PHOTO 1: Talk about a GRAND SLAM fishing day! Oregon boys on their first trip down here are Troy King (left) and Jess Robinson (kneeling). Captain Joel Martinez lends a hand. Fishing with our La Paz fleet, the guys got a big trophy bull dorado, the striped marlin and a mako shark! There was quite a bit of variety in the water this week! TUNA STILL HOLD THE SPOTLIGHT WHILE DORADO FISHING SLOWS A BIT BUT BILLFISH GETTING MORE INTERESTED!
La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report
for the week of Aug. 2-9, 2008
PHOTO 2: Josh Evans from San Francisco knows how to swing on fish! He had a full week of bent rods, but did quite a few billfish including this sailfish. Hat's off...Josh released lots of fish including ALL his billfish.
You rock, amigo! 
PHOTO 3: Here's a hog of a fish! This is a "dog tooth snapper" aka "pargo perro" aka "cubera snapper." Vince Preszler holds it up while standing on Las Arenas Beach. These fish are rare, not because there are so few, but because they are so difficult to catch. They get much larger and usually hang out in the rocks and are near impossible to wedge out. Well, this guy must have been lost because it ate a tiny sardine way out in deep water where the tuna schools were feeding!
PHOTO 4: Wally and Jeff Lee are from the bay area and were on their first trip with us. Here they are after their first day of fishing where they whacked the yellowfin tuna that have been on the chew now for over a week.
PHOTO 5: Nice dorado for Grace Ching from the San Francisco area. Gracie fished with us for about a week and hung some nice tuna as well.
PHOTO 6: Rob Burns is our buddy from Texas. He has way too much fun and this is his 3rd trip to visit us this year. Rob fished several days again, but on this particular day, he decided to use his flyrod and got 8 fun yellowfin tuna.
PHOTO 7: Justin Simon and his pals area all from Los Angeles area. They raced up to see us from Cabo San Lucas to squeeze in a day of fishing with our Las Arenas fleet and nailed a box of tuna from that school just to the south of Muertos Bay.
PHOTO 8: Leon Throckmorton was on his first trip with us. Donnie Rhea (on the right) visits us all the time and was on his 2nd trip of 2008. They love the light tackle and show off two of their bull dorado. Both fish took almost an hour to boat on the smaller gear fishing with our La Paz fleet north of La Paz near Espiritu Santo Island.
PHOTO 9: Steve Bryan and Dave O'Leary came down from the rainy state of Washington to check out our La Paz sunshine and get in a few days fishing. They spanked the yellowfin tuna as shown by two of the several tuna they caught their first day. Most of the fish have been about 10 pounds more or less, but as show by Steve's fish, there's some large models swimming in the schools! Steve and Dave also got in a day of dorado fishing and hooked and released a sailfish as well.
PHOTO 10: This is a real special fish. Chris Dufour is on the right. His wife Alissa is on the left. Chris did not catch this striper. Allissa did! On 25 pound test, she battled this fish for almost 4 hours north of La Paz! Quite an accomplishment and she did NOT hand off the rod. Alissa has fished with us a number of times and always does well.
PHOTO 11: OK...yes...that's a yellowtail on the left being held by Kevin Kurstin about to enter his senior year in high school and fishing for the first time with Tailhunter International. We normally do not get yellowtail down here during this time of year, but this 18 pounder and others like it seem to show up a few times a week to remind us they're still around. Kevin also got a nice yellowfin for his fishing efforts!
VIDEO CLIP FOR THE WEEK
Click this and turn up the sound:
THE FISHING REPORT
Not sure who to characterize the week. It was one of ups-and-downs! If you were fishing for yellowfin tuna, well, that school of football tuna south of Muertos Bay for our Las Arenas fleet just continued to rip for a 2nd straight week. If you were fishing for anything else like dorado, billfish, roosters, etc., it kinda depended on where you fished and just being plain lucky, not to mention having your game plan together and your "A" game in place.
Listen...everyone got fish. That tuna bite for our Las Arenas fleet continued to roll. Nothing big but certainly a lot of fun and our light tackle guys had a blast as well as flyfishers. The fish are about 8-15 pounds, but FLASH...bigger 40 and 50 pounders have been seen and were boiling just outside the zones but were either moving too fast or wouldn't eat what we chased them with or threw at them. However, seeing them is sure encouraging. I did check out one of the larger fish caught on the troll by a commercial fisherman and it's guts were full of little squid so that might be the ticket OR could signal that the squid might be coming up from the deep channel and bringing the tuna with them. We'll keep you posted!
But, on top of the tuna, we also got a handful of dorado, billfish and roosters each day as well. The ticket for these tuna were the eenie-meenie little sardines we were using all week. If you had big sardines, the tuna weren't interested. If you had the tiny sardines, you'd better hold onto your socks!
For our anglers fishing with our La Paz fleets it was hit or miss at times. You could hit the right spot on the right day and it could be well over by mid-morning. You'd have enough fish or enough BIG fish to call it a day. Dorado tails would be hanging out of the fish box. On the other hand, there were times you really had to work at it and spank the water to get fish to rise or find the right spots. Some boats got 'em and some boats didn't. The next day, you could go from goat to hero or hero to goat. A lot of it was just luck.
However, we also did see quite a few billfish. A number of them were hooked and lost and proud to say quite a few of them were also released as well. The fish are scattered. Some days there wouldn't be a billfish. The next day, the boats would have 2, 3 or more fish around the boat. That's fishing.
Weather has been real tropical lately. (It even hailed on day...that's right HAIL!!!) Almost everyday, a bit of rainstorm falling somewhere for a few minutes. Sometimes, they're real gully-washers and others are like a warm shower. They blow over pretty fast but are putting a lot of debris in the water for dorado schools to hide under! We'll keep you posted. Still, might be a good idea to bring a light windbreaker or cheap pancho, or do like I do and just cut some holes in a trash bag!
CAPTAIN JORGE
Our ever-popular Captain Jorge appears to be sick again. As many of you may recall, he was out about 4 years ago with serious intestinal problems that required surgery in Guadalajara. Apparently, the symptoms have come back. Not sure what it is, but he's getting checked out. He's been out of the lineup for 2 weeks now and until further notice, w'ere not sure when he'll be back in the starting rotation with the first string. We'll keep you posted. Jorge is one of the best captains not to mention one of the most likeable of any captain you'll ever meet. Bear with us if you've requested Jorge. Believe me, he's chomping at the bit to be out on the water ASAP.
That's our story!
Jonathan
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