The Biter Bit: Revenge of the Bonito

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After years of enjoying tuna salad sandwiches, I got my comeuppance. I was on a special trip on the Nautilus Belle Amie that combined three days of snorkeling with baitballs in Magdalena Bay, on the Pacific side of Baja California south, followed by a trip to Socorro Island. It was a dream trip; I had spent a ton of money, and was thrilled when I finally beheld striped marlin, sailfish, dolphins, silky sharks, and sea lions attacking baitballs in Magdalena Bay. But on the last day of snorkeling, nature had another plan for me.

Our panga driver found an astonishing boiling sea of mackerel baitballs being predated upon by sea lions and big schools of striped bonito. My group dropped into the water, mesmerized by the life and death battle -- the water was full of fish scales from the assaults on the baitballs, which swirled and dodged. Though sea lions snacked on the mackerel, it was meaty, fast-swimming, muscular schools of bonito that ruled. These fish, smallish members of the tuna family (10-22 pounds, up to three feet long), attacked the baitballs with overwhelming force, moving like lightning....

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