Fish That Doesn’t Belong Here: Pacific Sierra on the Beach at El Mosquito

Local Ensenada angler Franck Fisherman posted video of two Pacific sierra mackerel (Scomberomorus sierra) taken at El Mosquito — the pebble-and-rock beach right at the entrance to town, where you make the left and drop down past the shipyards.

That spot is not a tropical fishery. It is a hometown surf and rock stretch. Corvina, bass, the odd halibut, bonito when the water is right. I have been fishing Ensenada for about 60 years. I have never heard of sierra coming off El Mosquito. Not from the pangas. Not from the rocks. Not from that beach.

So we looked it up.

Pacific sierra is a tropical and subtropical Spanish mackerel of the eastern Pacific. It is a common — and excellent — game fish from southern Baja and mainland Mexico south through Central America to Peru and the Galápagos. Adults school in shallow coastal water, usually in the top 50 feet, and feed hard on anchovies, sardines, and other small bait. They run two to three feet as a typical sport fish and can reach a little over three feet and about 18 pounds. The IGFA all-tackle mark is 18 pounds even, taken at Salinas, Ecuador, in 1990.

You know one when you see one. Bronze-green to blue-green on the back, silver below, several rows of small round orange-yellow spots along the sides, and the outer half of that first dorsal fin jet black. They are not the everyday Pacific chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus) that SoCal and northern Baja anglers see all the time. They are also not the Gulf sierra (Scomberomorus concolor), the old Monterey Spanish mackerel that is now basically confined to the northern Sea of Cortez. Different fish. Different zip code.

On paper, field guides list the northern edge of the range as southern California. In the real world, verified California specimens are scarce. A 2011 paper by Williams, Pondella, Haggin, and Allen documented a fish taken in a research gillnet near Mother’s Beach in Marina del Rey on October 22, 2006 — 33°58’50”N — and called it the northernmost verified record. That fish was 525 mm total length. The authors noted only seven Pacific sierra deposited in California museum collections since 1962. The extra-limital fish that do show up almost always arrive in El Niño or unusually warm years — 1963, 1997–98, and that 2006 specimen among them.

We could not find a published sport catch of Pacific sierra in Ensenada waters. If someone took one off the rocks in 1982–83 or 1997–98, it never made the reports.

That is why Franck’s two fish matter. Ensenada sits at about 31°50’N, well north of where sierra is abundant. El Mosquito is inside the bay, at the doorstep of town. A pair of tropical Spanish mackerel on that beach is not “a little out of range.” It is a visitor from another climate.

El Niño 2026 has been doing exactly what strong Niños do: shoving warm-water fish north into places they do not belong. First the dorado showed. Then marlin and yellowfin started pushing. Now sierra is on the rocks at El Mosquito. Same pattern that put a handful of these fish into Southern California in earlier warm years — only this time it is happening in the surf, in a town I have fished my whole life.

Sierra is a fine table fish. Down south they are a staple of the artisanal fleet and a favorite for ceviche. Up here they are a headline. If you are on the Ensenada waterfront or walking El Mosquito and you see a slim, spotted mackerel with that black first dorsal, take a photo, get a length, and let us know. These stragglers tell us what the ocean is doing this year.

Remarkable catch, Franck. More of this year’s

craziness continues.

Check http://friedmanadventures.com for Captain’s audios, landing and boat counts, bait availability, Friedman Adventures AI, kids corner, and lots more.

Join us Saturday, September 12, 2026 for the Friedman Adventures End-of-Summer Surf Fishing Festival — 9 a.m. to 12 noon at Anderson Street and PCH, Sunset Beach. Noon raffle. Park across PCH. Stop by Big Fish Bait & Tackle in Seal Beach for gear.

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