HAMMERHEAD SHARK AND SWORDFISH SEEN BY
ENSENADA SPORTFISHING BOAT BAD DOG

Aug. 27, 2005, Steve Ross, Bad Dog, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico:

Gail left the office early, and we headed on down to Ensenada to get some fishing laps on the Bank in the later afternoon.

We put the jigs in at the top of the Bank and ran to all the numbers I recorded from last year's fish. I ran up and down the drop off at the bottom and then into the Santo Tomas Canyon and got a marlin knock down 4 miles south into the Canyon. The leader had all the marks of a marlin. Then here comes an Ensenada fishing neighbor...Grander a 36-foot Bertram, who says he got a marlin knockdown just a few miles further south. On Saturday he returned to this spot and killed a marlin just under 100 pounds for the "First Marlin of the Year" for his fishing club up in Oceanside. He gave us some fillets for Poki and Sashimi...very delicious.

Fishing out of Ensenada on Saturday, we headed directly for the lower 500. There was a raging mountain fire just south of Ensenada's Punta Banda which lit up the mountain, rather spectacular in the dark.

The seiners that were fishing off Ensenada are now gone. But, yet there were no tuna for us. Are they all gone and canned or in pens? However, we did find on Friday a half-a-dozen tuna pens floating behind anchored commercial boats and there were a lot of people on these boats. It looked from the top water in these pens that there were fish in them. They were all gone Saturday morning. That was weird.

On the Ensenada 500 fishing spot, we found a huge hammerhead shark that was an easy 300 pounds and maybe 500. I got us close to him but we failed on the bait for whatever crew reason.

Then we found a swordfish, yes definitely a swordfish. We failed on the bait for whatever crew reason. Then we found jumping marlin and we failed on them for whatever reason. We finally found a paddy in 3-5 foot seas blowing at least 15 knots and after being improperly conditioned I trolled by it and a 12 pound yellowtail grabbed a jig and ran back into the paddy so I drove over there to get my jig back and Alex dragged the fish out of the paddy. The rest of the school of yellows that we saw earlier on this paddy were so horrified they all swam away as Bad Dog drifted in the swells at 5 knots...bye bye. We managed another yellowtail by some grace of God, and a dorado ate a jig on a blind strike. The only way we knew we caught a dorado was that something white was being dragged through the swells.

We got called by the Ensenada boat Melody to come over and catch bigeye tuna. They had boated 3 in the 20 pound class on live bait on a paddy. Mar Diosa beat us to it by a minute. With 4 boats on the paddy I elected to keep off a distance and troll it in a wide circle. Mar Diosa hooked 4 and lost 4. We hooked nothing and left.

Um Bwana caught 10 yellowtail and 2 yellowfin tuna at the lower 500 with 3 guys on board this 26-foot Skipjack.

No Gail, you're not bit, your line is wrapped around the prop. Twice.

The weather in the Ensenada fishing area made it for trying times but it wasn't as bad as last Saturday.

There is still red tide in the Marina Coral and our bait receiver remains empty.

The latest trend on fuel for fishing boats at Ensenada is a problem for us. Large boats with large fuel capacities are fishing until nearly empty and then going to the Marina Coral to fill up, saving $1 a gallon over the higher San Diego pricing. When we come back there is a line of these large yachts so we have to go back to our slip and plan a return trip to the fuel dock. One boat took 10,000 liters and many take over 1,000 gallons. One was MilSoMar who had a wahoo to display and "Pollo," a fuel dock attendant was proudly wearing their boat hat. They were still pumping fuel into the night past their closing time.