Ensenada Fishing Reports and Sportfishing Vacation Information

Photo of yellowtail caught at Ensenada, Mexico. Photo of bottom fish caught at Ensenada, Mexico.

ENSENADA YELLOWTAIL AND BOTTOM FISH--Steve and Gail Ross on their boat Bad Dog fished Ensenada's Bahia de Todos Santos with marinero Alejandro (right) and scored on four nice yellowtail of 18.5 to 24.5 pounds. At right, crew member Juan Lu displays two large boccacio caught on the Bad Dog while fishing the rocks on Ensenada's Banda Bank. Bad Dog fishes out of Marina Coral located at the north end of town. Photos courtesy Steve Ross.

Ensenada fishing articles, maps, fishing reports, peak seasons, hot spots, and vacation travel information for the top sportfishing locations of Ensenada, Mexico.

Considering the fact that the large and bustling port city of Ensenada has been Mexico’s main Pacific coast commercial fishing center for the past 70 years, it’s surprising how much good sport fishing is still available in the area.

Admittedly, the glory Ensenada fishing days of the 1950s--when the town billed itself as the “Yellowtail Capital of the World--are long gone, but nevertheless, the outer waters surrounding the city’s picturesque Bahía de Todos Santos still provide excellent year-round bottom fishing for lingcod and all kinds of rockfish, very good kelp bed fishing for barracuda, bonito, calico bass, and summer yellowtail, and close access to the offshore tuna runs that can occur during an eight-month-long window of opportunity centered on the month of August.

In the 1950s, there were a number of prosperous sportfishing fleets of party boats operating at Ensenada that used to tie up at an old complex of docks built around what is now the city’s downtown fish market.

In those days there were so many tourists and anglers on the long wooden main pier, young Mexican boys could make a few dollars by diving for coins tossed into the crystal clear waters of the inner bay.

But Ensenada’s exploding population--from its beginnings as a mining port town of about 2,000 souls in the 1870s, to its Prohibition Era heyday as a convenient drinking and gambling center in the early 1930s, to its rapid modern development into a major city with over 250,000 people--caused the inevitable pollution of its nearby waters, and the local sportfishing industry declined to just a few surviving boats today.

The coup de grace for the area’s legendary yellowtail runs actually happened at the north end of town, in the neighborhood known as El Sauzal, where the complex of canneries established in the 1930s by Mexican President Abelardo Rodriguez began reducing sardines and anchovies for fish meal.

With their local food supply greatly reduced, the yellowtail population of Bahía de Todos Santos dropped to a very low level and only sporadic local catches could be made.

Today, Ensenada continues to have a large commercial fishing industry, but it consists mainly of processing plants and net and longline boats that catch their fish farther down the Mexican coast.

And, there is still a sportfishing industry here too, albeit much smaller than in the 1950s, that services the several types of good fishing to be found in and around the waters of Bahía de Todos Santos.

The fishing area closest to town is right at the tip of Punta Banda which forms the southern boundary of the bay, and which enjoys an unusual cool water fishery that is very reliable and productive.

Located about 70 miles south of the U.S. border, Punta Banda sits at the north end of Baja’s Pacific “cool water zone” where deep upwellings of very cool water mingle with the warmer water coming down the coast. These upwellings are particularly strong on the south sides of islands and points, and the upwelling at the tip of Ensenada’s Punta Banda, on the south shoulder of the bay, is one of the strongest of all.

At Punta Banda, it is not uncommon to find a full ten-degree water temperature drop between the water around the rocks at the tip of the point, and the water only a few hundred yards south. The temperature differential is often so strong that there is a semi-stationary fog patch marking its location. Reinforced by the Punta Salsipuedes upwelling a few miles north of town, the cold water surrounding Punta Banda can measure in the low-50s, even during the summer months, and readings of temperatures of about 48 degrees are sometimes reported during the winter.

Aerial photo of Ensenada, Mexico.

Modern Ensenada’s still thriving sportfishing industry is centered on the pedestrian malecon near the old downtown fish market.

These cold-water upwellings aren’t just cold, but also rich in nutrients and dissolved oxygen, an atmospheric gas that is more soluble in water at lower temperatures. Thus begins the familiar plankton-fish cycle that creates a rich fishery for lingcod, calico bass, barracuda, all kinds of bottom fish, bonito, and of course, the periodic runs of yellowtail that still occur during the warmer months.

The excellent bottom fishing found around the tip of Punta Banda and points south is similar to what is found north of Santa Barbara, and it is somewhat protected from commercial netters because of an abundance of rocky structure, although it is still fished with multi-hook “palangres,” strung out along the bottom. Still, the water is so intrinsically productive, good fishing is available virtually any day of the year.

The productive action around the rocks of Punta Banda gives you a genuine taste of the “old Baja” way of fishing, and the catch is usually limits of all the typical bottom species, plus occasional halibut and white seabass in the spring, and yellowtail in summer.

Photo of Ensenada, Mexico, ca. 1950.

Ensenada, Mexico, about 1950, when the city proudly billed itself as the “Yellowtail Capital of the World.”

To test the waters outside the bay, there are about two-dozen larger charter fishing boats available at the downtown marina and at Marina Coral at the north end of town. These boats range from three-passenger cruisers, to six-packs, to open party boats capable of overnight trips that go as far north as the Coronado Islands, south to Santo Tomas and Punta China, and far offshore in pursuit of tuna during the summer months. They also fish local spots around the Islas de Todos Santos, about seven miles from the beach, and at various bajos or shallow rocky areas around Punta Banda, Punta San Miguel at the north side of the bay, Punta Morro, and a whole series of very rich bottom fishing spots running south to Maximino Reef, Puerto Santo Tomas, and Punta China.

In addition to these local kelp bed and bottom fishing spots, Ensenada offers a close early-season shot at the annual tuna runs, as the fish approach from the south. These summer offshore migrators sometimes pinch in close to Punta Banda, and then the action can be as it was during the early fall of 2001 when some boats scored on albacore, yellowfin tuna, bluefin tuna, dorado, and yellowtail, all on the same day, and as close as two miles off the point.

These businesses operate out of Ensenada’s Marina Coral at the north end of town, or they may be found on the new pedestrian malecon that has been built on the waterfront just south of the main fish market. To find them, make a hard right turn at the first traffic light after passing the ship repair yards, into an alley that looks too crowded for comfort, and find a parking spot. Walk past the taco stands and through the fish market to the water, and turn south.

Photo Mike Richardson's bait barge, Ensenada, Mexico. Photo, Ensenada, Mexico, downtown fish market.

Mike Richardson and his friendly dogs run the Ensenada bait barge. At right, the downtown fish market. Walk straight through to the sportfishing boats on the malecon.