Sirena - 5-9-2011 at 01:04 AM
Oh-oh! Now what? After a slow week of fishing, the bite north of La Paz fired up and anglers like first-timer Erik Rose from Arcadia CA had the
dilemma of wondering what to do with all the fillets they had to bring home. Seen on the beach are yellowtail, triggerfish, amberjack, cabrilla and
snapper.
Unbridled joy outta Keith Brownfield who came down from Washington just to catch a roosterfish and, although it was rough early in the week, he got a
30 pounder his first day. He followed it up the next day with this 40 pound fish taken near Espiritu Santo Island. He couldn't have been happier! All
the roosters were released.
It was a great week to kick into amberjack...the bigger tastier cousin to yellowtail. Dave Rose made a banzai run driving from Denver CO, to get in on
the fishing. He does this several times a year and was rewarded with this trophy 50-pound class amberjack. Balandra Bay in the background and Captain
Chito.
From San Francisco, Wade Ichimura was able to get into that late week bite north of La Paz where he got into some nice yellowtail, pargo and cabrilla
on live bait and yo-yo iron.
A beautiful Baja Golden Group for Chris Pallemaerts that he took fishing near Espirito Santo Island. In almost 16 years here in La Paz, I've only seen
about 1/2 dozen of these beautiful fish taken. Great eating.
Bill Redalen, all the way from Pittsburgh PA, on his first Baja trip holds up another one of the nice amberjack taken this week. That's Bahia de Los
Muertos in the background.We had some colorful fish this week!
We had quite a few "first timers" this week including Richard Jacques from England with a fish he said "is by far the biggest fish I've ever caught"
holding up a La Paz yellowtail that was so big, it didn't fit into the picture!
Fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet was difficult this week. Scratchy at best as winds, waves and cloudy water made fishing less-than-ideal.
However, amigas like our "cookie queen" (she always brings us cookies from Oregon) put some nice jack crevalle and this good amberjack in the box.
We We had some colorful fish this week! Gilber Jue from the Bay Area poses with a red pargo (huachinango) taken with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet.
Great eating rock fish and highly prized by the markets and restaurants in La Paz.
He says he has the "Baja Bug" after his first trip here to La Paz, but who can blame Erik Rose, as he holds a freshly gaffed yelllowtail. It's a thick
heavy fish! Most of the yellowtail this week were in the 25-40 pound class.
SLOW WEEK FINALLY KICKS IN WHEN WINDS BACK DOWN PRODUCING YELLOWTAIL AND AMBERJACK
The early part of the week was as picky and scratch as could be imagined. I mean…well…it sucked! (for lack of a better word). Winds were strong enough
to generate big swells that actually threw waves on the La Paz waterfront and got cars wet and turned the fishing grounds green and dirty. Pretty
frustrating fishing. We got some bonito and some small pargo (lost some big pargo) and some really nice roosters …but no one really keeps roosters and
smaller fish were getting released. So the counts weren’t very encouraging and coolers looked slack. Not much you could do except shrug and hope for
better. Credit to our anglers who hung in there!
I mean…honestly…for those of you who have been reading my fishing reports all these years…before Thursday…I HAD ONE PHOTO for the entire week to post
in the fishing report! It was THAT SLOW!!!
But then Thursday rolled up and winds started calming and
waters went flat! We stopped most of our anglers from fishing Las Arenas and switched them over to fish our La Paz fleet instead and WE FOUND FISH!!!
We thought they were gone, but BIG YELLOWTAIL, PARGO and CABRILLA bent rods and came to chew on baits and iron. Big fish lost. Big fish caught. Even
some big amberjack too! Empty ice chests started to fill and we started to see the smiles again. For alot of our anglers, spending the last day
fishing La Paz meant an 11th hour reprieve after several tough days fishing, meant going home with a successful trip to battle some larger fish!
It seems that as long as the winds stay down, we’ll be OK. Very encouraging stuff! Also, more sargasso weeds building so that could be a harbinger for
dorado showing up soon! This week looks like it might be a repeat of last week. The forecast shows stronger winds early in the week tapering off as
the week goes on. Will keep you posted!
That’s our story,
Jonathan and Jilly
[Edited on 5-9-2011 by Sirena]
acadist - 5-10-2011 at 07:16 PM
Erik told me Thursday afternoon "after the first three days I thought all those pictures of big fish you bring home were taken in front of a backdrop,
NOW I am a believer". Great trip with my brother, am looking forward to many more