Offshore Ensenada report

[Bad Dog]

Departed Marina Coral at 0230 and headed for an area below the Animal Basin which is outside and below the lower 500 in God's country. The SST charts were right on the money. While Wide Open killed a marlin there on Friday he must have killed the only living thing down there. The few kelp paddies we found were empty except for one which sported two blue plastic bags blown up and mounted in the center of them and marked....."Pacific Dawn." There wasn't a fish within a day's run from this paddy. Nothing on the meter, in fact the meter was blank the whole day except for one unmolested tight meat ball with a red center waiting to be discovered at 100 feet. Yeah, I went down with iron I tried everything all day long for 2 dorado which came from separate unrelated jig strikes. Not bad, 100% strike to boating ratio. We iced them down with a hundred pounds of ice. Found a San Diego party boat down there on a paddy and we stayed away and observed no one hooked up. It was windy and choppy. Even the Mexican party boats are complaining with few fish. Ensenada Live Bait owner Mike says.....it's the seiners. They net bluefin tuna at night and sleep all day.....until recently. Now they fish bluefin all night and during the day they net yellowtail, yellowfin tuna and marlin. A friend of his boarded one of these seiners and that's what he saw in their holds. Cross the Banda Bank off of your charts, it's gone. From top to bottom you will find anchored seiners. Some with pens, some with out pens. From their bow extends a half a mile of thick fluroscent blue rope and from their sterns are their pens. Even during daytime their ropes and cables are hazardous as two separate friends of mine encountered their ropes in broad daylight unseen from their bows. Picture trying to cross over the Bank at night on your way South. That won't work. They bought the Bank for free. Also cross off Salsepuedes Bay as it's solid pens from top to bottom now with seiners crawling all over the place. You think all these caged fish need a few tons of food a day ? Tokyo does not buy skinny fish. In every area you will find one paddy with all the fish gathered from miles around. The boats that find that one paddy have found the Holy Grail. So I say to you political activists, marine conservationists, release fanatics, Directors of our charitable donations and saviours of our seas.......forget sensational attacks on our own, dividing our ranks and trying to send our American commercial fishermen to our welfare lines. While the marine resources have been dealt a major devastating blow for the past few years of booming seiner growth there is still time to save me a tuna or a marlin for a jig strike by re-directing your money and time toward Mexico City where the root of the problem lies. You have only to read the published fish reports in today's newspaper to know that the yellowtail and yellowfin tuna which usually abound at this time of year are fucking gone. And if the absence of a majority of successful fish reports on this board is not enough than know that I ran just short of 300 miles for 4 dodos in two weeks. And that was 4 jig strikes no more. Hey, I put up my money and contributed to United Anglers, don't flame me, I'm just telling you like it is. There ain't no Northern migration from the South that can even approach our border. Oh, there's a Northern migration alright. Did you ever notice that after the seiners have left an area you can't buy a jig strike there anymore? I have. Next is the MLPA and established reserves and you can stop dreaming about that boat you want to buy and donate the one you have to the Boy Scouts or Father Joe. Or perhaps, dump all the beer and take up martinis, gourmet olives, and bay cruises. Hey, that's right, and go visit the thousands of friendly seals who are shitting on our buoys.

[Special Ed]

I'l give it 23

[shinerunner]

The guy's prolly right

[JIGMEISTER]

Fucking sad. Well this sounds like the end of sportfishing in So Cal. Tough times ahead.

[Phat Boat]

If one looks at the historic counts for the 1-2 day boats at fishermans web site they'll see any time we have caught this much yellow and dorado we were close to 40 000 Yellow Fin Tuna. Not this year. The tuna are really taking a big hit. Whats it going to be like next year? I don't think the seiners are going anywhere anytime soon.

[Afry]

#6 - What's a siener?

[Chesapeakechuck]

I think you are probalby right on the money-------seems to me, anyway, that it's more than a coincidence that the seiners are here and the Yellow Fin Tuna's ain't. The water offshore San Diego is warm and clean----the same kinda cobalt blue stuff I used to fish off of Hatteras out in the Gulf Stream (although the water here is still 15 degrees colder than back there). Ain't a Yellow Fin Tuna been in my sights on my several last outings, and I have damned good eyes.

Looks like the dodo's are moving out and my prediction is that the season is about cooked, short of maybe some hot, sporadic marlin fishing.

Get out your squid strips and sand crabs 'cause I think we're gonna spend our time catching turd rollers and associated bottom critters.

Guess I can't complain too much, though.....I had a few good years of tuna fishing out here. What's funny (in a shitty way) is I finally got a boat capable of safely making it out to where I thought I needed to be----now all that's out on the sixty, the 390, the 1010, 295, 238 ect is a bunch of empty water. Just fucking lovely.

If this is the way of the future, I can reassure anybody that I've just purchased my last mexican boat permit. Why spend the money in fuel to go south and play with yer tallywacker? I can burn gas and catch nothing in US waters if I just want to waste money.

Fuck the seiners, fuck mexico, fuck it all. I guess in a few years when the tuna quit moving this way all together the seiners will be gone.........

[sushiboy67]

i want to post before they close this thread like they do all the others talking about the seiners! fuck those people down there!! they are greedy motherfuckers and don't give a rats ass that we the AMERICAN PEOPLE have spent a lot of cash down there along with that nafta bullshit! i want to know who is sitting on there asses with a thumb up there to boot, but something has to be done!@!!~ MAN THAT SHIT PISSES ME OFFFFFFF!

[WreckinBall]

Interesting observations, Bad Dog.

[TIME OUT]

Bad Dog is right on we were fishing out of the Coral on Saturday as well. Headed to the 295 trolled for 3 1/2 hours for nothing (the past three weeks we were able to get a handful of dorado on the troll). I also noticed there were much less flying fish out there, that could account for the lack of free swimming fish.fficeffice" />

That said, we got lucky a boat very near us called us in on the MOTHER LOAD MEGA PADDY for a 2 1/2 hour wide open bite, we kept 15 dodo's, released some and 2 yellowtail. Left the fish biting. That kind skipper and one paddy saved our trip.

[pfish]

Well said.

[Eye Problem]

I havent been down there (Coral) this year, and probably wont return until something changes. Everytime I went for a tuna run this year(as well as last) it was slim pickings and a race with the seiners. I have to think the local bait population will get decimated too, you know , feeding all those pens. It is very discouraging, no, its pathetic. I have made it a point to travel to Mexico for a lengthy vacation annually. No more will I feed an economy that allows this. Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, anywhere to avoid these ocean raping bandits. I love my boat too much to sell her,(for now) although I have pondered it after seeing first hand, miles and miles of ocean layed to waste.