EXCELLENT DORADO DAY AT THE 51-MILE REEF

July 8, 2006, Ollie Peltier, An excellent dorado day out of Rocky Point (Puerto Peñasco):

Today was another beautiful but hot fishing day on the water. I fished at Puerto Penasco with a couple of long time buddies, brothers Joe and Steve Heilman of Phoenix.

I had heard that the dorado were running at the Rocky Point 43 mile reef, so that was our destination. We launched at 7:30 a.m. and ran about 30 miles out. The water temperature was 85-86 degrees.

We started trolling green and yellow feathers. We didn't see any weed patches or birds working and didn't hook up with anything. At the 43 mile reef I saw quite a few bottom fish so we decided to give that a try. In all we boated 2 sardinera, 15 and 18 pounds, 2 red snapper 10 and 12 pounds, and 9 gold spotted sand bass or "calicos," 4-6 pounds.

From there, I decided to run out to the Rocky Point 51 mile reef.

When we got there, there were weed patches everywhere. We had 4 lines out, all with green and yellow trolling feathers. When we went passed the first patch, all hell broke loose and all 4 rods went off and dorado were jumping everywhere. We continued trolling around the weed patches and in all we had 16 hookups, boating 9 nice dorado. The smallest dorado was 5 pounds and the largest was a 20 pounder. Most were in the 10-12 pound range.

It was the best day of dorado fishing that I can remember for this Puerto Penasco area.

The water temperature was pretty constant. It did get up to 87 at the 51 mile bank late in the day. The water started getting blue about 25 miles out of Rocky Point. At the 51 mile bank it was as blue as I've seen it. You could see lots of dorado down 20-30 feet when you would bring one to the boat.

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