FOOTBALL TUNA KEEP ANGLERS HAPPY

Sept. 18, 2004, Jonathan Roldan, Tailhunter International, La Paz, Mexico Fishing Fleet Report:

I'm sitting on Saturday here looking out across La Paz Bay and it's windy and choppy as heck. I'm glad I didn't go out today! La Paz spent all week worrying about whether Hurricane Javier was going to crack us and collectively let out our breaths when it passed, but the residual winds and swell certainly aren't making it very easy out here. Still, La Paz had some great days this week even when it was bumpy.

Except for one day when we couldn't find sardines on the Las Arenas side because of rough seas, football tuna off Punta Perrico and dorado from the island to Pescadero kept folks pretty happy. On the La Paz side there was a nice snap of quality dorado off El Rosario with 10-50 pound fish were the highlights.

Seems that all anyone did all week was buzz over whether Hurricane Javier was gonna blitz us like a tank. From taxi drivers to skippers and from waiters to taco stand vendors, everyone was talking about the hurricane as it veered, turned and was on-again-off-again all week. Many people still have fresh memories of the double chubasco that spanked La Paz pretty badly last year and the city was seemingly bracing for the worst that never came. As of right now, I think Utah might get more rain than us. However, it has still been an unusual week of La Paz fishing weather. At times sunny...at times extremely windy...at times extremely calm...at times bumpy as heck on the water...green water...blue water...warm water...cool water, I think we've had just about everything except frozen water! Still, glad we dodged the blow!

Our La Paz football tuna season keeps on trucking off Punta Perrico near Arenas. This is about 5 straight weeks of La Paz fishing tuna. These are smallish 5-20 pounders, but loads of fun, especially on light tackle. The spot is only 100-200 yards off the rocks in relatively shallow water which is just fine with me. The location makes it hard for the commercial buttheads to come in and wrap up the school! The fish are eating dead and live bait, but prefer the smaller sardines which require relatively eenie-meenie hooks...like #1 and #2 to keep them lively. Additionally, it seems that the lighter the line, the more the bites. So, I've been rolling with 15-25 pound test and would probably use lighter if possible. Line color doesn't make a difference except fluorescent green or pink. I'm sure it probably works, but I just don't like it!!! LOL....

There are surprisingly still some larger roosters along the lighthouse area and mullet are the best bet on those. Got bumped and jacked a few days ago with a fish that might've gone 60-80 pounds in the shallow water if he had taken the whole bait. Not much in the way of marlin, sailfish or wahoo this week at La Paz mainly because no one has been fishing for them with the tuna so close. However, a good number of quality dorado have been mixing into the tuna schools and down a line to Punta Pescadero. Stripped bonito have been excellent in getting the dorado to chew.

Hot flash!!! Reportedly a commercial pangero hooked a 300 pound yellowfin tuna at the south side of Cerralvo this week. Unconfirmed, but other captains tell me it was hooked on a hand line that gave him the Old-Man-And-The-Sea treatment and pulled him around all day. Additionally, some 100 pound La Paz tuna have been seen at both the north and south sides of Cerralvo, but none caught by sportfishers. We do have large squid starting to show up so maybe that's why the tuna are making their move. I"ll know more this week.

Our La Paz fishing boats didn't have the variety of our Las Arenas fleets, but a nice spot of scattered but hungry dorado was worked just off the area of the El Rosario rock. Mostly using stripped bonito and trailing a carcass, the dorado have gone from 10-50 pounds. The sardines are also working at times to good effect. Later in the week, La Paz fishing boats worked more northerly around Espiritu Santo with a yellowfin tuna hooked and lost off the island and boats headed out to check the reports.

(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.