DORADO BITE TURNS ON AT SANTA ROSALIA

July 23, 2006, Wayne Copeland, Dorado action catches fire off San Lucas Cove:

We fished out of San Lucas Cove from Saturday July 15th through Thursday July 20th.

The fishing water temperature on Saturday in the channel was 77 degrees and dirty green. Outside the channel the water temperature was up to 83.

We fished 15 miles out and ended up as far south as Punta Chivato where the water temp was 80 degrees and clarity was still poor.

Conditions were 2 degrees better on Sunday with better clarity.

We only managed 2 dorado for the first 2 days.

But on Monday the clarity and temperature jumped, up to 81 degrees inside and as high as 86 degrees out by isla Tortuga. The Dorado bite went wide-open.

The bite was so good you couldn't set a trolling spread before getting bit. My boat as well as my buddy George Starr's boat had schools of Dorado in excess of 100 fish holding around the boats. This was the largest concentrations of Dorado I have seen in my many years of fishing Baja.

This situation repeated itself for the next 4 days.

With the water temperature on the inside at 83.5 and on the outside at 86 with great clarity Thursday afternoon when we pulled the boat to prep for the drive home.

The main concentration of fish was at the north end of isla San Marcos and out to 3.5 miles. Any farther out and the bite dropped off drastically.

The largest Dorado found was approximately 20 pounds.

We looked as far out as 2 miles outside of Isla Tortuga for billfish and none were raised or sighted.

We caught only 2 yellowtail for the week. The squid made for tough yellowtail fishing as it was tough to get bait through them.

All in all, it was a great week with the most wide open small Dorado bite I have ever seen.

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