I am happy to report that the Dorado are back and in good numbers. They seem smaller than usual but on the other hand there are some nice bulls being caught.
We fished a total of six days and with one exception limited out each time. We released many undersized females and tried to catch only the bulls. The largest was not on our boat however it was from a Catch 22 charter. The LIFT tournament for the ladies produced a pair of 24.5 pounders. This is to verify the smaller fish size as an average.
There are some Marlin around and sailfish jumping all over the place. The billfish seem very reluctant to bite however and others have reported they are full of squid. We did have a short fight with a sail who decided not to come to the boat.
We observed Dorado tossing up whole large sardines when fighting them so apparently there is plenty of bait out there. We passed many bait balls on our way to the volcano. We opened the stomach on all we caught and found sardines and some very small 1 inch fish in there. None had squid.
All of our success came at about 219 degrees at about 28 to 34 miles. The volcano rim starts at 29 miles on that course and the other side is 34 miles. We encountered a temperature break there at 78 degrees and thus the fish.
There were a few paddies of weed out there too. We had some success casting silver spinners near the paddies.
What was phenomenal was fish that would follow the first caught fish to the boat. At times I swear there were a thousand fish milling around the boat. Thus when we did hook up we usually limited out right there.
The weather was the usual San Carlos calm one day and blowing the next.
