Ensenada Albacore 6-20-09

After filling up at the local Pemex station ($2.15 a gallon) I arrived at the Marina Coral and met up with Forrest Lyman (“Tecateando”) for a day of chasing albacore with the fleet at the 238. I was late arriving and just before dropping the boat in the water we discovered that we would have no GPS mapping as my Raymarine C80 showed a blank screen. We used a handheld GPS unit and chart to plot our course and made sure we would be back at the Coral before dark which is pretty rare when fishing on the It’s 4 Reels! Water was green all the way out to the 500 fathom curve and started turning a nicer blue the further offshore we headed. As we were approaching the 238 I had my first jig strike on a purple and black cedar plug and my first albacore for 2009:



I was talking to local captain Alejandro “Pilas” and also to the captain of the super panga “Anaconda”, and they suggested the black and purple as it seemed to be the color of the day for now.
According to radio reports the bite had moved towards the 295 so we made our way towards that area when I received a call from Steve Ross on his boat “Bad Dog”. He was down below us and was picking away at the albies. After trolling towards the 295 for nada we were wondering if we were done for the day. We made contact with “Bad Dog” and they were still picking away at them so we decided to head their way. At 31.29 and 117.30 we had a double jig strike and now Forrest was on the board as well:



Since this was his very first albie the traditional eating the heart was in order:



We boxed the area for nada and hit a couple of kelps for more of the same, nada. We finally caught up with “Bad Dog” and they called us into a kelp that they trolled past for 1 yellow and a second on bait. Our 2 drifts past it produced zero fish. It was now 3:30 and we were 50 miles from the Coral so we decided to follow the “Bad Dog” back towards home. At 31.22 and 117.13 we had a triple jig strike and all hell broke loose:



We managed to bring in all 3 fish and not 30 seconds into getting back to trolling the lone feather that was still in the water got hit and it was game on again. 4 for 4 on that stop. Although I was confident we could make it back on our own I didn’t like the idea of traveling in the dark with no radar or GPS mapping so we said 10 more minutes of trolling and we would high tail it back. Ten minutes later another triple and we had our Mexican limits:





Seas were decent with a little bump but were able make it back to the Coral just as it was getting dark. Final count for the day was 10 albacore caught on a variety of feathers, x-rap rapalas (baby dorado color) and cedar plugs. Water temps throughout the area were 64.3 to 64.4. No bait fish although I’m confident that if we had worked that last area we could have pulled out some on bait. Can’t wait to do it again.