As the New Year dawned, the Gulf was calm. Ed and I couldn't resist going fishing. We set the GPS for the seamount and fired her up. I took this shot on the way to Punta Piedra Volcanica.

Isla El Coloradito (Los Lobos) was lit up white by the early morning sun.

We fished the seamount....fished, not caught mind you. Nada. Zip. El skunkeroo (no offense Bruce). We trolled, cast, jigged and dunked. We tired of catching nothing, so we sat there thinking. Whilst in the midst of deep thought, I noticed persistent bird action a mile or so to the southeast. I told Eddie to hoist the mainsail, set the jib, shiver me timbers and batten down the hatches: full speed ahead. When about half way there, the number of visible birds increased dramatically. Apparently, the surface had been obscured by heat distortion. Yes, it finally warmed up for the new year. Being out on the water was downright pleasant. We motored about a mile and a half to the point of action. As we slipped up on the birds, the bait ball below them was apparent.

Casting off to the side of the bait produced a strike immediately. Sierra. Hundreds, no thousands, well maybe tens of thousands of them! They were thick and the feeding frenzy was on. In this panorama, you can see several similar points of action. I had 4 frames to combine, but they wouldn't stitch due to lack of detail.

A close up of the action shows everyone got their share. Note the little Heermann's Gull with one of the spoils from the pelicans. Also note the breeding colors of the Brown Pelicans.

We slipped up on another boil.

Eddie got a nice one here.

We caught many large ones like this. We were in 308' of water. You can see how far off Punta Cabeza de Pato we were. The action was southeast of Islote La Poma. The line of bait and feeding fish and birds extended for a couple miles in length.

At one point, the school of pinhead anchovies that was the subject of all the attention tried to take shelter beneath the boat. You can see a couple of boils from Sierra on the outside of the meatball.