PHOTO 1: Ever seen 60 and 70 pound roostefish? Those are the estimated weights of these two bruisers being held by Joe Dubler from Palmer AK, and Jeff Regnart from Anchorage AK. There's a reason they call this area the "roosterfish capital of theworld. " The world record 114 pounder came out of these waters and fish like these are not uncommon. In fact, considering it's early in the season we're getting banner numbers of the big fish. Here's the best part of this. On this particular day, Joe and Jeff got FIVE of these fish including this double hook up. THEY RELEASED EACH FISH! They rock!
DORADO BIG ROOSTERS AND OUR FIRST WAHOO OF THE SEASON HIGHLIGHT A WEEK OF HARD FISHING - FEWER FISH BUT BIGGER FISH! LA PAZ / LAS ARENAS FISHING REPORT FOR JUNE 1, 2008 for the week of May 25 to 31, 2008
PHOTO 2: Mike Booth from Riverside CA holds up the kind of dorado that showed up this week. Nice BIG FAT BULLS! Several spots outside of Cerralvo Island, especially the elusive 88 spot and the inshore buoys some days held fields of fish and other days not a ripple. However, it seemed to be a week of all big fish in the 25 to 40 pound class!
PHOTO 3: What happend to all the small fish and females? As the boats unloaded each day, it seems it was bull after bull after bull in the boxes! No one was complaining. Joe Dubler from Alaska hung this beauty on a live bait outside the island. Most all the fishing has been from the Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay side. Late in the week, schools of these big mahi ravaged through the bait schools. Marlin and sailfish were also in the same areas, ignoring baits one day then romping on anything thrown in the water the next day!
PHOTO 4: Not so many big pargo this week, but no doubt they were still there! This has been an incredible pargo season with lots of big fish early including fish like this pargo liso, but also big dog-tooth and paro mulatto have also been getting into the boxes. There were lots of fish hooked but so many lost in the rocks...as usual. This nice one is being helf up by one of our best pargo captains...the very popular Captain Manny Archangel.
P 5: As waters have gotten warmer, we're seeing the appearance of more amberjack...the bigger and tastier cousins to yellowtail, pompano, jack crevalle and roosterfish with the same bad attitudes when hooked. This one is being held by Jim Nass who also got roosterfish. Some of these fish will get over 100 pounds and hang out along the rocks and pinnacles near high spots. Great eating.
PHOTO 6: OK...can you say, "Happy Birthday?" Mark Bonami from the San Francisco Bay area celebrated his 43rd birthday with us. He goes out and nails one of our first wahoo of the season as well as this 50-60 pound roosterfish (released). YEOW! We knew the wahoo were in the area, but none had been hooked yet only some short biters that fell off. Mark got our first of the season (see the video) on a black and purple trolled Rapala!
PHOTO 7: Dennie Dyer and Matt Lederer hold up some of the best inshore eating fish we have. The silver ones are African Pompano and the reddish fish is a barred pargo. Dennie came down with the specific intent to somehow get in the fishing report. You made it Dennie! (Also check out the video this week too!). This was an incredible week for the pompano that moved into the waters right off the beach areas where the sand sloped to deeper waters. A small sinker and live bait got anglers through the needlefish schools to fish zone!
PHOTO 8: No small fish! Chris Silva, "Texas" Bill Sharp, and Mike "I only drink Corona" Booth all from Riverside CA hold up a trio of dorado bulls typical of the kind of quality dorado that showed up this week off the buoys outside of Las Arenas and Cerrlavo Island
PHOTO 9: Jeff Regnart spent a whole week fishing with us and went home with a load of fillet and lots of variety. He got the best of this big bull dorado. As one angler said, "We pulled up on one area and there were flying fish everywhere. Bull dorado in an area half the size of a football
PHOTO 10: Dave Rose trekked with his family all the way from the Denver area. These little roosters are as hearty and feisty as their big brothers. If you want some light tackle fun, there are schools of these youngsters off some of the beaches that can be hours of incredible fun until your arms fall of!
PHOTO 11: Wahoo!!! Yup...they're here. (check the video). Dave Newman is a frequent amigo of ours and lives in Chicago. He often send me photos of the incredible winters they have up here so it's always good to see him down here in the sunshine. His first day out he spanks this nice wahoo. The south end of Cerralvo Island in that high spot that kicks out so many of the skinnies each year again looks like it's holding fish!
THE WEEK IN VIDEO! Video 1: The week in review. Check it out. A collection of clips from the week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoHaCxAhWQo&feature=user Video 2: Pete Savarese on light tackle goes head to head against a big jack crevalle on light tackle. Note the gaff technique in the lip by Captain Adolfo so that the fish could be released.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGhdTW7QcFQ THE FISHING REPORT Well, amigos...if you read the captions to this week's photos, you get the gist. I won't blow smoke... It wasn't a great week of fishing. It was a GOOD week of fishing with some GREAT fish! Some guys did better than others. The fish really did play games. One day all the good fish were on one spot and a few boats would get them. Then, the next day EVERYONE would shoot there and the fish would POP UP SOMEWHERE ELSE. The guys who just happened to be at the new spot would get slammed. The next day everyone wo shoot to the new spot an the hot bite would turn up somewhere else!!! It was like "musical fishing chairs!" But no one could argue about the quality. Lots of guys got their biggest...roosterfish...dorado...marlin...sailfish. Happy to say that almost all the marlin/ sailfish were released...even by the rookies (good for you!)...as well as the bigger roosters and some game guys were even releasing their big dorado too. You rock! Some guys who knew they already had too much fish were also letting fish go. One day it seemed each of our pangas had at least one marlin/sailfish hooked, released or lost and the only ones killed were the ones that were deep hooked or were already going to die. The rest are hopefully still swimming to fight another day. A good portion of the billfish that were brought in were given to folks who needed the food. Most of the fishing spots centered on the area around the Arenas lighthouse for the roosters, pompano and jacks. Punta Perrico and the SE end of Cerrlavo Island held the pargo and rockfish. The outter buoys were the spot to go search for the big dorado and billfish. Almost 99 percent of our fishing was out of Muertos Bay to fish these areas. We haven't fished the La Paz side very much because of the winds or inconsistent fishing. However...FLASH...this week we did fish a bit more on the La Paz side and got some nice dorado...a few tuna...and even some larger yellowtail so we'll keep an eye on that for you! That's my story! Have a great week! Jonathan
This post edited by Keone 06/08/2008
