8/7/22 So. Cal Mahi

enfish

enfish

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Got out with my dad yesterday for a local trip. Our choices were to run 40-50 miles for a shot at the triple-digit bluefin or stay local for a shot at the warm water exotics.

We went with the more relaxing approach and launched late at 9:30am, picked up a half scoop of live sardines and made 10 mile run to the first and only kelp paddy we found. It paid off with a nice dorado. So much fun to catch these guys, and the coolest looking fish there is, IMO.
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Very Nice mahi! Glad you found them! Were they biting or was it hard to get bit. I'm headed out this Sunday to give it a try. Congrats again!
 
Sdfish said:
Very Nice mahi! Glad you found them! Were they biting or was it hard to get bit. I'm headed out this Sunday to give it a try. Congrats again!
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They bit immediately on both baits in the water on our first drift, but one spit the hook on its second jump. Then they did not bite again for us no matter what we tried. They just would swim right up to our baits and turn away. Needed a spear gun! There were a couple spots of puddling YFT that cruised on through, but they were also not interested in our offerings. The dorado was stuffed with 3 inch anchovies, which is probably why they weren't too interested in biting. We metered bait balls everywhere.
 
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Hey guys - 12 mile NW of Oceanside was loaded with dorados. I have never seen this many free swimming around. Very hard to get a bite, but we ended up with 4 nice ones on bait. We found a kelp and just stuck with all day since there were so many fish on it.
 

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There is an amazing volume of dorado out there. Sounds like the zone hasn't changed much in a week. Nice work getting a few of them to bite!
 
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Nice catch.

When they get finicky here on east coast we ditch the leader and use a light spinning rod with 10 or 12# braid straight to a small light wire circle hook.
You break a few off but at least you get bit.
 
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enfish said:
There is an amazing volume of dorado out there. Sounds like the zone hasn't changed much in a week. Nice work getting a few of them to bite!
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Sdfish said:
Hey guys - 12 mile NW of Oceanside was loaded with dorados. I have never seen this many free swimming around. Very hard to get a bite, but we ended up with 4 nice ones on bait. We found a kelp and just stuck with all day since there were so many fish on it.
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Wow need to get down there from Northern California hope to get down there very early next week too much going on this week to get down there, wow 12 miles north west of OceansideThat’s incredible hope they stick down in that area!
 
JJMag said:
Wow need to get down there from Northern California hope to get down there very early next week too much going on this week to get down there, wow 12 miles north west of OceansideThat’s incredible hope they stick down in that area!
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You could launch out of anywhere from Long Beach to San Diego and be within the dorado zone in 30 minutes. If you launched out of Long Beach, you'd have the added bonus of a short run to the 100 lb bluefin zone off the east end of Catalina.
 
enfish said:
You could launch out of anywhere from Long Beach to San Diego and be within the dorado zone in 30 minutes. If you launched out of Long Beach, you'd have the added bonus of a short run to the 100 lb bluefin zone off the east end of Catalina.
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Sdfish said:
JJ - let me know if you make it. If i go this weekend it will be on Sunday.
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I think it would be too crowded on to fish on Sunday so I’m thinking of driving down Sunday and fishing Monday through? Launching out of Long Beach sounds quite interesting me and my friends definitely gonna be looking for easy place to store the trailer at the hotel so need to do some research

definitely would love to get some dodos on the boat and blue fin on the boat haven’t got either one of them yet!

Thank you for the Intel that would make sense for him the best that I’ve ever been on!
 
JJ - what worked for me, once I found the fish was to just stick with them, I stayed with the same few kelps all day. Slow trolling sardines got the most bites. As Enfish said -these fish were keyed on small bait, so you will have to work for the bites.
 
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Sdfish said:
JJ - what worked for me, once I found the fish was to just stick with them, I stayed with the same few kelps all day. Slow trolling sardines got the most bites. As Enfish said -these fish were keyed on small bait, so you will have to work for the bites.
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Thank you for more Intel, all the Intel that I can get will definitely help me Long Beach sounds doable going down south friends of mine are still waiting for them to come out of Monterey totally get that , Still putting things together where to stay thinking of fishing two or three days. Thank you
 
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