Most Baja fishermen, when fishing for Dorado, know to have some chunk bait handy while trolling because once a fish is hooked and fought to the boat,
it often attracts school mates. Many canny anglers always leave one fish in the water till they hook up another to keep the wildly thrashing gamefish
near the boat while they chum up some more. Most of the time feeding dorado will bite anything that won’t bite back so fishermen here chum with
anything in the boat that might fool hungry fish.
Some examples of their feeding habits in this area have given me pause about whether or not I want to continue to fish for them, put them on my table:
Some of my Mexican pals around East Cape will eat almost any fish except dorado because they’ve seen them scouring the shoreline after a big storm,
scooping up rats and grubs, snakes and gophers.
Likewise the same guys have chartered day after day pleasing clients who take advantage of the great schools that form and feed beneath dead whales,
lobos, elephant seals, marlin and sail that did not survive catch and release. They witness the feeders reducing huge whales to skin and bones in a
matter of days.
A few hapless Mexican fishermen drowned a few years ago off La Playita. The floaters were discovered by charter boats that filled their dorado limits
beneath the gruesome banquettes before they reported the find, the location, to the authorities.
Like sea turtles, dorado love jellyfish – that’s part of the reason they grow so fast. They can really put on the pounds in the open ocean when the
wind and sea currents move uncountable numbers of Man O War, moon jellies, filament jellies and hordes of wild looking creatures from the depths.
When trolling these waters all the boats I know follow scum lines looking for dorado – the thicker the scum, the more likely it will hold dorado. Some
say they seek the shade from the line but I think they are scrounging for morsels of flotsam.
This is probably old news to most SOC fishermen but it might lead you to bait decisions you had not considered. As to the eating; I haven’t made up my
mind yet so if you run into my wife, don’t tell her about this little piece, just talk about the weather.sd - 6-17-2012 at 08:20 AM
Thanks Osprey for the great information!
Fresh Dorado is my favorite, grilled with just black pepper and lime. i never knew about the rats and snakes.watizname - 6-17-2012 at 08:53 AM
Years ago, my wife and I hired a panga out of Mulege, with Juan as our driver. We had fished with him out of the campground at Chivato, and would
look him up on subsiquent trips. On the way out, we caught 3 or 4 Skippys, which Juan saved, and fileted, cutting the filets into chunks. After a
jigstrike, and with a nice bull dorado coming to the boat, Juan took one of the skippy carcases, and tied about a 4 foot of string to it and put it
over the side, he then pulled it up and wacked it 4 or 5 times with his knife, and let it drop. This put a cloud of small pieces of chum into the
water. He would do this whenever the bite slowed at all. We then started fishing the chunks. Fish after fish after fish. Most of the time we had
triples going. We kept what we wanted and released the rest, but our arms were sore that afternoon, and the Margaritas at the Sarinadad were
especially good. One of the best days on the water ever for me. Chunks do work.Udo - 6-17-2012 at 09:03 AM
Learned another lesson in the ART of fishing.
Thanks Osprey!acadist - 6-17-2012 at 09:07 AM
Bet the Dorado think we eat some pretty disgusting stuff too!Osprey - 6-17-2012 at 09:51 AM
Well, I was thinking about that while I wrote the piece. I was thinking that from what I've seen of the Nomad crew over the last few years I wondered
if even one of their number would give a second thought to not eating a dorado after reading the article.
I admit the general member's apetites run from grits to fois gra but I have to keep reminding myself that we have heard very little lately from those
gourmands who rave about fugu.Lee - 6-17-2012 at 09:54 AM
Mexican fishermen witnessing rats, snakes, and gophers being eaten by fish. Right. First I've heard of it but looks like a case of he said he
said. I've seen what Mexicans eat from the ocean -- dorado should be the least of their worries.Burbs - 6-17-2012 at 10:04 AM
I totally agree with the chunk bait in the Cortez. Chunks of skippies or bonita are irresistible and sometimes I feel better than live bait. This
technique has not worked on the Pacific side as well for me. The chunks of skippies and such oily meat we love to use. The only bad part is hearing my
wife scream "what is this fish in the freezer"?
answer: What is bait?
Last year trolling off Mulege I tried trolling using different colored straws of about three inches in length. Green worked the best. The dorado
preferred the 4 inch straw over anything else as well as the skippies and other bait fish.
Try rigging a 4 inch plastic straw on your line. Tie a small treble on the end. Nothing else is needed. This rig is cheap to make and easy to retie.
The dorado and the bait can really crunch the straw up, so have other pieces cut up ready to thread. For those in the Mulege area I buy a bag of
colored straws in the back of La Colmena store on the corner. They are in a back room and cost about 14 pesos for a giant bag.Osprey - 6-17-2012 at 10:53 AM
Lee, you got me. Lest I pour my ego all over the board like syrup (as some do) I borrow imaginary accomplices at times. It wasn't just my Mexican
pals, it was me. I saw the "after the storm soup" many times right on my beach over the last 20 hurricane seasons. I saw the critters by the millions
get washed away from the beach, washed back up with the wind and next tide, finally be gobbled up by all the fish near the shore ---- not just dorado
but I have seen them come in for the sudden and welcome harvest. So it really wasn't he/she said, it was me. You want to argue with that? You been
there, done that too? Be curious but be courteous amigo.Lee - 6-17-2012 at 11:34 AM
Hey Osprey -- for me, in the end, it doesn't mean a thing. It's not pandemic, nobody is avoiding dorado that I know of. Think I'd know.
Personally, I don't eat dorado but if you said the same thing about Sierra, I'd still eat it Sierra.
A similar sort of bias could be said about catfish or pigs.
On the other hand, I come across about 1 in 10 Sierra that have parasites marbled throughout. Always looking to see if it's good or bad.
Some dorado might be bad, some not.
Courteous enough?Osprey - 6-17-2012 at 11:44 AM
Not really. If you take everything you read literally, you will get fish ulcers.
Why would you bother to pick apart a spoof on dorado? Relax.
Somebody tells a joke and you want the source? Lee, somebody has been picking on you again. It ain't me.Cypress - 6-17-2012 at 12:03 PM
Fish will eat anything. So will chickens, pigs, crabs, lobsters, shrimp,..etc. If it's protein, it's edible.willardguy - 6-17-2012 at 12:12 PM
so you're saying the coryphaena leepompous blowhardeous hippurus feeds in the scum line? who would of thought!Lee - 6-17-2012 at 12:48 PM
Uh, this was a spoof? How would I know that? No, nobody picks on me. I'm feeling fine, really. Let me know when a spoof comes around
again. Don't want to miss it.
chunking
captkw - 6-17-2012 at 02:02 PM
not to many years ago Iwas guideinug on the sly and would chunk for tuna EARLY false dawn just out of cabo not far from the sand slides and did rather
well till the sun started coming up and would then head out offshore...never tryed for the dorado as trolling always worked and anything floating is a
target for my bow !! K&T BajaBruno - 6-17-2012 at 03:11 PM
Thanks Osprey. As usual, a well conceived and executed piece of prose, whether fiction or otherwise.
Fishing off of Punta Pescadero a few years ago I drug a dead bonito behind the boat and an entire school of dorado tagged along chewing on it. I
picked them off one at a time by dropping back a Rebel on light tackle. They took the Rebel like it was a hurricane mouse.Pescador - 6-17-2012 at 04:24 PM
We were trolling for Marlin out past Tortuga Island today and when we were coming back to San Bruno, one of our friends called us on the radio and
reported the largest school of Dorado he had ever seen. Now I am thinking that means at least a dozen of those pesky fish that eat your Marlin lures,
but he kept after it and we pulled up on him to see what was going on. Never in all of the time I have spent on the water, have I ever seen anything
like this. I know there had to be schoolie sized dorado in the thousands and they just kept swirling around the boat looking for food. Well, we had
some leftover Green Mackerel and we had some Gulp Shrimp in a Jar, and Heck, we even had some sabiki bait rigs. Well, it did not really matter what
you threw at them, there were some of the school that would jump up there and eat even bare hooks thrown in the water. Out of four boats, everyone
had a fish on at some point in time and everyone was having a grand time. It was like looking in a aquarium and seeing hundreds if not thousands of
Dorado all lit up like Christmas fish. My goodness, if only a percentage of that particular school gets to 30 pounds by mid-July, things could get
really good in our area.
a SWEET spot !!
captkw - 6-17-2012 at 04:33 PM
hopefully they dont get caught in nets and get BIG !!! when Iam out at turtuga in the winters its yellow tails only..and I mean only YT'S that Ive
ever caught that area in the north...the dorado were always on/near los frailles and east cape for me..great story.."wishin I was a fishin" but
somebody has to repair a lot of boats!! soon so..K&T
[Edited on 6-17-2012 by captkw]Skipjack Joe - 6-17-2012 at 04:54 PM
You should have whipped out the old flyrod, Jim.chuckie - 6-17-2012 at 05:42 PM
Was out that way today, seen em caught em..It was grand...
good day
captkw - 6-17-2012 at 06:42 PM
from the sound of it..A great day on the water,,,,,ENJOY !!bajajurel - 6-17-2012 at 09:39 PM
Great news on the Dorado Jim! Hopefully they'll be there in August. My first trip to fish out of there in '99 I remember 3 - 4 hookups at one time
kept us busy.
I always like to open up the stomach of the fish I catch as I am curious to see what they are eating. A lot of Dorado have had puffer fish in their
bellies and that really surprised me. I have never seen any rats though.chuckie - 6-18-2012 at 01:48 AM
I caught one so big, back in the day, that it had a full grown goat in it....Back up South of Tortuga this morning to see if we can find em
again...Bought a dead elephant off the traveling circus to pull behind the boat...woody with a view - 6-18-2012 at 06:56 AM
yesterday at la jolla cove we took out the tin can. my buddy hooked something large and broke it off after less than 30 seconds on 30# line. i'm
thinking he doesn't know how to tie a knot, he disagrees.
the rest of the day was slow. i did pull a guy out of the sand right at the ramp, but for sure there was no dorado nibbling on rats in the shore
break. plenty of rug rats though....Skipjack Joe - 6-18-2012 at 07:43 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by woody with a view
i'm thinking he doesn't know how to tie a knot, he disagrees.
They always do.
If he's humble enough he'll listen to your advice. But most don't and continue to tie same knot.
Maybe he learned it from Gene Kira.
more woody with a view - 6-18-2012 at 07:54 AM
he's my best friend and he was happy just to be on the water. he was the life of the party at the Father's Day bash afterward telling his story of the
one that got away!Skipjack Joe - 6-18-2012 at 08:28 AM
Best friends can get very competitive.
I once took my best friend to a section of the Klamath that few people reach. I placed him on a riffle I knew had fish and told him exactly how to
mend the line to get a drag free drift to the spot where they lay. Even tied my fly on for him.
That evening he told me how he had outfished me.
baitcast - 6-18-2012 at 10:53 AM
Robert the kayak guys have been getting alot of great fish the last couple of years around La Jolla,everything from big WSB,large yt,s and Thresher
sharks and close in!! just like this one.
baitcast - 6-18-2012 at 10:58 AM
Same area awhile back!! woody with a view - 6-18-2012 at 11:02 AM
we went north of the pier to drift for some halibut and the lifeguard zoomed up on a jetski saying we couldn't take anything except pelagics from the
tip of the cove to the glider port.
