PHOTO 1: Tuna on the chew! Just a solid week of yellowfin tuna fishing for most of the week with some days the tuna were almost jumping in the boat. Friend and La Paz regular, Steve Marabella, shows off some of the quality fish that took up residence within a few hundred yards of the Las Arenas lighthouse near La Paz.
PHOTO 2: This is what " WIDE OPEN" looks like on a panga! Ken Mitchell and Ken Gragg from Fresno CA flank Capt. Gerardo who's trying to hold onto another fish in the middle. Boats were literally only a few yards away from each other often with every single rod bent on 25-35 pound tuna. You can see how close to shore our boats were fishing. Often anglers took limits of tuna within an hour or two! 
PHOTO 3: Hacienda Heights CA resident, Sed Roldan (yes. .. our dad) came down for a visit and took more fish in two days of fishing than he had in several years of fishing with us. They simply had to stop. Within seconds of baits hitting the water, yellowfin tuna would rocket straight up and fight each other to gulp the sardine. Pangas were sometimes so close that several anglers hooked-up would tangle each other with fish! PHOTO 4: After several other trips this year to get tuna unsuccessfully, Lois Tsunoda finally put tuna in the box. She and husband Gary from S. California spent 3 days fishing with us of taking home doroado and yellowfin tuna while fishing with both our Las Arenas and La Paz our fleets.
PHOTO 5: Our friends, Richard and Jackie Yamada took time off from running their operation at the popular Shelter Island Lodge near Juneau, Alaska http://www.shelterlodge.com/ to chase some dorado and tuna instead of halibut and salmon. They got these nice yellowin their first day out fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet the day after Hurricane Rick left us. 
PHOTO 6: Dave Prather from Arizona was on his first fishing trip down to see us and got into some fantastic fishing. In the middle of the tuna grounds've got an unusual bite and realized it was not fighting like a tuna. Instead, he pulled up this trophy grouper just yards off the Punta Perrico rocks. 
PHOTO 7: Bob Dominguez said, "I" m done, let's go home! "after tangling with his first tuna of the day. He was to go on and take tuna limits two days in a row as well as several dorado. Bob is from Hacienda Heights CA . Photo 8 - Paul and Renee pose with just a few of their yellowfin tuna. This was Renee's 2nd trip to see us this year. Last trip in the summer, he nailed a big wahoo. No wahoo on this trip, but he plugged the boat with Paul for several days with loads of yellowfin tuna and dorado.
PHOTO 9: Jeff Sakuda comes to see us about 2-3 times a year and always rips the fish. Under the tuna schools, Jeff found this grouper lurking and ready to eat! We got several big rock fish like this during the past week. PHOTO 10: Shay Hamada and Kenji Yamada sometimes live in California, Hawaii and Alaska. He manages the Shelter Island Lodge in Alaska and also skippers clients and knows how to properly pose with a fish! Shay holds a nice dorado while Kenji hung this nice yellow fin.
PHOTO 11: Even though we had a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on us, Dan and Bob McPhee from the San Francisco Bay area said, they did not care and would take their chances about fishing. As it turned out, the storm by-passed us and their gamble paid off with several solid days of great fishing. They hold a handful of some of their yellowfin tuna.
PHOTO 12: All the way from the East Coast, Mike Bradley and Gerald Mulholland took so many fish their first day, they caught and released fish the rest of their days fishing.
PHOTO 13: An outsanding shot of Bob Sayre's sailfish on-the-hook! Worthy of framing! The sailfish was released.
THE "PERFECT STORM" (thankfully) never materialized
TEAR UP ANGLERS AND FISH!
La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for
Week of Oct. 18-24, 2009
We appear to have dodged the bullet of "Hurricane Rick" a potential Category 5 storm that had been touted as the "Perfect Storm" and bore down towards Southern Baja. It had us all pretty much running for SANDBAGS with no real place to go. As it turned out, the storm turned south and diminished to a tropical storm and dropped only sporadic hard rain and some strong winds that cost us only one day of keeping the boats off the water.
The larger misfortune, aside from cancelations from many anglers understandably nervous about the impending storm, was that it dampered what had been the best tuna bite of the season and perhaps in many years.
Right in front of the beach between the Las Arenas lighthouse and Muertos Bay a line of 25-35 pound tuna literally took up residence and slashed and ripped anglers for several days. One concentration of the fish in perhaps only 50 feet of water had fish grabbing air and hang time while fighting each other to jump on live sardines, dead sardines and almost anything else thrown into the waters. If you looked down you could see the tuna shredding the water under the pangas and many of them were so close with every rod bent that many of the pangas were getting tangled up with each other.
Fortunately, the fish were so thick that anglers were laughing and shouting at each other because it took no time at all to get bit almost instantly! I've been here a long time and this was one of the funnest tuna fish bites ... ever!
It was just way too much fun to look out over the area and see fish breaking water, boiling, coming out of the water like they had not eaten in weeks. You could throw a sardine in the water and within seconds ... it did not stand a chance ... two or three tuna would try to inhale it and literally crash into each other trying to be the first to hit it.
Between the boats, all you could hear guys were yelling and screaming and laughing and the sound of clickers and drags going off ... such a sweet sweet sound! Those of you who have been in bites like this, know what I'm talking about.
As well, dorado went off nicely with fish in the 10-20 pounds and surprisingly, in the same areas, big snapper and grouper also showed up to mix it up with the bite. A few wahoo were hooked, but all lost.
After the storm, things got a bit slower and anglers had to work a bit harder for the tuna, but there was no slow-down on the dorado. Heck, it was almost like the dorado had something to prove after being ignored by the great tuna bite the last few weeks. The tuna did not charge as hard so the dorado filled in the slack. Easy limits if you wanted them! Bottom line ... way too many fish!
That's what I'm talkin 'about!
WEEKLY VIDEO CLIPS! If you want to see more and see it live ... check out this week's video clips and turn up the sound! Click this: YouTube - VID02269 That's our story!
Jonathan and Jill
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