ANOTHER #@$% BONITO!
Originally Published the Week of Sept. 28, 2022 in Western Outdoor Publication
If you’ve never caught one, they can be a lot of fun. These smaller members of the tuna family can pull you out’ve your socks or flip-flops.
Most are only 5-10 pounds, but pound-for-pound, I would argue that no fish pulls harder. I’ve often told our astonished fishing clients that if they ever make a 25-pound bonito, it’ll destroy us.
Built like little missiles they are speedy and tenacious. On light tackle or spinning gear, there are few fish in the sportfishing world that can compete.
. . .until you’ve had your fill.
The first few are fun. Then, there’s a point of diminishing returns.
Even on matched tackle, they sure can take a lot out’ve you!
After awhile, you realize, they’re not fun anymore. They’re pests!
You’re getting tired. These darned things are eating up all your live bait. You’r really out on the water to be catching real tuna or dorado or something else besides bonito!
You want to get to the main event, not fooling around with these pesky %#$@ bonito!
Because there’s a big drawback about bonito!
With the exception of a few types of bonito, most don’t taste so great. So, we throw them back. Or, in the old days, they get used for fertilizer in the garden.
But, aside from eating them, there’s some really handy uses for them that I never realized until I moved down here and learned from our fishing captains.
For one, they make excellent bait.
If you can keep them alive and are fortunate enough to be on a boat that has “tuna” tubes to keep fish like this alive, they make super bait for billfish.
Harnessed properly and hooked, they are great to troll. Big marlin are especially attracted. If the bonito are small enough they can be cast directly to a billfish. It’s like tossing candy in front of a 5-year-old.
If still alive, I’ve found it very effective to take a smaller one and pin a big hook in it through the jaw or dorsal and send it back down on a heavy rig with some weight.
Then, I hold on!
Done over a reef or rocky area or high spot, I might cut one of it’s tail fins or put some shallow cuts in it’s flanks. With the cut tailfin the bonito will swim erratically like the wounded fish that it is.
With the scores on it’s flanks, the bonito will bleed a bit and release it’s oily scent into the water.
Big dog-tooth snapper; giant pargo and grouper fall for this all the time. It’s a deadly rig and you’d better hold on because they don’t “nibble.”
They’ll slam like a powerful freight train and head right back into the rocks. Anything that can eat a 5-pound bonito will surely have a big mouth and the muscle to back it up!
Speaking of bonito blood and oil, the meat is indeed very bloody and oily. It’s a big muscle with fins.
If the fish is already dead, our captains will sometime cut strips from it and drag them behind our pangas to leave an oily trail in the water. Sometimes, they’ll just run a rope or heavy cord through the mouth and gills and drag the whole bonito behind the boat.
Dorado especially find this irresistible.
Keep an eye out because I’ve seen dorado swim right up in the propwash to the transom following that blood trail. Get ready to drop a hooked bait almost right on top of their heads.
Strips of bonito are, in fact, great to use with your lures. A little strip on a casting lure or iron adds some organic attractant to your presentation.
Likewise, a larger strip hooked onto a feather or larger lure is also a bonus. Not only will it add scent to the water, but if a big fish grabs it, it’s less likely to let go now that it has some real “meat” in it’s mouth instead of a chunk of plastic or resin!
There’s one other reason I like to keep bonito on board.
Every now and then, you get sealions that become a nuisance. I’m sure you can relate.
These pests eat your baits. They eat your hooked fish then give you the “middle finger salude” as they throw it into the air right in front of you. Plus, their presence chases away the gamefish.
Back-in-the-day, there were things like seal bombs, wrist rockets and sometimes firearms to take care of the problem.
We can’t do that anymore and frankly, I don’t wanna hurt anything permanently that I’m not going to eat.
But, these sealions are messing with our livelihood.
One of my panga captains showed me that if you take a dead bonito, you put a bunch of hot sauce into it. Then heave it like a football at the sealion.
The sealion grabs it and dives with it’s treasure!
…then pops up barking like crazy! It goes jumping around and swimming away as fast as it can! It goes and bothers someone else’s boat.
Problem solved.
Your %$#@ bonito has become seal repellent!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
______________
Jonathan Roldan has been writing the Baja Column in Western Outdoor News since 2004. Along with his wife and fishing buddy, Jilly, they own and run the Tailhunter International Fishing Fleet in La Paz, Baja, Mexico www.tailhunter.com.
They also run their Tailhunter Restaurant Bar on the famous La Paz malecon waterfront. If you’d like to contact him directly, his e-mail is: jonathan@tailhunter.com
Or drop by the restaurant to say hi. It’s right on the La Paz waterfront!
_____________
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website:
www.tailhunter-international.com
Mexico Office: Tailhunter International, 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter International, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA 91942
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
.
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report: http://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/
Tailhunter YouTube Video Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBLvdHL_p4-OAu3HfiVzW0g
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”
That's My Story 
Leave a Reply