Pacific Voyager Decks 100 Yellowfin — and 3 Rare Pompano Dorado Out of Seaforth
Captain Max Neue and the Pacific Voyager returned last night from a 13-passenger, 2-day charter out of Seaforth Sportfishing in San Diego with a box that will make you look twice:
100 yellowfin tuna
5 dorado
4 yellowtail
and 3 Pompano Dorado
Weather has been keeping them off the bluefin, but they are still enjoying great fishing. That last line on the fish count is the one that stopped me.
A Pompano Dorado is not a regular dorado, and it is not the little Pacific pompano we sometimes see around SoCal piers. It is its own species — Coryphaena equiselis — the only close cousin of the common dorado / mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus). Same family. Different fish.
How you tell them apart: a Pompano Dorado is thicker through the body, usually smaller, more silvery-blue than that classic gold-green mahi paint job, with shorter pectoral fins and a square tooth patch on the tongue. A lot of anglers have probably caught one and called it a “schoolie dorado.” The world-record class fish is only a little over 11 pounds. They are not giants. They are just uncommon in our neighborhood.
They are a warm-water, open-ocean fish. Worldwide they live in tropical and subtropical seas and like water in the mid-70s to mid-80s. In the eastern Pacific their normal home is more like southern Baja and the southwestern Gulf of California south toward Peru. Field guides often list them as absent along the northwest coast of Baja and the northern Sea of Cortez. That is why three of them on a San Diego 2-day is a head-turner.
Your guess is a good one. This 2026 El Niño has been pushing warm water and tropical visitors north — yellowfin, dorado, and the odd exotic that does not belong in a “normal” year. A Pompano Dorado showing up in the northern Baja / San Diego mix is exactly that kind of warm-water stray. Not unheard of in the world’s oceans. Unusual on a local sportboat. Three on one 13-person charter is the kind of thing you remember.
Congratulations to Captain Max Neue, the crew, and those 13 anglers on the Pacific Voyager. One hundred yellowfin would have been the headline by itself. The Pompano Dorado is the story you tell at the dock.
Pacific Voyager
Captain Max Neue
Seaforth Sportfishing
1717 Quivira Road
San Diego, CA 92109
Phone: (619) 224-3383
Book: http://seaforthlanding.com
Check http://friedmanadventures.com for Captain’s audios, landing and boat counts, bait availability, Friedman Adventures AI, kids corner, and lots more.
Tomorrow morning, Saturday September 12, the Friedman Adventures Surf Fishing Festival is 9 AM to 12 Noon at Anderson Street and PCH in Sunset Beach. Everyone is welcome.
See you on the water.
— Phil Friedman
Friedman Adventures
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