Osprey - 11-29-2013 at 07:06 PM
Ya Gotta keep up with the Competition
It’s no secret that seiners are causing major changes in bait fish and food fish stocks in the Eastern Pacific. We are already seeing a staggering
change in the sardines numbers --- the Pacific stock is under greater pressure from the fertilizer business and the tuna pens.
Does no good to sit and watch and b-tch because you can’t make bait. Our local sportfishers know how to adapt and if you fish here in your own boat
you’ll have to adjust just like the charter guys do.
Some of you are way ahead of the curve and others don’t yet see it and may need a reminder:
1. When you can’t easily buy bait early, close by, lively and affordable you’ll have to gear up to compete.
2. How many of you have onboard a rod and reel dedicated to jigging up live bait from 700 feet of water? Do you have the proper weights to get down,
the fish finders to locate them, a good live well system to keep them swimming?
3. How many of you will settle for rayadillo or caballito if and when you find them? Do you have scissors to cut off their thorny dorsals?
4. If the only bait you can find is over a foot long, do you just change your prey or change your rigging?
5. Do you have tiny feathers in your gear box for small bait on the surface? Do you have, close at hand, live bait leaders all ready to go?
6. If you capture a large barilette or bonito do you know how to make realistic skip baits and trail bait offered on your lures?
7. Do you have squid jigs in your tackle box?
8. Do you always have a kilo or two of frozen squid in your cooler with ice for your catch in case there is zero bait to offer your saltwater prey?
As the seiners gather uncountable tons of food for the tuna pens, while the tuna grow to maximum wholesale size and value (at times bringing close to
$1,200 a pound in Japan and then on to the Asian and International market) we can switch from what we’re losing, to viable bait the seiners can’t get
to, still compete, and enjoy what’s left.
htnfool - 11-30-2013 at 06:53 AM
Osprey,
Great questions.
FYI, I fish outta Mulege. We see more than our fair share of seiners. I know how it is. I think I answered YES to at least 5 of 8. It is always a
bummer to be making bait at your favorite hole for 2 weeks, then see a seiner cruising the waters one evening, STEALING, your bait. and yes you
guessed it, next morning NO bait. Good thing, there seems to always be bait back in the hole in a week or so.
I have noticed that making bait gets a little tougher each year. We used to make all you want in 20 minutes, now if you make a dozen, you are sharing
your good fortune with another boat who could only make 2. I have been on the receiving end of that more than once, pays to have friends (mulege has
a great fishing community).
Since bait has become a bigger problem in making, I have turned to artificial lures more and more. Last year I went virtually to straight jigging for
yellowtail. I believe I drowned only 5 baits all year. The jigging is really paying off. It might be a lot of work but it has it's sashimi rewards.
We all b*tch about it but really have no way of shutting in down or slowing it down. I don't know what it will take to end the cremation of the fish
stocks. Gill nets, sieners and shrimpers all seem to work our area constantly, I am amazed it can still take that kind of pressure. Even the locals
don't seem to have any voice in this. Pretty sad.
I hope to not paint a picture of doom and gloom. The SOC is a special body of water and within a short period of time fish stocks can rebound quickly.
Maybe in the future 'they' can get a handle on things and turn this ride around. Hope to see you on the water
monoloco - 11-30-2013 at 07:35 AM
When I fillet fish, I always examine the stomach contents to see what the fish are consuming, almost all the fish I have caught this month have had
empty stomachs. In the past, we used to see great numbers of sardines in the shore break here, but that hasn't occurred for many years now. I used to
find dorado stomachs stuffed with shrimp, but I haven't seen that for a few years either, that and the absence of shrimp boats, would indicate that
the shrimp have also crashed. I am very worried about the future of our fishery due to the rapid decline of bait populations. We have also experienced
a noticeable decline in tuna and skipjack populations in the last few years that may be due to the lack of bait fish.
Osprey - 11-30-2013 at 07:40 AM
We would all be shaking our heads in greater wonder about our luck if we could see how vast and effective is the commercial fishing for sardines from
California to Cape Horn. Our bait already is the downstream relic of the unbelievable harvest taking place inshore and offshore all around the
Pacific current lines and migration and feeding routes of small critters that are near the all important bottom step of the marine kingdom. We don't
just feel helpless but irrelevant.
That's why I wrote this little piece --- we must adjust. Nothing will make you feel good about fishing again more than making small adjustments that
put fighting fish and food fish on your hook or in your boat.
watizname - 11-30-2013 at 10:48 AM
Yes to all but #2. Never went 700 ft for bait. But it does pay to be prepared.
Osprey - 12-1-2013 at 08:29 AM
I can rest my case. Great Thanksgiving here in Palmas bay where they are loading up on marlin and dorado. The bait: mackerela at 640 feet.
Udo - 12-1-2013 at 09:38 AM
Great points , George.
I never thought of catching my own sardinas, and currently have no idea on how to do it.
Osprey - 12-1-2013 at 09:49 AM
Udo, thanks. You're not supposed to throw a bait net but that's one of those invisible laws. When (and if) the sardines come back you can buy all you
want from the many bait boats that form a loose guild wherever there are fish, bait, places to launch and haul.
This bay has been getting along pretty well without sardines this season. Really impossible to tell why they didn't show.
MitchMan - 12-8-2013 at 11:30 AM
This past late summer and early fall, bought giant squid at Walmart. Worked great for Dorado. If the Dorado are there, they will take dead white
squid strips trolled past their faces.
Osprey - 12-8-2013 at 01:27 PM
Mitch, I used to buy mine at Safeway in Vegas and put it on dry ice. (that was way back then when I crossed at Mexicali, spent a couple of weeks with
no stops or inspections either way cause Maneadero was way on the other side and I never went that way).