Sirena
Junior Nomad
Posts: 44
Registered: 4-18-2008
Location: La Paz, BCS
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La Paz and Las Arenas May 21st, 2011 Fleet Reports
This is a "pig" of a yellowfin tuna! Scott Shiminesky from Pacific City in Oregon was up at the north end of Cerralvo Island with Captain Pancho. They
had already run out've live bait and decided to drop back a big mackerel-pattern Bomber lure. They had just gotten it into the water when the freight
train hit. "I almost burned the hell outta my thumb!" But after a 30 minute fight got the fish to the boat and it weighed out at 72-pounds. His amigo,
Larry Parnell got a 30 pounder as well. The tuna continue to tease. Everyone gets excited then the fish disappear! But, still a great fish!
FRESH ONE! Are there many shots prettier than this? Tuna...game over! Forty pounder coming to the gaff. At the end of the week a flurry of nice-sized
YFT's showed up on the radar!
Roger Thompson is an excellent fisherman and if there's fish to be found, he's usually in the thick of it. Like I write below, the winds died and the
fish came to play like this 42-pound yellowfin tuna. (See Roger's account below). I had to post up this photo because Roger is usually incredibly
photogenic with his fish, but here he's in pain lifting up this fat fish!
The benefits of having TWO fleets! After two slow days at Las Arenas, we suggested that Kevin Blakely and his son Kevin and brother, Kim, (not shown)
fish with our La Paz fleet and Captain Chito. Wow...what a difference a day makes! See his comments below.
The last few weeks have been some of the most consistently great weeks for BIG cabrilla that I have seen in awhile especially around Espiritu Santo
Island. Look at this fat slug cabrilla that Donna Thompson is holding up! She was fishing with Capt. Chito.
First time visitor to La Paz, Bryan Graybill, got into the cabrilla bite with four of these trophy cabrilla landed.
All the way from Billings, Montana for his first rooster, Jess Landers escaped the snow and fished with Captain Juan and got this nice rooster.
Roosterfishing has actually been a good fallback even when the other fishing has been off. Even if not good eating and most getting released, they're
a blast to hook and fight!
Our buddy Rick Hosmer from S. California had another banner trip down here. He comes several times a year and had one day where they had non-stop
action on these great eating barred pargo that are tough as any fish to horse outta the rocks near Las Arenas.
From Texas, Kevin Blakely holds up one of several yellowtail off the north end of Cerralvo Island north of La Paz. Captain Chito is hooked up at the
stern. That's the sealion colony in the background.
Another of our regular die-hard good amigos who comes several times a year is Al Tesoro. He hung in there durring the tougher times this week but did
get some pargo like this nice dog-tooth with Captain Yofo.
WEEK STARTS AND ENDS STRONG BUT SEVERAL DAYS MID-WEEK STRUGGLED!
It’s hard to describe the week. Started strong…then mid-week, it hit a bump….but then finished on a high note!
The week started strong for fishing then as the full moon came up and the winds increased…well…it got pretty stinky as far as fishing is concerned.
That one-two punch of high winds and the full moon has really been a kick-in-the-pants the last two times it happened. Normally, any one thing isn’t
bad, but double-barrels doesn’t help. The wind especially turns the water over not to mention making it hard to find bait which is kind of a good
thing to have.
Early in the week to start out…wow! Some smokin’ good fishing, especially if you fished with our La Paz fleet. Big amberjack that ranged from 40-100
pounds (big cousins to yellowtail). We got into some good yellowtail…maybe not as big as previous weeks…but 20-25 pound fish are still banner catches!
We also hit big snapper. Big pargo as well plus trophy-sized cabrilla. Guys could fill their ice chests in one day. We thought it was finally going to
be wide-open from here on out. Take a look at this week’s big tuna!!!
(We got pretty excited about that!)
When things were working…everything worked. Trolled feathers. Live bait. Dead bait. Rapalas. Yo-yo iron. All clicked! Oh…and we had small squid
floating on the surface as well creating some real foamers when the fish went off.
But then the winds came back up. Fishing went back down!
Just when we thought we were finally done with the winds, we got spanked. …late in the week, both our La Paz and Las Arenas fleets really had to
scratch out some fish. Some yellowtail, some pargo, a few cabrilla and lots of bonito. That was almost it. Three days of frustration and bumpy rides!
However, as I’m writing this at the end of the week…THE WINDS CALMED DOWN. Gorgeous weather came back. Seas laid down! Today, we got our first decent
dorado bite of the season with our Las Arenas fleet. Nothing big, but fish to 10 pounds came swarming to the boats with double and triple hookups!
Plus some big roosters in the 30-50 pound class. Additionally, take a look at some of the tuna we got…30-40 pound YFT’s!
For our La Paz fleet…again, what a difference when the wind isn’t blowing! We got dorado, marlin, roosterfish, yellowtail and amberjack! A complete
180 degree turnaround. It’s all about the wind. Hope the winds hold off and the fish stay ready to chew!
Kevin Blakely from Texas (photos above) put it together pretty well:
“We had a great trip. First day was very slow. the second day we caught a few roosters, but nothing really to take home so we decided to go to the
LaPaz side. Thank you for making that happen, as you can see we slammed it. We caught over 25 fish – 10 Bonito, 4 Amberjack, 7 Yellow tail, 4
Triggerfish, and 2 Cabrilla.
Kevin, my son caught a 50lb and a 40lb Amberjack, again he pulled in the biggest fish of the group! I caught 2 massive Yellowtail – a 35lb and 25 lb.
My brother Kim, caught a 30lb Yellowtail. My 35lb Yellow was caught on a blue and white jig. Most of the fish were caught with squid that (Captain)
Chito caught for us.”
Roger Thompson (tuna photo above):
“We went fishin’ out at 88 … looking for dorado with not one fish seen after 4 hours of buoy hopping. However, we finally found lots of tuna hanging
out with the dolphin. There were birds crashing the water where the tuna crashing on bait. We couldn’t get them to bite on live sardinas. They would
crash on the chum, but no bites, even with fluorocarbon. We pulled blue mackerel pattern rapalas and they went on the chew!. The biggest was 45.6
pounds on the digital. We caught 5 fish in a matter of an hour and a half. Then it was 2:00 and we were still an hour out, so it was an awesome ending
to what was shaping up to be one of those days you don’t talk much about.”
That’s our story!
Jonathan and Jilly
[Edited on 5-22-2011 by Sirena]
Jilly
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