Sirena
Junior Nomad
Posts: 44
Registered: 4-18-2008
Location: La Paz, BCS
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La Paz and Las Arenas May 29th, 2011 Fleet Reports
It was finally a week where the dorado decided to join the party and just-in-time for Chad Schearer's TV show "Shoot Straight" and his family to show
up with the cameras. www.shootstraightTV.com Chad is the TV host of the program and usually travels the world with either a bow or muzzle-load rifle, but is quite a
celebrity with the flyrod as well. He filmed all week with us and one of his sponsors is Cabela's Outdoor Stores. They wanted him to test out their
new 6-piece travel flyrod that looked so thin and light a trout would've broken the 10 wt stick! Chad's intent was to get a big roosterfish on it, but
when a big dorado charged through, it was GAME ON! Chad battled this monster 40-pound rooster on the light flygear for 1 hour and 45 minutes! He had
never gotten a dorado before and this was a personal best...and all in front of the cameras!
Wahoooo! We finally got one to the boat. For weeks, I've been saying the conditions are right and Roger Thompson finally nailed one on a rapala at the
north end of Cerralvo Island. He said te day was going slow (note the tuna boat in the back!) but he usually comes through and this 60 pound class
speedster topped the day!
It was a stellar week for roosters for both our La Paz and Las Arenas fleets with fish up to 80 pounds. Sheldon "Doc" Schearer is a minister and
sherrif's officer from Montana and this 60 pound rooster was a personal best. It ate a live sardine in about 10 feet of water near the Las Arenas
lighthouse and took 1/2 an hour to battle. The fish was released. In fact, they caught 6 that day and all but one fish were put back in the water.
Tailhunter's own Jilly Roldan got into the nice dorado bite late this week posing with San Diego's Joe Jacobs in the blue waters of Balandra Bay north
of La Paz. They also got roosterfish and small yellowtail, but ran into a spot of dorado that blew up on them and they lost count of the fish with
double and triple hookups!
This is the first week that dorado bit consistently. Not surprisingly, the waters edged over 80 degrees too and the winds calmed down. hmmmm...funny
how that works! But the week started slowly, but by mid-week the counts were going up with mostly smaller fish in the 5-10 pound category, but as the
week went on, there were more 20-40 pound fish in the counts and hardly anything prettier than a lit up mahi on the hook like this one taken off
Espiritu Santo Island this week.
Even last season we didn't see many bull dorado over 20 pounds, but this week we had some fish in the 30, 40 and one that may well have been over 50
pounds! Jilly got this one on the NE corner of Espiritu Santo Island just off the drop-off on live bait. Captain Joel holds it up for the photo! The
waters are holding various spots of fish but they're scattered in all the usual places with many holding under building schools of sargasso weeds
floating on the surface!
Even tho' waters kicked into "summer mode," there were still some "cooler water" fish around like this decent yellowtail held by Lisa Chandler of La
Mesa CA. We actually took a few of these YT's this week.
Even when the fish weren't biting it seemed there were often schools of dolphin blasting through...wherever dolphin go! It was not unusual to see half
the fleet suddenly stop what they were doing to follow the schools! This one was between Cerralvo and Espiritu Santo Island.
For alot of our clients and friends this week, it was their first time tangling with roosterfish and underlines why La Paz waters are called the
"roosterfish capital of the world." Joe "The Deke" Jacobs from San Diego took this nice one in Pilot's Cove north of La Paz and released it.
The roosters were biting for BOTH our Tailhunter La Paz and Tailhunter Las Arenas fleets. Captain Jorge with our Las Arenas fleet helps Marsha
Schearer pose with this slug rooster caught in shallow water just outside Bahia de Los Muertos.
SLOW START TO WEEK CRANKS UP WITH DORADO AND ROOSTERFISH!
Amazing what a difference a week can make. Take away a full moon; strong winds; green water; and inconsistent water temperatures…little things like
that…and WHAM…THE FISH BITE! In fact, water temps hit 80+ for the first time this year and it was a 180 degree turn from the strange fishing last
week. In fact, it was a pretty decent week of fishing! It didn’t start out like that! At the beginning, it was scratch fishing at best.
I was pretty worried. But…the conditions changed!
Hey, for the first time, dorado bit consistently with nice patches of sargasso weed building up in the surrounding channels and while many of the fish
were firecracker punks in the 5-10 pound class, there were still some nicer fish running in the 20-40 pound class (and even one or two that sure
looked like 50-pound-class dorado) that really got folks excited. In fact, we had Chad Schearer, nationally known host of the outdoor TV show “Shoot
Straight” filming the entire week (www.shootstraightTV.com) with us and Chad, who had never flyfished Baja before and came to tie on a big Roosterfish, instead threw a pattern at
boiling bonito and a huge 40-pound class dorado bit his 10wt rod and it was “fish on!”
And epic battle lasted almost 2 hours as the fish bulldogged down on the light line but finally Chad got the fish to the boat and was almost
speechless in front of the cameras!
As well, we got into some incredible roosterfish action. Some stops with both our La Paz and Las Arenas fleets resulted in double and triple
roosterfish hookups. Fish ranged from 10 to as large as 80-pounds this week with some incredible battles on light tackle, flyrods and spinning gear
when anglers fishing for smaller “fun” fish instead got blown up on larger world-class roosters that almost brought some anglers to their knees on the
smaller gear.
Overall, just a great week with additional species that included some big cabrilla, jack crevalle, barred pargo, striped marlin (hookedand lost and
released); sailfish (hooked and lost and released), pompano, bonito, barracuda and even some very very late yellowtail in the 10-15 pound class. We
even got a huge 9-foot mako shark that ate a small dorado hooked by one of our amigos. They got it to the boat and wisely decided to cut it loose!
That’s our story!
Jonathan and Jilly
Jilly
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Bajahowodd
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9274
Registered: 12-15-2008
Location: Disneyland Adjacent and anywhere in Baja
Member Is Offline
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A Paid commercial message, courtesy of the tail hunter fubar folks????
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Sirena
Junior Nomad
Posts: 44
Registered: 4-18-2008
Location: La Paz, BCS
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Bajahowodd
A Paid commercial message, courtesy of the tail hunter fubar folks????
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No it's free. Jonathan's been down here fishing and writing weekly fish reports for 14 years straight. Tailhunter Restaurant / FUBAR Cantina is
something we opened only two years ago.
Jilly
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