INSHORE AND OFFSHORE REPORTS BY THE CHARTER BOAT MATADOR

July 9, 2006, Emerald Argonza, Matador Sportfishing, Offshore and Inshore report:

On July 7th, David Silva skippered the Ensenada charter fishing boat Matador out of Coral Marina with 4 anglers from Northridge Calif., for a local trip and fished the north side of Isla Todos Santos. They boated 8 barracudas, 2 yellowtail to 28 pounds, 25 bonita, and 9 calico bass.

When the bite stopped, they decided to run to Soledad Reef south of Ensenada and boated 60 more red snapper, and 12 salmon grouper up to 5 pounds while fishing in 350 feet of water.

All the rockfish were caught with 2 hook leaders and also yo-yo chrome jigs and they even bit plastics when the guys decided to experiment a little.

The fishing water temperature was 67-68.5 degrees at Soledad and 67 degrees inside Ensenada bay.

The yellowtail hit blue and white Rapalas, and the bonito and barracuda hit just about anything.

Fishing on July 8th, I skippered the Matador out of Ensenada with 2 anglers, one from St. Louis Missouri and one a local from San Clemente. We headed to the Ensenada 238 spot and got the usual wake-up hit by a couple of bonito at 6 a.m. We then work our way 3 miles south of the 238 spot and found schools of bonito and landed 3 good-size yellowtail on flylined sardines with 1/2 ounce sinkers.

We then moved to fish at the Ensenada 450 spot, away from the bonitos, and found a kelp paddy holding nothing but yellowtail. We landed 9 more yellowtail with a couple on the 25-28 pound range. All fish were caught on flylined sardines with 1/2 ounce sliding sinkers.

The bite stopped at noon. The water off Ensenada was a bit choppy with 3-5 foot swells at 67.6 degrees. This was my first fishing trip ever with customers that never lost a single fish even though one of them was a first timer in the ocean.

Our total fish count was 12 yellowtail and 6 bonito with 6 more bonito landed on the troll on the way home.

July 2-3, 2006, Emerald Argonza, Matador Sportfishing trips out of Ensenada, Mexico:

I skippered the Matador On July 2nd out of Coral Marina at Ensenada, Mexico with Robert Boyd Jr. and Robert Sr., with their friend Herb Knight all of Palmdale, California, for a tuna fishing trip but we only found yellowtail and bonita to chew.

We headed to the Ensenada 238 offshore fishing spot and got our first hookup in the gray light on a black and purple feather but lost the fish. The Bonito was so thick in the area with bluefin tuna mixed in with them, but we just could not get them to bite.

We moved to the Ensenada 450 spot were the schools of yellowtail were just so awesome to see but just would not bite no matter what we offered them until late in the afternoon on our way in. We found a kelp paddy that saved our day just 3 miles northwest of the 450 spot and got the yellowtail to bite. Robert Boyd Jr. hooked a 30 pound yellowtail on a Seeker light tackle rod with a 25 pound line loaded into a Sealine reel that took him 45 minutes to reel in while the rest of the crew got busy landing 15-20 pounders.

Blue shark became a pest after a while when they would beat the yellowtail to our live bait, but still managed to land a total of 9 yellowtail and 25 bonita. Most of the yellowtail were taken on flylined sardines and only a couple were landed using Tady 45 blue and white color jigs. I could honestly say that this is going to be a very good year for fishing here in Ensenada be it local trip or tuna trips.

I skippered the Matador again July 3rd with 5 anglers with 4 of them being first timers and Mark Shea as their charter master.

We headed out of Ensenada's Marina Coral at 6 a.m. and went straight to the boiler rocks just inside of Punta Banda and we hooked up a lot of calico bass but kept on losing most of them due to inexperience, but the young anglers never gave up and just got better as the day moved on.

We finished the day early with a total of 14 calico bass, 5 sand bass, 2 bonita, 2 barracuda, 9 red snapper, 1 lingcod, and 1 sugarhead bass.

The Ensenada fishing water temperature in our area was 65 degrees and very glassy ocean which the first timers really enjoyed. The calico bass were caught on flylined sardines and the rockfish were caught on dropper loops with 3 hook leaders pinned with a combination of live bait and chunk sardine.

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from Ensenada and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for Ensenada may be found at Mexfish.com's main Ensenada page.