Yes! Even we get to fish now and then and it was great to get on the water with Jilly for an epic day of non-stop dorado fishing where we hooked and released over 40 fish before noon! Great week of dorado fishing even with the full moon! Here, Jill ducks behind Captain Joel with another bull dorado that was thrashing around wildly before Joel released the fish!
The ladies were on fire this week! Especially alot of first timers like Sylva Ourghoulian from Pasadena CA who came with our long-time amigo and her new husband Avo. Avo is a great fisherman and wanted to have a good experience for Sylva. She got limits of dorado each day plus some nice roosterfish!
Like I said, the ladies were rocking this week! From Sacramento, another first-timer, Becky Csotoras, was just off the Las Arenas lighthouse when she caught and released this nice roosterfish. She and her dad also got into the dorado bite this week as well.
Every time he comes down, Fred Sontag, from St. Louis MO says, “This is the best trip ever!” Four days of hot dorado, roosterfish and marlin fishing resulted in lots of fillets headed back to the midwest including this trophy big-headed bull dorado taken near Espirito Santo Island.
Our long time friend from Colorado, Doug Oclassen got his son, Andrew out with us for a day and off Las Arenas pulled in some nice roosterfish like this one. It’s turning into thee best roosterfish season in memory. Pretty much 99 percent of all the roosters like this one are getting released. Great job, guys! Andy is looking alot like dad these days!
Not many of these in Montana! Phil Matteson said he got “everything on his bucket list” on this trip to La Paz, his first! Dorado, roosterfish and this marlin shown with Captain Boli holding on!
Rex Smith has been visiting us for years. Our amigo did three days fishing with our La Paz fleet and had limits of dorado like this one every day. Rex is from the Phoenix AZ area and is posing here at Balandra Beach north of La Paz.
Big smiles for another of our ladies who had a good trip. From Utah, Kim Woodard, shows off another nice bull dorado that jumped on the line. Kim and her family had good results on dorado and roostefish over several days of fishing with us!
Fishing with grandpa, John Ehlers, from Colorado, 14-year-old Cheyenne says she cannot get enough of the ocean and was on her first trip ever to La Paz! Posing here with our popular Captain Pancho with our Las Arenas fleet, she’s holding one of several big roosterfish she caught and released. She also did several days of banner dorado fishing with grandpa, John!
One of the larger striped marlin of the week, Mike Sontag, has visited us a number of times and finally got his billfish. From North Carolina, Mike’s fish was estimated at about 150 pounds. The billfish have really gotten up to speed this past week even with the full moon and about 90 percent have been released. Mike’s panga hooked two others that got away.
More big smiles to go with a big dorado! The ladies were pulling hard on the fish all week and Karen Matteson from Montana was no exception. Nice dorado…big roosterfish…pargo…a real good trip and nice to have fun folks from Montana. I think Montana people just bring good fishing with them! Nicely done, Karen!
Dustyn Woodard is 17-years-old, and had a great trip sticking a bunch of big roosters with Captain Gerardo and releasing them all. He and his family, from Utah, also popped some great dorado. This was Dustyn’s first trip to see us.
Northern Cal resident, Jimmy Csutoras, saw an article in the S.F. Chronicle about Tailhunter and booked a trip with us. He got dorado and roosters and also got one of the only pargo we’ve seen in awhile! He got several of these nice barred pargo. That’s Punta Arenas in the background and they were very close to the beach!
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Check out this underwater clip in slo-motion of a wild dorado hooked (then released)! Turn up the sound. If you can’t see the embedded video clip, click the youtube link!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xl-JF0VOcM&feature=plcp
FULL MOON PRODUCES BEST DORADO BITE OF THE SEASON!
La Paz- Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of July 1-8, 2012
What’s the big deal about the full moon? I keep telling people it really doesn’t seem to make much difference down here. As a matter of fact, we just had the best dorado week of the season in the full moon. At times, folks were catching and releasing fish as fast as they could go! Somedays the bite was later in the day but other our anglers were full of fish by breakfast time! Once it started it could be pandemonium with double and triple hook ups. Some of our clients told us they released dozens of dorado each day.
Most of the dorado fishing was north of La Paz and was found in a nice wedge from the Las Cruces/ Gordo area then up to the east side of Espirito Santo Island and up to the Charo Bank. There’s a nice current line of sargasso weeds holding fish all up and down that area. There’s lots of voracious 10-15 pounders all along that area that are almost fighting each other to get to the hooks but there’s also some nicer 20-50 pound bruisers mixed in as well. In the last 2 weeks, it’s like someone threw a switch!
On Friday, Jill and I snuck out for a “quick day of fishing.” What we ran into was one of our all-time best days on the water in 16 years of living here. We ran into that line of sargasso weed along the east side of Espirito Santo Island. Just on a lark we did not follow the rest of the fleet that morning which had gone south to check out the Las Cruces area where the dorado had been biting fairly steadily.
Our first bait immediately got slammed…as did our 2nd and 3rd…by 8 a.m. we had caught and released almost 20 dorado! By 10 a.m. we had over 30 fish hooked and released. And we were still the only ones fishing the area! By 10:30 we were joined by the rest of the fleet and everyone hooked up! There were dorado everywhere. Under the boat, it looked like a fish pond! There were dorado darting in and out of the weed line and current break. Dorado were jumping following flying fish and one flying fish smacked Jill on the arm followed by a dorado that was chasing the bait that blew up in her face and narrowly missed her.
By 11 that morning we stopped counting at 40 dorado caught and released! By this time we had switched to complete circle hooks and were also using all kinds of goofy lures that were in the tackle box! Our last 3 fish were caught by us just dangling BARE HOOKS in the water and watching dorado come out from under the boat and 1…2…3…SLAM! HOOK UP! BARE HOOKS!
As we pulled off the spot at 11:30 so we could back to the office, dorado were still jumping all around the boat as if yelling, “FEED ME! “ Way fun day. Of course not every boat did that well, but more often than not all the pangas this week fishing La Paz came back with limits. And if not, a quick query would tell you that they lost quite a few fish!
In that same area, especially with all the smaller punk dorado around, marlin and sailfish have also moved in to the area and are actively feeding. We had quite a few hooked, lost and released this week with most in the 100-120 pound class.
Around Las Arenas, our fleet there continues to do well on the roosterfish. If you’ve ever wanted to check a roosterfish off your “bucket list, ” this has been the year for it. Roosters in the 20-50 pound class have not been uncommon and they’re very close to the beaches where you can visually cast to them and watch the pick up! Pretty exciting stuff to watch those huge dorsal fins cut through the water! Las Arenas also produced some marlin and sailfish for us this week as well as pargo.
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
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Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:
http://www.tailhunter-international.com/fishreport.htm
Tailhunter YouTube Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pangapirate
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