BAD DOG'S FIRST BLUEFIN TUNA

Aug. 8, 2006, Steve Ross, Bad Dog, Finally caught a bluefin tuna while fishing at Ensenada:

For the 8 years that we have fished out of Ensenada's Marina Coral with two new boats, it has been known locally that neither of our "Bad Dog" boats has been lucky enough to hook a bluefin tuna. Fishing friends of ours have landed bluefin right next to our boat several times, but we have been unable to catch one. We hadn't even lost one at gaff.

Ensenada fishing is so strong right now that my wife Gail decided to leave the office and fish both Friday and Saturday. Good choice.

Fishing on Bad Dog on Friday, 4 miles southeast of the Ensenada 425 spot, I spotted a school of porpoise on the move toward our boat. I said to Gail, "Isn't this a classic situation? Right out of the book. We're in a perfect position to challenge the practice of snagging tuna in front of porpoise."

For years we had unsuccessfully run on porpoise, never catching anything. I have run in front of them, I have run over them, and I have run in front of them and soaked baits.

I said that, the reel with the Sevenstrand Tuna Clone TC300 in my favorite color "Carrot Top" color went off. It took Gail 20 minutes of hard work to get this fish close to the boat. This bad boy was darting left and right, then swimming at will all over the place.

With a difficult gaff shot, marinero Alex pulled aboard our first and only bluefin tuna. At the slip, he weighed 73 pounds 11 ounces on our new Berkley Digital scale.

We went north from Marina Coral to score on dodos and returned with limits and several yellowtail to boot.

Fishing out of Ensenada on Saturday, I ran on Bob Vanian's numbers for yellowfin tuna. Along the way we found one paddy. It was loaded with 20-plus pound yellowtail and a few dorado who liked jumping. After draining it of 17 yellows and several dodos we left the paddy, only to have Wide Open come in behind us and pull a marlin off of it.

We found a fleet of 8 seiners all in a set and yellowfin tuna jumping out of the water and foaming in acre pods everywhere. It was late and we were 65 miles from Ensenada, so after boating 6 with casting iron, Darts and Tady 45s, a few on bait, and a few on 7Strand "Carrot Top" jet-heads we left the fish jumping and headed back uphill to return to the Marina Coral.

(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.