FISHING TRIP WITH FISHERMEN'S FLEET

June 30, 2004, David Gassman, La Paz, Mexico fishing with Fisherman’s Fleet:

La Paz, Las Arenas Report June 27- June 30:

We fished with a group of twelve, hosted by Jerry Carr of Alamo, CA. David Jones' "Fisherman's Fleet" took good care of us all.

La Paz fishing vacation area action was at best, scratchy.

On the brighter side, pargo do pull! Our pargo score- Pargo 3, Humans 0!

I think we fed the same big Pargon three days running, including one break-off on 50lb Big Game that parted at my rod tip- wow, sounded like a .22 Long Rifle for sure. My fault, forgot to reset the drags before we fished the first day.

Alas, because we were "tagging along" with the group, we broke our two "Cardinal Rules of Baja Fishing"... Rule One, Avoid LAX at all cost! Rule Two, don't fish after a travel day!

We broke 'em both and we paid the price.

We liked David Jones, and were amazed by his operation, though try as we might, we never got the mexican lunch- except by mistake on our first day when we got both Mexican and American lunches.

When we got on the water, the blue water was long gone, but bait was plentiful. We got sardinas at Punta Sudeste and did a bouy tour for four dorado, before making sabalo and feeding the big Punta Perico pargo.

Day two was a blowout. A Tropical Depression to the south frothed things up pretty good at La Paz- scattering the bait and beating us silly. We settled for ballyhoo, with sabalo after the bouy tour/beating and fed the pargo again. We felt like we'd gone 15 rounds with Ali in his prime.

Day three dawned clear and windless, though we assisted another van on the way to Las Arenas with it's leaking radiator... we ended up an hour late (after three stops!) with a near mutiny on our hands! We roared out to the bait panga and motored out to the 88... Water still Mean Joe Green green, we toured the bouys, lost a nice dorado, failed to bait a small striper on sardinas, and toured back to Punta Perico to feed the pargo. Did I mention that the bite marks on the sabalo were those of a 60lb class fish? Like the mounted one in David's office! We ended the day at Punta Arena where Pat hooked and landed a 40lb Rooster- his first.

Our final day, we got out there early (to make up for yesterday's snafu) and did a short bouy tour. Pat caught a 45lb bull dorado, and I got a 30 lber on my new AVET MX- nice drags on this one! We released every dorado we could, and headed in for pargo/roosters. We got hits on sabalo off perico again, and this time we fed them for a ten-count. but this time, when the baits came back up, they were scaled- Amberjack. We fed the fish two sabalo, and headed for the sands and roosters. I lost one after a five count, and Pat hooked up and landed a thirty kilo rooster that really worked him on 60lb and a TLD2/30. Pat was happy as a clam! Both roosters were released healthy too. Our host's panga caught the amberjack that we raised, it went about 35 lbs.

Save for the blown out day, bait was plentiful. Sardinas, ballyhoo, mullet, and ladyfish were there in abundance.

(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.