La Paz Fishing Report / June 19th
Bait & Weather
This week seems like the calm before the storm. Now with school coming to a close we should start to see a major increase in tourists.
The weather is definitely starting to settle in on our normal summer pattern, with much lighter winds and much warmer days.
The water is still a bit mixed up. The water around the islands and seamounts are still cool and a little off color. As you head offshore the water is 6-8 degrees warmer and cobalt blue. As a bonus there are huge sargasso paddies throughout the channel. This offers incredible opportunities to find hungry schools of just about every species of fish.
About fish
The yellowtail have pretty much moved on to cooler water, normal for this time of year, only to be replaced with monster AmberJacks. Fair trade.
These Pez Fuerte are being caught mostly by Spearos. This is not to say they aren’t interested in live bait they are, but the waters are full of Triggerfish not allowing your bait to get down to the bottom before it’s torn into a thousand pieces.
The same fishing grounds are also full of giant, world class Cubera Snapper. Good for eating, great for fighting.
The main story this week are the Dorado. The waters here in La Paz are stacked with Dodo’s from 10lb schoolies to 40lb slabs. Currently the most effective way to fish these colorful acrobats is setting up a typical trolling pattern with 6”- 8” skirted lures or rigged ballyhoos with a blue and White Sea witch. The fish are not holding in any particular area so covering as much water as possible is key. The larger fish seemed to be paired up so definitely look for following fish before gaffing the first one. Chumming sardines close to the boat will almost guarantee the free swimmers being hooked as well.
Striped Marlin are starting to make a big presence mainly concentrated offshore around El Charro and La Reina.
About 15 miles South of Cerralvo has the largest school of porpoise feeding on flying fish that I have seen in years. The amount of life down there is nothing short of epic. Mixed with the porpoise are literally tonnage of yellowfin. Fortunately there are thousands of fish in this school. Unfortunately they are not very large, avg 10-15lbs.
Next month we have our first Dorado tournament in La Paz. This is a great 1 day local tournament rumored to have more than 300 boats participating. This is a great event bringing people from all over Mexico and SoCal. If you get a chance don’t miss it.
We only have a few more months before we start moving boats to the Pacific for the very popular Mag bay multi day fishing experience.
It’s looking like this year we will be doubling the amount of boats as the demand continues to increase for this incredibly off the grid fishing trip.
Inshore fishing is starting to heat up as well. Now is the season for world class and potentially world record Roosterfish. Slow trolling live Caballitos or mackerel around the sandy beaches are producing Roosters well over 60lbs.
Overall the season seems to be shaping up nicely, with tons of bait in the area and calming weather conditions the future is looking pretty fishy.
A few wahoo have been caught mostly off the tips of both North and South Cerralvo. It’s a bit early for these speedsters but if we do have an El Niño year it usually changes the normal fish calendar. I guess we’ll see.
Anyway that’s it for the week. Like I said check out these Dorado pics. This is one of the best starts I’ve seen in years.
Be kind
Keep the faith
Scotto.
