Lobsterman - 11-18-2014 at 08:37 AM
Shari,
I posted the following thread on Bloody Decks from Sundays fishing trip. Someone on the board asked me to contact you to see if you have an
explanation for this juvenile grey whale's actions towards us. I'm guessing he was heading down your way and just wanted to play with us like he did
in the past in your bay areas with humans in boats. I'm really curious why he had that arm-herding motion like he was directing bait fish his way.
But after doing the same thing around our drifting boat I wonder......
"Three of us went rock cod fishing in the Coronado Canyon just north of Los Coronado's North Island on Sunday. First hole was at 325'. Caught a few.
Then off to our deeper 425' hole about a mile away before we run out of energy. While motoring there I saw a grey whale using it's white-encrusted arm
at what looked like sweeping-herding motion. Almost like a one-armed breast stroke. We passed slowly within 100' while the whale continued this motion
for what appeared to be minutes. Then the whale sank and to our surprise jumped almost completely out of the water multiple times in a row. It was a
juvenile of about 25-30'. I expected mommy to be close by and did not want to meet her, so I high-tailed it out of there to our hole about 1/4 mile
away. Shortly after arriving and dropping down, guess who followed and wanted to show off to us? Yes, it was the juvenile whale we named "Junior".
Junior heads straight for us like a submarine with his head barely above the water. Then he starts that arm rowing motion again while swimming around
our boat about 75' away. He jumps 3-4 times and appears to be having a ball at our expense.
I looked around nervously and saw a BIG whale about 200 yards away breeching but she did not appear to notice us with Junior. After a few minutes of
Junior's antics, I got cold feet and asked the boys to start winding them up cuz I'm getting bad vibs about this situation. THEN Junior submerges and
seconds later leaps out of the water but this time lands within 30' of our boat with a LOUD crashing sound resulting in a small tsunami that violently
rocked our 21' boat side-to-side. Earlier, just in case, I left the motor running while Junior had his fun with us so he would know where we were. But
after almost getting squished and not knowing whether Junior was going to breech again and potentially on us, I floored the boat to get the hell out
of Dodge with my mates fishing lines trailing far behind the boat. I left this area for another day when Junior and his mommy weren't around. We
headed instead to a few rockfish holes closer to the Islands. We limited out mainly on whitefish with an assortment of other tasty rockfish critters.
The Coronado Canyon has been alive this past month I've been there with blue whales, now grey whales, dolphins, bait balls and diving birds etc. Water
still blue and warm. "
[Edited on 11-18-2014 by Lobsterman]
BajaRat - 11-18-2014 at 12:24 PM
Other than the thought of Junoir landing on the boat sounds like a great time 
redhilltown - 11-19-2014 at 12:36 AM
Great report!!! Kids will be kids
shari - 11-19-2014 at 10:31 AM
Hola Lobsterman....this is another case of mistaken identity! the whales you saw were humpbacks which are identifiable for their long white pectoral
fins they slap on the water and they breach alot. there are alot of them in that area this time of year and are here too in baja. Sounds like mama was
teaching junior how to forage for food.
Gray whales are bottom feeders and eat amphipods, ghost shrimp etc and dont eat fish.
You did the right thing by leaving your engine running in neutral as it helps the whales identify your location so they dont accidentally crush you!
It is always wise to back off when humpbacks are feeding as they can be oblivious to boats when in a feeding frenzy.
[Edited on 11-19-2014 by shari]
Lobsterman - 11-19-2014 at 01:39 PM
Thanks Shari for the information about my whale mistaken identity. Here all these years I thought they were grey whales. I did not even know we had
humpbacks in this area of the ocean.
Frank - 11-19-2014 at 03:56 PM
I told you Shari knows her whales!!!!