La Paz - Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of September 15-22, 2013

We had a great bite going all week on dorado but then had to contend with the sudden approach of "Manual" that started as a little blip on the weather radar that became a "Tropical Depression" then reached hurricane status in a very short time.

It didn't look good. It was on a collision course with Southern Baja and was surely going to slam into La Paz. Captains were pulling boats out of the water. Others from outside came running into the bay to seek shelter. Folks were in the markets buying water and flashlight batteries and bottles of tequila and cases of beer!

It looked like we were going to have to cancel fishing the rest of the week and I was preparing to contact anglers coming down on their vacations to try to postpone their trips.

Then suddenly, the strangest thing happened. The storm veered 90 degrees east...like it turned a corner. All we got was about an hour of hard rain in the evening and some strong winds for a day. That was it!!! Saved!

We ended up keeping right on fishing! It was a little bumpy leading in and leading out of the storm, but the fish didn't stop biting. Dorado madness, especially after the storm moved off. In fact, I had not seen that kind of frenzy all season. We had some of our pangas run into entire hungry schools of 10-15 pounders where each boat caught and released 15-25 dorado each!

It wasn't like that for everyone, but there were surely large chunks of mahi schools out there and most boats got limits or near limits or, lost alot of fish and "should have" had limits! (I saw some thumbs with blisters on them!) . As well, there were some larger fish ranging around as well with 25-35 pounders in the mix.

It was also a pretty good week on a few other species. We hooked a few wahoo around Cerralvo Island and also just outside La Paz Bay although all the fish either bit through or got off. We also got into some nice grade striped marlin and sailfish as well.

We have a mix of bait although it's hard to tell what we'll have from one day to the next. However, everything seems to have a place and works well. We're still catching giant squid at Las Arenas which makes for great bait (plus good eating!) plus using some sardines, mackerel and caballitos plus using small bonito strips for larger dorado.

Photos:
Pictured Above: Big striped marlin for Larry Wilson from Montana. It was Larry's first time fishing Mexico and first time fishing with Tailhunter International in La Paz. Larry caught numerous dorado on light tackle releasing many then he hooked onto this striped marlin also on light tackle. With the assist of Captain Pancho, he battled the fish to the boat...took a quick photo...and released the fish which swam off strongly! Larry was fishing south of Cerralvo Island.
Photo #1: John Virgin struggles to hold this big boy bull dorado for the photo! He got several of these fishing this past week with Tailhunters. This particular beauty with the great colors was taken just north of La Paz.
Photo #2: From Sacramento CA, Adam Wilfley and Craig Young pose with a few of their catch from Las Arenas while standing on the beach at Bahia de Los Muertos. Both guys got in on one of the days this week when the schoolie-dorade went crazy with fast easy limits!
Photo #3: This was a good birthday! Sharon Virgin gets a hand from husband John posing with her first sailfish. She also caught and released a hammerhead shark and several large dorado and bonito. They weren't able to release the sailfish. She had several banner days of fishing with Tailhunters.
Photo #4: Jon Holtby won the "pot" from his fishing amigos with this big bull dorado while fishing north of La Paz with Captain Joel of the Tailhunter Fleet. The big fish was taken on bait near Espirto Santo Island just before the storm arrived. (It never really did!)
Photo #5: Check out the colors on Sharon's fish! It seemed all the larger fish were taken this past week with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet while our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet put up more numbers. Sharon took several big fish after a week with us here in La Paz.
Photo #6: