Orcas Spotted off the SoCal Coast

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
It's a really rare occurance but if you can believe it, Orcas have been spotted off the SoCal coast again!! I so would love to see these most impressive whales :yup:

First killer whales of the season spotted

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DANA POINT – When avid whale watchers Elissa and Jody Thompson didn't see sea life during the first hour of their boat trip from Dana Point Harbor, they thought something was up.

"We come out at least once a week and you see pods of dolphins all the time," said Elissa Thompson, a marine biologist from Dana Point. "We came out and there was nothing. We (the boat's captain) tried to find a fin whale for about an hour but there was no sea life around. Generally, whenever there's a predator like a shark, that's what happens."

This time though, it wasn't a shark. It was a pod of at least 15 orcas, including what boat Capt. Tom Southern said was a 3-month-old baby whale. The pod was spotted outside Newport Beach Harbor Saturday afternoon.

The killer whales, rarely seen, were the first spotted this year, Southern said. They were swimming north in about 300 feet of water not far from the Newport Beach Harbor heading toward Huntington Beach.

"We saw something and went full speed ahead into six-foot waves," said Southern, a captain with Capt. Dave's Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari. "It was wild. Everyone was getting wet. They were jumping out of the water. First there was one, then two, then three and pretty soon it was 15, including a large male and a little baby. All of a sudden all of the whale-watching boats in the area pulled up.''

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See the whole article and more photos here:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/whales-498960-boat-thompson.html
 

OverlanderJK

Resident Smartass
That is awesome! I would love to see that! I am pretty amazed but marine animals (maybe I should have done something in that field). Except sharks, F that!:eek:
 

rtguy1

New member
It is an amazing sight. I do a ton of salt water fishing from Oxnard to San Diego. It's great to see em. I've seen some pods of dolphin that were insanely massive, like 5 football fields massive. I've caught tuna off of whales before too as well as dolphins. Yellowfin tend to follow pods of dolphins. One year we chased a couple blue whales that had a school of albacore under them. Every time we got close rods would go bendo. We would land the fish and chase em down again. One trip we came across a dead blue whale. Had a massive school of yellowfin under it. The boat got limits in about an hour off that. It was insane.wonder if there are many wayalifer's that fish saltwater ? I'm gonna start a thread....lol it's amazing what's out there and how close some of it is to the shore.
 
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