La Paz and Las Arenas June 11th, 2011 Fleet Reports

Look carefully at the size of these bulls! The larger dorado are estimated to be in the 50-pound class! We're seeing some incredibly big dorado early this season certainly a bit too big to lift up for the camera for Dwight Jaeger from Arizon and his 10-year-old grandson, Garrett Santana, from Simi Valley CA. The dorado bite all week for our La Paz fleet has been very, very good!



Los Angeles angler, Jodi ******* always seems to do well when she visits and she got into a great day of dorado fishing with her husband, Jeff working that red hot dorado area north of La Paz.



We're having a stellar year on the roosters, especially around Las Arenas with more big fish still getting caught. Marty Davis gets a hand from Captain Raymundo before releasing this big guy.



Rich Santana from Simi Valley CA had a pretty good few days for his first time to La Paz with lots of big dorado like these fishing La Paz.



When you catch a big fish, it's gonna be a great show-and-tell when you get home! Little Caleb Davis doesn't want to let go of his big sierra! Not only is this a big sierra but highly unusual to be catching sierra this late in the season. Sierra are normally cooler water fish.



It's always great to be a part of the action when a youngster gets their first fish and the youngsters had a great week, especially on dorado. Ten-year-old Garrett Santana holds his first dorado but later got into alot more including a 45-pound class bruiser bull he handled all by himself (see the video below).



They definitely don't have dog-tooth-snapper in Oklahoma, but that's where Mike Ballesteros is from and he took this great eating doggie fishing out've Las Arenas.



Oh, the joy! Chris Daniels from the Sacramento CA area wanted just one day to try fishing with the flyrod and she succeeded in getting a nice-sized rooster to the boat catch-and-release! It's been another great week for the roosterfish!



It beats working! Jeff ******* made a quick run down from L.A. for a fast get-away but it was enough to fill an ice chest between him and his wife.

DORADO BITE TAKES CENTER STAGE ! BIG TUNA OFF and ON (again) !
It was a good solid week of fishing here in La Paz especially for dorado. I would have to say that it was also possibly the first week that wind was not an issue. Breezy at times, but nothing like the stuff we’ve had to contend with over the last two months. I’m sure that had alot to do with the good bite!

We kept most of our folks who wanted to nail dorado and put
fillets in the ice chest fishing with our La Paz fleet. It was a no-brainer. There’s lines of sargasso weeds out in the channel. There’s schools of sardines and flying fish out there. We’re also getting macks and caballitos by the buoys in the bay as well as under the two ships anchored about 1/2 a mile in front of the city in the bay (magote). Then, out to the grounds where it can be explosive. I’d say that in the last 2 weeks of fishing, we’ve already caught more BIG dorado than all of last year.

Last year, a “BIG” dorado was 20-25 pounds. Very unusual for our area. We had alot of dorado, but just not many big ones. This year already, we’ve seen good numbers of 30, 40 and even 50 pound bulls in our catches with some larger fish getting away! There’s alot of little small punk 5 pound fish too and it’s good to see so many of the anglers releasing the little guys. Most fish, are in the 10 pound class with the big ones mixed in. A good variety. As well, marlin and sailfish are out there also naturally feeding on the small dorado as well as the schools of bonito and skipjack also feeding on all the bait.

For our Las Arenas fleet, it was a little pickier, but certainly not bad at all!

We had flurries of those big, big, big tuna between 100-200 pounds throughout the week out at the 88 spots east of Cerralvo Island. The thing about that is it’s a long run. Often, there was alot of pressure from so many boats out there and the fish were down. Only a few or no hookups. One of our guys reported there’s 20-60 boats out there and it’s guerilla fishing with everyone chasing boiling fish or the porpoise schools crisscrossing each other in races to the fish or running over each other’s lines and chum lines.

The fish themselves would be there one day then gone again a day later. So many stories of fish being lost of rods broken! Everyone wants a big tuna until they finally feel the power and are sweating under the strain and the Baja sun for 1, 2 or 3 hours! And then lose the fish! You don’t get many chances! The other thing is that if the fish are not biting, you’re probably out too far by then and you’re pretty late to go after anything else except troll around and cross your fingers.

So, it’s a gamble, but like all gambles, you’re a hero if it pays off!
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However FLASH…just as I’m putting up this report the BIG TUNA CAME CRASHING AGAIN AT THE 88 SPOT! Lots of big fish. Maybe by the time you are reading this the fish are going full turbo or......got lockjaw again? However, the reports coming in at this very moment as I am typing this are tuna in the 50-150 pound class! Pictures as soon as I get them!
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Back to the regular report…

Inshore, Las Arenas has produced some nice dorado by the buoys and the roosterfish bite continues to prove this a banner year for big fish with roosters in the 30-80 pound class not unusual. As well, we’re still getting both barred pargo and dog-tooth pargo which is a bit unusual given how warm the waters are.

Video Clip of the Week
I only had a few seconds to work with this week, but watch young Garrett and his big dorado. Take a look at the leaps.
It’s short, but you get the idea! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BhfB_4aLZg

That’s our story!
Jonathan and Jilly

[Edited on 6-13-2011 by Sirena]