LAS ARENAS SIDE FISHING BOATS FINDING MORE VARIETY AND SIZE

June 30, 2004, Jonathan Roldan, Tail Hunter International, La Paz, Mexico Fishing:

Las Arenas - Great weather and great conditions. Bait is holding up pretty well. It's more a function of how many boats are jumping on the bait. Obviously, the more boats, the more the bait will scatter and the smaller the piece of pie for everyone. What many of the pangeros have been doing is either having you buy some bait or catching enough bait to start the day. Then, later in the day, when there's not so many boats, coming back to top off the load.

It's working. As for fishing...still the best spot for larger fish and variety. From day-to-day, it's really a crapshoot in knowing what's gonna show up on the beach! From boat to boat, I can walk down the beach and one guy caught some roosterfish and jack crevalle. A few boats picked up some dorado or ambjerjack. Some pompano or pargo are in another boat. One or two boats might've found the tuna and it seems there's always a marlin or two that either get caught or someone is telling a story with his arms outstretched telling the tale! As for those tuna...yea...they are there.

Getting onto them is a different story. First, the porpoise have to be balled up, not scattered. Second, the porpoise need to slow down so you can set up the panga in them and not be chasing them all over like a mom running after a giggling 4-year-old! Third, you have to position the panga just right to drag a bait through the school. Fourth...they gotta be close enough! The other day, we found the porpoise 10 miles offshore, but by the time we had finally gotten on them we were nearly 30 miles out and had to turn back or not have enough gas to get back to shore! The skippers are running just about all their fuel to put the guys on the tuna, but it might help to tell your skipper a day ahead to get extra gas and you'll pay for it. Just a hint...

Anyway, for variety and larger fish, Las Arenas would be my choice.

La Paz - This is where you fish if you just want to get some action. The dorado are still all around. Just some days they are a little easier to catch, but I've seen few La Paz charter fishing boats skunked and if you fish a few days on this side, you're gonna put some dorado in the chest.

The sargasso is in various places so just let the skipper roll on out to the zones and hold on. It can get pretty ugly when the dorado decide to go on a frenzy feed...like frat boys attacking a delivery pizza! Just one thing...alot of these fish are super small! How about throwing a few back? I heard one guy bragging (not my client) about 32 fish he caught. When I looked in his box...about 3/4 of them were no larger than 5 pound fish. His buddy on another boat was saying that the fishing was terrible because he ONLY had 22 fish! There's some larger fish and I'm encouraging letting the females and dinks go. It was pretty refreshing the last few days to be out with clients who didn't care to put any fish in the box and kept only a few to give away to folks at the hotel who had asked for some fish.

By the way...ALOT of marlin right now. They are eating the punk dorado so be prepared. Have had tons of marlin stories every week. There are also many early season blue marlin as well and they have spooled more than a few anglers! I dragged a dorado colored marlin lure several days ago with clients and 5 minutes later, we were hooked up!

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from La Paz and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for La Paz may be found at Mexfish.com's main La Paz page.