Sea Adventure 80

Beautiful and sustainable, a dorado caught aboard the Sea Adventure 80 this past week.

Dock Totals 8/6 – 8/12: 4923 anglers aboard 212 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past week caught 167 barracuda, 2447 bluefin tuna (up to 220 pounds), 147 bonito, 1 cabezon, 2904 calico bass, 2314 dorado, 12 halibut, 12 lingcod, 1 opah (pending world record at 188.6 pounds), 1977 rockfish, 2 rock sole, 8 sanddab, 528 sand bass, 1 sargo, 72 sculpin, 207 sheephead, 3 thresher shark, 1 treefish, 45 triggerfish, 123 whitefish, 6 white seabass, 41 yellowfin tuna, and 1016 yellowtail.

Saltwater: Yellowfin tuna waned a bit in the counts while dorado numbers shot up from a few hundred the week previous into the thousands this past week. Bluefin from 40 to well over 200 pounds are still biting well, especially out west from near San Clemente Island to the Cortez and Tanner banks where they tend to settle in for the late-summer/fall over recent years. Though they have been mostly caught so far this year on sinker rigs and deep drop jigs at around 300 feet in depth, schools are beginning to show more near the surface where preferred methods are flylined live bait, poppers, and kited live baits or ‘flyers’ (rubber copies of flying fish skipped across the surface while dangling from a kite or balloon). Inshore, calico bass are on the chew for the local runs, while yellowtail bite is picking up at the Coronado Islands and further down the coast. 

This time last year, we saw the beginnings of a dorado invasion into U.S. Pacific coast waters as never witnessed before when, between August 7 and September 4, 30,054 of the acrobatic and tasty fish were caught by anglers aboard ½-day to 3-day trips out of the four main landings in San Diego. That the majority of those caught were juvenile fish under 12 pounds and about 6 months old or so is partially due to the limits in California water being ten per angler per day, and  that when young, dorado run in large schools, whereas as they grow larger, dorado tend to run in smaller packs of up to a couple dozen or so fish, with a couple bulls to every ten or so cows. Dorado are found in all the world’s oceans in near-and-offshore tropical, and subtropical waters.

In Mexican waters, the limit is 2 dorado per angler per day, and as they are more normally caught south of the border by the San Diego fleet, the weekly counts usually reflect a few hundred to maybe a thousand. Mexico placed the strict limit on the species to preserve them for recreational anglers and the estimated two-billion-dollar tourism it brings in 2007, as the average fish caught was growing smaller. This year, commercial fishing lobbyists in Mexico attempted to get the government to open them to commercial take, but that attempt was shot down. Unless caught by and prepared for a recreational angler, a common practice at many fishing resorts, dorado cannot be sold at any market or restaurant in Mexico. Also known as mahi mahi in Polynesia and dolphinfish on the East Coast and Gulf states, dorado is a very popular fish on the menus of seafood restaurants in the U.S.

The numbers caught might be jaw-dropping, but dorado are listed as ‘Least Concern’ on the IUCN Red List for various reasons. As a fast-growing species that begins spawning at a very young age, the population in our part of the world is healthy and sustainable, as long as they are not wrapped by seiners when in large schools. When older, commercial fishing the smaller groups of larger dorado by net is not a practical catch for the commercial fleets where they are commercially fished. As one of the fastest growing saltwater species of gamefish, dorado can live up to five years and grow to 70-pounds, though the average fish caught is between 15 and 30 pounds and a little over three feet in length.

They mature early and can begin spawning as small as less than a foot in length. Females release up to one million eggs per spawn and will spawn a few times per year and can spawn any time of year, though usually in water above 80 degrees. Slender and fast, dorado can reach speeds near 60 miles per hour. When hooked, their aerial acrobatic fights can be awe-inspiring, flashing gold while leaping high above the surface between strong runs. As they do not have the profound power of other gamefish like bluefin tuna, dorado can be quite a handful after landing them. I have caught a few dozen or so by kayak when living in the La Paz area, and their erratic behavior once at hand is why I tend to remove the forward hooks on trolling jigs – as highly-sought as they are, I can attest that nobody wants to be ‘married’ or hooked to a dorado when flailing around at the boat or side of the kayak.

Beau Leaman (left) and Horizon crew with the pending all-tackle world record opah at the scale.

Horizon Sportfishing

The other big news from this past week is the pending IGFA all-tackle world record 188.6-pound opah caught by first time angler Beau Leaman on a 1.5-day run aboard the Horizon out of H&M Landing. Using a rent rod, Leaman dropped a jig down 300 feet and soon thought he was snagged on the bottom. It took four gaffs to pull the fish aboard. Opah, also known as moonfish, redfin ocean pan, and (not to be confused with oceanic sunfish, or mola) sunfish, are an odd-looking though beautifully colored disc-shaped species usually found between 150 and 750 feet in depth. 

Opah flesh is firm and great table fare, and can be found for sale at fresh fish outlets including the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market at the Embarcadero on Saturdays. Loins are usually priced between 11 and 14 dollars per pound, and it is well worth a try if you haven’t had opah before. Leaman’s catch was weighed back at the dock and has been submitted to the International Game Fish Association for certification. They’re out there, so go get ‘em!