue marlin first for Mary Wehner looking none-the-worse for wear and tear as she's assisted by Captain Pancho with a blue estimated at 150 pounds. That's the fish in the picture above leaping off the stern! Mary hooked this fish just after her husband fought the big rooster two photos above. Bravo to Mary, she released the fish unharmed!

One of the best guys for posing with a fish, San Diego resident Mitch Chavira always gets fish whenever he comes down several times a year. He's hoisting a nice yellowfin tuna still lit up.

SOME DAYS BETTER THAN OTHERS AS ANGLERS WORK HARD BUT GET NICE TUNA, DORADO AND ROOSTERFISH

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 11, 2010

A mixed week here for fishing.  Weather and fishing were both as mercurial as the air temperature at times as the wacky unpredictable fishing season continued.  The upside is that most of our folks who fished a few days all ended up with somes good fishing, but in between several good days, a really puzzling bad day could be had just as easily. 

One day, the dorado or the tuna are jumping out’ve the waters and into the boat.  Marlin are all over.  The next day, that same panga in the same area doing the exact same thing would have a problem even getting a bonito or a needlefish to rise to a bait.  Similarly, beautiful blue sunny waters one day would turn to windy chop the next and all of us would be shivering in sweatshirts and windbreakers. Go figure. 

Overall, it wasn’t the best of weeks. Everyone had fish by the end, but some days it was like pulling teeth.  It’s been a strange season and we seem to be about a month behind where we should be.

As well, bait continued to be an issue some days.  One day it’s easily found.  The next day, it would take hours. 

However, like I said, if you fished at least a few days, the end result was a pretty nice stack of fish fillets!  You just had to weather the slow periods.  Hats off to our angler who were here this past week.  Even during the tough times, they kept laughing and working it and in most cases it paid off.

For our La Paz Tailhunter fleet, dorado were mostly in the spotlight with fish being found in several area, most notably around Punta Mejia and the Las Cruces areas between Cerralvo Island and the Peninsula.  Most fish were in the 10-20 pound class.   We’re still seeing quite a few marlin as well.  Almost all of them have been stripers in the 100-130 pound category.  There were also some good spots of pargo, cabrill and amberjack. 

For our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet, lots of variety continued.  Spots of tuna seemed to follow the big squid up from the trenches.  (The squid have been as large as 60 pounders!).  Tuna have likewise been as big as 60-100 pounders with several large ones hooked and lost.  Our largest this week that made it into the panga was about 60 pounds.  Most, however were football tuna in the 5-15 pound class and they really seemed to like eating chunks of dead squid (not surprisingly) or else the really really pin-head sized sardines.

For other species around Las Arenas, dorado keep breezing through and at least a few boats find the erratic schools with fish up to about 25 pounds.  Roosterfish are in a spot near Boca de Alamo south of Muertos Bay and big pargo and cabrilla are still hanging out in the rocks.

 FACEBOOK UPDATES

By the way, if you’d like to get your fishing report fix more often than every week, I post up daily fishing reports often with photos and video clips 4 or 5 times a week if you get on face book and put JONATHAN ROLDAN on as a friend. 

 

Also, if you’d like to keep up with the crazy fun at our Tailhunter Restaurant/Bar, get on facebook and become a FAN.  Easy to join.

Have a great week!

That’s our story…

Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:
http://www.tailhunter-international.com/fishreport.htm

Tailhunter YouTube Videos:
http://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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Yellowfin tuna popped up for our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet with some fish in the 60-200 pound class that really chewed up anglers and spit them out, but some nice "football" sized fish in the 10-30 pound class like this one held by our amigo, Jorge Romero and assisted by Capt. Jaibo, did show up in flashes throughout the week.

Looks like big roosterfish season is here. We're not seeing so many smaller fish anymore. Most of the roosters we got this week were like this hog of a fish caught and released by BARBARA KENTSLER from Utah (Sorry for the mistake Barbara and thanks Aubrey for catching my error!) with Capt. Jorge near Las Arenas.

There are still a surprising number of pargo around. Check out the flat seas behind Randy Forestiere holding this nice pargo liso just off Muertos Bay.

I wish our friend, Rich Sawaske, and Capt. Adolfo had looked up into the camera, but they have their eyes riveted on this beautiful dorado Rich got on a live sardine just off Punta Arenas. Check out the flat ocean. They were only a few hundred yards offshore.

The water is still cold enough that we're still getting sierra which are normally cold water fish. Captain Romero holds a big one! Great eating fish.

MARLIN TUNA DORADO WAKE UP TO START SUMMER!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of June 26- to July 4, 2010

It was all going along really well.  Then the winds came up again…at least for our La Paz fleet.  It was like April all over again as the week came to a close, but before that, fishing had been really great. 

For the better part of the week both our La Paz and our Las Arenas fleets have been doing really well.  I mean, when was the last time someone said, “There are too many marlin!” 

However, that’s what I heard more than once this past week, especially for our anglers fishing with our Las Arenas fleet.  Over the last two weeks, all those lazy striped marlin and sailfish that have been sunning themselves on the surface waiting for the waters to warm finally woke up and came to the party.  It’s about time!

Here’s some of the comments from the week:

“We had 8 marlin just swimming ’round and ’round the panga!”

“Those pesky marlin were as thick and dumb as dorado and I don’t want to catch marlin. I want to catch dorado, but the marlin chased the dorado away!”

“We hooked and released 5 marlin before 10 a.m. and then got the heck out’ve there so we could try to catch something like pargo to put in the ice chest!”

“I’ve never had a triple marlin hookup on a panga before and we were only about 200 yards from the shore!”

Fortunately, most of the marlin are getting broken off or released, and it’s especially great to see so many first timers letting their fish go…especially the youngsters tying into their first billfish. 

However, in addition to the billfish, we got quite a variety of other species, especially around the south end of Cerralvo Island and Las Arenas.  More and larger dorado showed up although there’s still quite a few dinks, but we saw some fish caught in the 20-25 pound category.  As well, we’re not seeing as many roosterfish, but some really hefty big boys were caught and released up to about the 60-70 pound category as well as pargo and cabrilla.

More exciting than that, however, was that some large squid popped up south of Arenas and usually when that happens there’s tuna that come up out’ve the deep trench. Sure enough, we got into some 20-60 pound fish and several larger tuna in the 100+ pound category were hooked and lost after long long battles.  There were even some fish estimated at 200 pounds that literally gobbled up anglers and spit them out.

 There weren’t alot of tuna, but enough to get everyone excited and to see some of the larger fish pop up as well really jacked up the interest.  Only problem was that many anglers were outgunned or not experienced enough to tackle these bigger gorilla tuna or, in some cases, I heard of at least 2 anglers simply cutting themselves off when they realized what they were tied onto!

 If you can, imagine holding a 200 pound weight over the side of a 50-story building in a strong wind and you’re attached to that weight with a little tiny piece of string and a rod and reel!   How many hours can you hold that?

FIRST PERSON!

Dave Gora and his family from Dana Pt. CA were down this week and Dave does some incredible video clips!  He put this together for us from fishing two days with our Las Arenas fleet and Captain Victor. One of the best video clips I’ve ever seen down here.  Great underwater footage too!  Thanks, Dave!  Click this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkkqUUb4wws

Will keep an eye out. Have a great 4th of July holiday! 

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

Website: www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:
http://www.tailhunter-international.com/fishreport.htm

Tailhunter YouTube Videos:
http://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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Spencer Sawaske from Northern California had a pretty good day. First, he released a marlin, then got this monster dorado fishing off Cerralvo Island on the south side and also near the Arenas lighthouse. Better dorado and marlin fishing were the highlight during a full-moon week.

Retired NFL linebacker and football coach...and one of Tailhunter's best amigos, Donnie Rea, shows off one of the nicer dorado taken this week with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet north of La Paz. Although bait continued to be slow to find, most boats did some pretty decent dorado fishing. Coach Rea was fishing with Captain Marcos.

Despite rapidly warming waters, pargo continue to be hungry and equally frustrating busting off lots of anglers. This one didn't get away. In fact, according to our amigo Dave Wehner who has been fishing with us 8 years, this big barred pargo came up and ate an entire slow trolled bonito Dave was using for bait! Later in the week, Dave nailed a 65 pound roosterfish on his itty-bitty bass rod that he fought for 90 minutes! His wife Mary then hooked up on a 150 pound blue marlin! Both fish were released!

Some nice tuna poked their heads up this week...albeit too briefly. Just enough to tease everyone . It seems everytime we get a glimpse of giant squid coming up from the deep trenches, we got some tuna following them up! We actually had a few 100 pounders hooked and lost, but this was one 50-pounder that Garden Grove amigo, Jonathan Navarro, caught near the Las Arenas lighthouse fishing with Captain Victor.

Retired firefighter Ed Basurto from Sacramento holds up one of the better bull dorado we got this week while fishing off Las Arenas near Cerralvo Island.

Rex Smith from Arizona and Fred Sontag from Arkansas and their other brothers Mike and John, had a nice day north of La Paz fishing with the Tailhunter La Paz Fleet. They released a marlin and sailfish.

Captain Armando with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet helps pose a nice dorado for Dan who had never fished before but ended up with a handful as well as a marlin on his first outing. He outfished most of his buddies and said it was because he wore his lucky wristwatch.

Grand slam for Mal Young and dad, Bob. It was a delayed high-school graduation present that Mal waited 2 years for, but it resulted in a striped marlin plus this trio that shows some of the variety...a roosterfish, a pargo liso and a dorado!

It's summer, but we're still getting some colder water fish like this sierra held by Fred Sontag from Arkanasas.

This was probably our best week so far for striped marlin. This great shot was taken by Jonathan Navarro from Los Angeles as his dad battled the fish off Cerralvo Island

Fresh one! Rich Navarro hoists a summer-time bull dorado that bit a live sardine.

SUMMERTIME CONDITIONS PROMPT DORADO AND MARLIN TO WAKE UP!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of June 20-27, 2010

 

Things are definitely changing here finally.  Winds have laid down quite a bit.  Waters and air temps are getting noticeably warmer too.  It finally feels like summer.  Waters are high 70’s to low 80’s  Daytime temps are high 90’s to low 100’s, but there’s still a nice breeze most times.  Our anglers are telling us it’s one of the most pleasant June’s they’ve ever experienced here.

Co-incidentally, fishing has seemingly turned the corner as well. While not wide open, the warmer conditions finally brought in more of the top-water species.  For sure, it finally kick-started all the marlin and sailfish that have been lazing around our waters for two months.  “We had 8 swimming around our panga at one time!” said one of our anglers.   It was not unusual to hook 1 or 2 this week.  Many fish broke- off on the lighter tackle, but it’s gratifying to see so many anglers…especially first timers…releasing their billfish!  Bravo!  Our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet has been seeing most of the billfish action.

As well, there’s been a smattering of tuna in the 60-100 pound class as it seems the big Humboldt squid have come up to the surface from their trenches and that usually brings the big tuna with them.  There weren’t many tuna, but here and there, they popped up and tore into a few of our pangas leaving anglers battered and bruised and, more often than not, with nothing to show after long battles where the fish broke off or got unbuttoned. 

Also, we’re seeing many more dorado all around La Paz waters, but even moreso, we’re finally seeing bigger 20-40 pound bulls instead of the little punks we’ve been dealing with since April.  Every day several fish in the 25-30 pound class have been taken at various spots.  Check out the photos this week!  Lots of dorado shots!

Bait is the biggest issue.  We’re getting bait, but it just takes time to find it or wait for the bait guys to find it so they can sell it to us.  Once you have the bait, the fish can be found.  The fish are here…no doubt.    Hopefully, that will change but we’ll keep an eye out for it. We’ve been using mostly sardines, but a few cocineros and even some big squid has been working or stripped out bonito for slow trolling the larger dorado.

FIRST PERSON REPORT

Thanks to Mike Sontag from Arizona for putting this one together!

“The fishing the week of June 25th was phenomenal. Besides having my fishing partner extraordinaire (Rex) with us, I was blessed with being able to spend quality time with my 2 brothers (both from the midwest).

 The first 2 days launched out of Los Arenas with my brother tying into a beautiful marlin within an hour of being on the water. The fight was on with the fish showing us his size and attitude with a series of surface crashing launches and acrobatics. The fish  won out after a 10 minute fight, but not without leaving a lifetime impression on my brother and me since I was able to watch the silly smirk on my brothers face for the durations of the hookup (I believe it s permanent as it still hasn’t left his face).

 Not to be outdone, within another 30 minutes I had a sailfish on the business end of the rod while my brother provided commentary and helpful hints since he was now experienced at this sort of thing. The sail was a thing of beauty and after about 25 minutes was brought up next to the boat. Our masterful Captain Ramiro estimated it’s weight at about 40-45 Kg (90-100lbs). We performed CPR (catch, photograph, release) and let it go for another day.

The rest of our day as well as the same for Rex and my other brother was rounded out with a multi-species bad of pargo, trigger, sierra, dorado, amberjack, bonita, plus several roosterfish sightings.

The cream on top of this trip was day 3 out of LaPaz with limits of dorado for both our boats. All I can say is my two brothers will never be the same when it comes to fishing experiences of a lifetime. As with our previous visits – the professional hospitality and friendliness of yourTailhunter operation and the fishing captains are second to none.”

That’s our story!

Jonathan and Jill

Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International

 
Website: www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863

.
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:
http://www.tailhunter-international.com/fishreport.htm

Tailhunter YouTube Videos:
http://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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