ANGLERS SCORE BEST CATCHES ON LESS WINDY DAYS

Nov. 13, 2004, Jonathan Roldan Tail Hunter International, La Paz, Mexico Fishing Report:

Good news and bad news, sportfishing at La Paz was good, but it was windy about half the week, and that dictated how the anglers did. The less wind, the better the fishing. Still cannot believe the dorado bite off the southeast end of Espiritu Santo Island, even though it's almost Thanksgiving.

When the winds are down, limits are the rule rather than the exception with lots of quality fish between 10 and 50 pounds. The secret is having bonito to use as strip bait or using the smaller fish whole to catch the big bulls.

I was out yesterday and we hooked and released 25 fish before noon with the largest being 45 pounds on the scale. Neat thing too is we're only in about 30 feet of water.

For our Las Arenas boats, again, the wind dictates a lot. Out in front of the Arenas lighthouse, there's some spots of tuna and pargo in the same area, but it's funny as one boat will take half-a-dozen and the boat next to it will get nothing. There's dorado from Arenas to Pescadero with the buoys producing the best, but the first boat to the buoy wins! Also, given it's so late in the year, we are still getting sailfish, and marlin. I hooked and lost two right in front of Muertos Bay on a double strike on light tackle. We also hooked a few wahoo this week as well.

Nov. 8, 2004, Jonathan Roldan, Tail Hunter International, La Paz Fishing Report:

We had one of the busiest fishing weeks of the season at La Paz with large groups coming down including my amigos in Don Meluci's group from San Diego, my great friends in Mark Martis Group from Redondo Beach, and a whole bunch of new friends and family that Rich Jordan brought down from all over California.

November is time for the La Paz fishing season to be changing, waters getting colder, winds howling at times. As the week started, we had some of the strongest winds of the season. In fact, I have never seen winds this strong short of a hurricane. Sun was out and sunny, but the La Paz winds were strong enough to pull up huge waves that were smashing against the downtown waterfront. In this kind of blow, there's no way I was gonna be putting out any fishermen.

Miraculously...the winds abated. La Paz vacation fishing waters went blue, clear and warm. We could not have asked for more picture perfect conditions, and best of all, THE FISH BIT!

It was July fishing in November!

With almost perfect conditions, our La Paz panga fleet rolled right back to our Bonanza Beach hot spot as soon as the winds died down and no sooner did we drop back the baits when WHAM! Dorado rodeo! Limits or near limits of 10, 20, 30, 40 and even 60 pound dorado hammered the fleet! All of this took place in water no deeper than 30-40 feet when you could see the bottom! Schools of mini-bonito no more than a pound would tear into the baits as well giving us even better baits and some of the boats would take live whole bonito and slow troll them over the dorado zone resulting in some HUGE biters with the giant bulls inhaling these live bonito.

Early in the week, it could only be described as "pick" fishing for my Las Arenas boys. We had a little of this and a little of that. However, as the winds diminished, the fish came on nicely. If you were looking for variety, Las Arenas was the ticket. You could sure count on action with everything from small tuna to needlefish to bonito to dorado in the counts. We even got several sailfish and a wahoo! Best of all, none of the fishing was more than a mile off the beach and literally no fishing more than a 10 or 15 minute ride up or down the beach from Muertos Bay.

(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.