La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Bahia Suenos Fishing Report for Week of May 18-25, 2026

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FISHING REPORT

WEATHER:  Erratic.  Anything from sunny and warm mid-90s daytime weather to cloudy day.  The winds…never seen them so strong in May.  One day they blow from HOT HOT HOT.  Next day calm.  Next day the wind are cold.  We even had a rainstorm that was not predicted with lightning.

WATER:  Dependent on the weather.  There were times during the bouts of wind that it was very very rough.  Other times, flat and blue. Surface temps around 80, but if the wind is blowing it can get tough to find patches of clear blue water.

FISH HOOKED THIS WEEK:  Dorado, tuna, wahoo, marlin, sailfish, roosterfish, dog-tooth snapper, amberjack, cabrilla, bonito, jack crevalle, pompano, trevally, yellow snapper, triggerfish

FISHING SCALE 1-10:  4.5

No sense in sugar-coating it.  Not my style after 31 years down here.

The fishing this past week and so far this season has been pretty sketchy.  I’l even go so far as to say it has been bad.  Not that doesn’t mean it will stay that way…this is (after all)…Baja!  But, holy cow, this has been a strange and unpredictable season so far in these early weeks.

You would think that with all the great photos this past week, fishing has been crazy good.  It’s not.  To be blunt, it’s not great fishing.  It’s unseasonably poor.

Yes, there are some spectacular catches of great fish…even historical catches…like the 200+ pound tuna this week or the 80-pound wahoo and all the giant dorado.  But, for every boat that gets that trophy, there’s several others that get nothing.  Not even a bite.  Not even a pelican or seagull!

How is that happening?  In 31 years, I’ve never had a start of the season like this one.

Also, for all the big fish you see, that could be the ONLY fish on the boat that day.  So, if you hook up, it could be the catch of a lifetime.  If you break off or lose it, well…that’s kind of the end of your day.  You fishing buddy, might not get a bite.

Also, things change from day-to-day.  Nothing is predictable.

A hot boat one day can go ice cold the next and vice versa.  A hot spot of fish one day, can turn into an empty ocean the next.  Blue water turns green.  Flat waters get rough.  Rough areas turn into glass!

The biggest variable is the weather.

It SHOULD be hot, sunny and calm every day now with blue seas.

It’s NOT!

One day it’s hot, but has cold mornings.  ( I actually had to put on a sweatshirt and turn on my car heater in the morning several times.  For the first time in decades).  Or the winds actually blow HOT like out’ve a furnace.

One day the winds blow from the north.  Then, the south.  Then the west.  Sometimes, it changes that much in the SAME DAY!  So currents are affected.  The ocean is affected. One day it’s flat and the next day for the first time, I have experienced anglers getting…SEASICK!

I don’t know what the weather is like where you live but this is crazy weather here.  It even rained on afternoon when the forecast said nothing about rain.  It rained in another area that had not had rain in over 2 years, but several miles up the road, not a drop fell.

Live bait…our bread-and-butter for fishing down here.  One day, it’s available to buy or catch.  The next day, it takes hours to get bait.  Or the bait is right on the beach.  The next day you’re driving the boat an hour to the other side of the bay to find bait.  Or the baits are too big…or too tiny.  One day, it’s sardines.  Or tiny sardines.  Or mackerel.  Or frozen ballyhoo.  Or caballitos.  Or chunks of dead bonito.  We’re scrambling to have bait.

All we can do is keep putting lines in the water.

Yes, we did get some big fish.

You saw the big monster tuna.  In 31 years here, most of our tuna are the fun 10-40 pound size.  Over the years, we’ve had maybe a dozen tuna around the 100-pound mark.  But this week…you gotta be joking…two tuna between 200-300 pounds??  WOW!!!!

And a wahoo…80 pound wahoo?  Most are about 20-30 pounds.

In fact the couple that caught the wahoo had an incredible week.  Gary and Kirsten Holtberg from San Francisco area, went out the first day. They got a marlin, a huge dorado and the giant wahoo!