A Lot of Dorado : Popular Game Fish Being Caught in Record Numbers Off Orange County

Planning a trip to Baja California, to one of many locations noted for dorado fishing?

No need. The acrobatic fish are as thick as can be right here in our own back yard. Since appearing in fair numbers off the Orange County coast a week ago, the colorful game fish so popular in Mexico have invaded Southern California waters.

As an example, take Monday aboard the Thunderbird, a 65-foot sportfisher operating out of Davey’s Locker.

Captain Craig Jacobs departed from the landing Sunday night. His nighttime target: the jumbo squid that also have infiltrated Southland waters, not to mention a stretch of beach last week along the Orange County coastline.

Jumbo squid are a rarity in local waters and provide an interesting change of pace with their odd shape and tendency to squirt water and ink.

However, when nocturnal squid fishing didn’t work out as expected, Jacobs chose to spend the night atop the 267 bank, a popular fishing area about 10 miles off Newport Beach.

It was a wise decision.

At dawn, as the sky turned from black to gray, it was time to search for floating kelp paddies, beneath which dorado--another rarity in local waters--have been seen and caught in recent weeks.

It didn’t take long to find a clump of kelp, about 1 1/2 miles south of the 267. Jacobs pulled alongside the paddy, and the crew began tossing anchovies over the side to attract any fish that might be in the area.

The passengers began to fish, and the result was instant chaos.

At least 20 fishermen hooked up immediately.

Dorado began leaping, trying to shake the hooks. Free-swimming dorado were crashing the surface to feed on bait fish tossed overboard. Still others could be seen swimming as far as 50 feet below the surface.

Amid brilliant flashes of blue, green and yellow, the action was some of the fastest aboard any local boat in years. It went on for three hours, an eternity for fishermen involved in any bite.

Between 150 and 200 fish were taken from beneath just one piece of floating kelp.

Jacobs, 23, with 1 1/2 years’ experience as captain and 10 more around the docks, couldn’t believe what he was experiencing.

“I’ve never even heard of this happening,” he said. “I know during the El Nino year (1982-83) there was quite a few (dorado) caught, but nothing like this, from what I understand.”

He was right.

The last time enough dorado appeared to be called a showing was during the warm-water El Nino phenomenon. “But not in these quantities,” said Herb Frey, an oceanographer with the Department of Fish and Game.

Jacobs set out in search of another paddy and found one 1 1/2 miles to the southeast.

More chum was tossed over the rail, more lines put out--and more hungry dorado whipped into a feeding frenzy.

The 38 fishermen went at it again, battling the fish up and down the rail. Lines were tangled and feet stepped on. But nobody was complaining. By 1 p.m., the deck of the Thunderbird was littered with dorado--380 in all, weighing between four and 16 pounds.

In the vicinity, other boats were still busy catching fish.

The Amigo, of Newport Landing, finished the day with 19 passengers boating 109 dorado. The Freelance, another of the Davey’s Locker fleet, decked 212.

“It was incredible,” said Jeff Long of Huntington Beach, a passenger aboard the Thunderbird. “I got 20 dorado. Boy, I got lucky, man. I just picked the right day at the right time.”

He may not be so lucky when the DFG informs him that there is a 10-fish limit for dorado. Maybe he released the other 10.

Said Captain Mike Thompson of the Amigo: “I figured if we got 10 or 20 of them we’d be happy. But there’s a tremendous volume of fish out there.”

Dorado, or mahi mahi as they are known in Hawaii, have been present in local waters--primarily those off southern Orange County beaches--for about three weeks, but have been included only sporadically in the fish counts until recently.

“There have been several days when we’ve seen 200 or 300 fish under a kelp paddy, throwing bait at them, and had them not bite a thing,” said Julie Yates, a reservations clerk at Newport Landing. “We tried everything and they wouldn’t bite.”

Divers, on the other hand, have found the game fish easy targets for their high-powered spear guns and have been targeting them regularly for several weeks.

“Divers first noticed--and began spearing--the dorado about a month ago off Dana Point,” said Jay Riffe, a spear-gun manufacturer and member of the Long Beach Neptunes Dive Club. “Since then, they have been getting them every evening.

Riffe, who once held the world record for a spear-shot dorado, said they make easy targets because of their curiosity toward divers and their broad profile.

Because catches among sportfishers were not constant, and the eight- to 12-mile boat rides left little time for alternative fishing, dorado were not heavily targeted.

That changed in a hurry when word spread of Monday’s explosion. And Tuesday, the bite showed no signs of slowing. The Western Pride, a half-day boat out of Davey’s Locker, had 87 dorado by noon. Other boats were reporting similar success.

The normally quiet landings of Orange County are so no longer. Fishermen are inquiring if all they are hearing is true, and if it is, how can they get in on the action.

“People hear there are exotics in the area and they go nuts,” said Eddie DiRuscio, manager of Davey’s Locker.

“It has not stopped, I’ve been on (the phone) all day,” said Julie Yates, a reservations clerk at Newport Landing. “I haven’t done any of the stuff I’m supposed to do.”

Thompson’s boat holds 48 passengers. He figures to carry a full load for quite a while, as do captains from San Pedro to San Diego.

The reasons dorado have migrated well north of their habitat--tropical and subtropical waters--are not difficult to explain, experts say.

Ron Dotson, a migratory species expert with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said last week that the lack of prolonged westerly winds in recent weeks has served to warm the surface temperature four or five degrees above normal. Dorado are surface feeders and have merely followed the warm water north.

“They’re all warm-water lovers,” Frey said of the dorado and jumbo squid. “We’ve had about five or six weeks where we had this hot, humid weather, bringing this warm water up. And along with this, we’ve had a very good recruitment year for sardines . . . There’s a lot of different factors, and all of them look very, very good.”

Thompson and other skippers, meanwhile, credit successive tropical storms and hurricanes off Cabo San Lucas in the past several weeks.

“Apparently some of the fish moved up this side of the peninsula and, with all the surge of warm water we had from the chubascos down below, they just moved up the line,” he said.

In any case, it’s no secret that dorado are here.

Virgin kelp paddies are becoming increasingly rare. Private boaters are becoming the enemies of commercial sportfishing captains by infringing on the larger boats’ territory.

“They’re not even finding their own paddies,” Jacobs said. “They’re following us around instead.”

Spear fishermen are doing their thing in evening when most fishing boats have returned to port, for fear of being run over.

“It’s like a war out there,” Riffe said. “A few dorado . . . I don’t believe what it’s done to everybody.”