PHOTO 1: Perhaps one of the largest dorado of the season, Captain Chito helps Steve McWhorter of Ventura with the big fish taken north of La Paz. Steve is 6' tall and you can see that this fish is about that long. Captain Chito estimated the fish at about 60 pounds and was amazingly taken after a long battle on light tackle by Steve.

PHOTO 2: John Seidensticker of Huntington Beach CA fished with Captain Victor and our Tailhunter Las Arenas fleet and pulled in this nice bull dorado. The dorado bite at Las Arenas slowed this past week but tuna and wahoo picked up the slack.

PHOTO 3: Whittier CA resident Alan Cutler poses with another nice La Paz dorado he got north of town of Espiritu Santo Island. Live bait worked well this week, but many of this week's larger fish were taken with strips of dead bonito.

PHOTO 4: It might not be the biggest fish picture, but it's certainly my favorite of the week. Rebecca Waverly from Ventura CA was with us for the first time on her first fishing trip and fished with Captain Ramiro. The sheer exhuberance captured in this photo is priceless. We sometimes get so "hardcore" about our fishing we forget it's supposed to be fun. Good job, Rebecca!

WAHOO AND YELLOWFIN TUNA CRASH THE BOATS UNTIL SPEARFISHERMEN JUMP IN WATER AND SHUT OFF THE BITE

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for Week of August 9-15, 2009

We had a really nice wahoo and yellowfin tuna bite going on for our Las Arenas fleet the last few days the earlier half of the week. Guys were getting 2-5 bites on the skinnies per day and putting 1-2 in the boat. The wahoo ran up to about 50 pounds and were eating the big crank baits like Yozuri and Rapalas in the darker colors. As well, the yellowfin tuna popped up as well not far off the point. These were a fun grade of fish going 10-25 pounds.

All was good until freediving spearfishers dropped into the middle of the bites while the pangas were trying to fish. Incredible. Well, I do believe it and spearfishers wonder why they get such a bad rap here and get stinkeye from local captains…both commercial and sport captains and there has been open antagonism in the past and confrontations. Local commercial guys are trying to catch a few fish to feed their families. Panga captains are out there trying to put a few fish on the pangas for their clients.

A few jerk spearfishers screw it up for everyone and basically, they shut off the bite. It taints all spearfishers who show up. Word has it that some of them were using illegal gas-powered guns as well instead of the normal band guns. Nothing like little explosions underwater to put the lockjaw on the fish!

Additionally, they didn’t heed requests to go find other spots. The ocean is big. No reason to drop right in the middle of guys trying to make a living. Anyway, that surely screwed up the bite and hopefully, by the time you’re reading this, the bite will have come back.

After that, the pickings the rest of the week were marginal at best with fishermen chasing a few dorado, a few tuna and inshore species like roosterfish, pargo and cabrilla. Like I said, hopefully, by the time you're reading this, the bite will have come back.

The dorado are still biting, however, for our La Paz boats. The bite has been pretty far-ranging from the outer banks all the way down the channel around Las Cruces. You might find a big school that makes your day or dink or single and double biters all day long, but limits or near limits were not uncommon for our boats. Live bait worked best, but catching a few bonito then using dead slabs on the troll drew fish to the boat.

That's our story

Jonathan and Jill


Jonathan Roldan's
Tailhunter International
Website: www.tailhunter-international.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Drive, Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863


Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report:
http://www.tailhunter-international.com/fishreport.htm

Tailhunter YouTube Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pangapirate

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