Bluefin bite at Black Rock, and other unusual bites

The jumbo albacore bite outside the Horseshoe Kelp was in 1984. Terry Randall (Art's Tackle) recalled that one. Around the same timeframe, there was reports of Bluefin Tuna being caught at Catalina Island. I immediately hopped on an open party boat (dang if I can remember which boat it was). Front side of the island at a spot where they used to get the bluefin before. At times like this - and others too, I really miss my friend Russ Izor. I know in the '50's and before, the bluefin used to bite all around the island. This bite only lasted a week or so - but a sustained week anyway. There were the incidental catches - the oops catches that occur on occasion. But this was a bonafide bite, where a few fish were caught every day.....for a week. Anyway, the boat left at midnight - and the island is only a couple of hours away. The spot is on the front side of the island (the East side, or the mainland side) called Black Rock. Though I wasn't there when it was named - its obvious. The cliffish rock is plainly visible from a mile away and is 'black'. There were a few other boats that left about the same time so we baited up and got there, we all slept until daybreak. We sat just outside the kelpline and at the first peek of sunlight, we started to chum. The calico bass and bonito started boiling pretty much right away. So I just waited, with my eyes peeled on the chumline. Sometime around mid-morning, in the middle of all the little boils - there it was. A boil distinctly different from the others, and bigger. I immediately grabbed my Silaflex PT-70 with a Penn 501 loaded with 15 lb. I had heard these fish weren't monsters - just little guys, 25 to 30 lbs. I flylined an anchovy on a #6 hook and proceeded to work the chumline. A few baits later - bingo!! As usual, the initial run was at least 100 yards - maybe more. The interesting part was, we were pretty close to the kelpline. So unless the fish decided to swim toward open-water, it couldn't go that far. Mine went straight into the kelp. I got this fish to come out here and there, but it just kept going right back in. All this time, I'm thinking about how this fish is staying alive. Tuna have to keep moving - I thought. So if this thing dives into the kelp and stops - it's going to die. And I may never get this fish. Not wanting to lose this fish, I worked and worked at trying get this fish loose. Sometimes giving your line a sawing motion will cut through the kelp. Sometimes putting the reel in freespool will guide the fish back out. I tried all sorts of stuff - and I know it was a good 20 to 30 minutes of this. I finally started to gain line. Another 10 to 15 minutes later and a sizable wad of kelp is headed toward the boat. Great!! The fish is dead, and I'm going to get it. 20 or 30 yards from the boat, the kelp starts to fall off little by little. All of the sudden, all the kelp comes off, and this tuna came alive and quickly peeled off 150 yards of line in the open water direction. These tuna were supercharged!! All together, it took over an hour to get this fish to the boat - 30 lb Bluefin Tuna. At Catalina Island no less. I was so excited.

I just thought of another interesting bite. Late summer, there were a few albacore still being caught in SoCal. But for the most part it was over. I was fishing Catalina a lot - bass, bonito and few yellows. I off that one night and was on the Toronado out of Queen's Wharf in Long Beach. I was deadheading on a lot of boats at the time, and really liked to Toronado. Specially late summer, because that's when the Bluefin bite would go off at San Clemente Island. Not sure if it was Dennis Luckenbach or Ray Lagmay running the boat. Come to think of it, Ray may not have had his license yet. I don't remember. We started fishing around the East end of the island - looking for yellowtail or whatever. Dennis or Ray hear a pot (we used to call all private boaters - pots) on the radio. He just came out of a stop for a few albacore - just off the East end. Immediately, he told everybody to rig up a few trolling rods and for the passengers to take the weights off their rigs. We got about 10 miles off the East end - we could still see the island. In go the jigs. Bang - 'Hookup'. We get a double on the troll, the chum goes out and the fish are on the corner. Not real big ones - 20 lbs or so. One of my favorite rods for this type of fishing is a Sabre 6870 with 25 lb. In a 15 minute bite, I had three fish. The boat only had a dozen fish or so - including the jig fish. We trolled for another hour or so and nothing. So we went back to Catalina and spent the rest of the day. I don't remember what else we caught that day. Bass, bonito, blue perch and other various bottom grabbers. All I remember is, at the end of the day - some of the folks had a few albacore along with the usual Catalina fish.

Around this same timeframe also, I was fishing a lot with my friend Bryan. Every year in the fall, there would be a Bluefin Tuna bite around the West end of San Clemente Island. Northwest Harbor and around the 9 fathom spot. We would normally get to the island at around daybreak. Almost invariably, the bait would be anchovies - small anchovies, chummers we'd call them. The bait tanks would be full of chummers. To me and Bryan, this was the absolute best situation. The boat can throw a lot of chum - they were called chummers because you could throw a lot of chum without the fish getting full and going away. Anyway, the boat would get setup and start a nice chumline. It usually took a bit of time - but if you kept your eyes peeled, you'd see it. Boils - that were distinct enough that we immediately knew what it was. We had rigs that were fine tuned for just this kind of fishing. Penn Monofils with newell spools (hand picked to make sure the gap between the spool and ring were minimal). The preferred line was 12 lb test, even 10 lb sometimes. I used like using a Silaflex PT60 or a Fenwick salmon rod - they were parabolic and light enough to not break the line. The preferred Monofils were the medium width model - #26, which held about 400 yds. Bryan used to use the Penn 940. And get this, a #8 or #10 mustad hook. These Bluefin were all mini size - 15 to 18 lbs., if you got one over 20 lbs, it stood out like a sore thumb. But boy, were they fun to catch. You had to have the light gear, and on top of that - you had to be able to flyline a chummer, an anchovy about 1 to 2 inches long. Choosing the right bait was a must. We'd never 'just' get a bait. You had to pick the hottest little pinner (another name for chummers) in the tank. The occasional hook bait ( a normal sized anchovy - 5 to 6 inches) was always grabbed by somebody else - who normally couldn't fish a lick and would invariably waste the bait. The whole trick was the light gear and the ability to flyline a bait in the midst of 50 other people on the boat. Bryan and I would always get the majority of the Bluefin. If there was 5 tuna on the boat, we'd have 3 or 4. If there was 10 tuna on the boat, we'd have 7 or 8. It was like that. Along with catching most of the tuna, we'd get the jackpot - which we gave to the crew - which made us designated deadheads. By way of explanation, deadheads - good ones anyway, always caught the majority of the fish. We tried not to get in everybody's way most of the time. As long as you hooked a fish right away - you had priority. Anyway, enough explanations! The tuna fishing at San Clemente used to be good. You could almost count on them to bite in the fall.

Long Range Trips / Big Tuna

I can't quite remember when it was. Had to be in the late '70s. The landing was Lee Palm's in San Diego, and the boat was the Chubasco. I believe this boat is now the Cherokee Geisha. The trip was an 8 dayer. For some reason, my recollection of this trip is minimal. I recall being at Alijos Rocks. This catch was not very memorable. No tuna or wahoo. Just some yellows and bottom grabbers. Quite disappointing - both the trip and my memory. After much time past, while working at Yo's (around 1980) I went on a 16 dayer on the Royal Polaris. Some of the more infamous fishermen of today were just starting their long range trips. The notorious Butch Green was on this trip also. This trip's report made the news. No really big fish, but lots of fish in 100 lb range. For a while, I was fish for fish with Butch. What a fishing machine that dude was!! I ended the trip with 40 or 50 fish in the 100 lb range. Wow. No 2 speed reels yet - all single speed 50's with 100 lb mono. During this timeframe, I also did good on big tuna on local one day trips. A couple of years during the 80's was good for bigeye. Somehow or another, these trips seemed to be on the New LoAn. Nick Cates was running the boat. Good skipper. One particular trip, the bite was pretty good. The fish were all larger units on lighter line - so even though the bite was good, the catching was not. I hooked a fish on 40 lb on a 500 size 300C Newell (I ended up giving this reel to Rollo-Royal Polaris on a subsequent long trip) on a Sabre 865XH (ended up fracturing on this fish - and thrown out). Funny, how I remember some things so clearly. I worked on this beast for a good part of 2 hours. This fish had me down to the knot many times. Later turned out to be 130 lbs. After I had this up, Nick hooked a fish on a heavier rig - 60 lb I think on a 4/0. He first handed the rod to his girlfriend Lori (raisins, we used to call her / Yo started calling her that). She had it for about 5 minutes and was unable to finish it, so handed the rod to me. I finished the job in 10 minutes or so - and ended up with both fish. This trip made the papers too. Incidentally, I got acquainted with Phil Friedman and Matt Kerster at this time. I think Phil was writing articles for the local papers - Gardena Valley News and the Daily Breeze. Another bigeye trip on the LoAn ended with a nice 100 lber. And yet another trip on the LoAn was a nice Bluefin bite. These were medium sized units of 40 to 90 lbs. I think I had 7 or 8 of these things. What a trip!! Probably in the early 90's by now. I recall being the Gardena house and working at Tiernay Metals. About this time, Taka Tanaka was starting his tackle shop in Buena Park. His first long trip (a 17 dayer?) was on the Royal Polaris. I was fortunate enough to go on this trip. By now, the 2 speed reels were coming into their own - no spectra yet though. On this trip, my friend Brian Kiyohara was working and was chumming chunks on the port corner. I had just walked out of the shower and walked out to survey the situation. Brian called me over and told me to get my big gear and put a chunk in NOW!! I looked in the water and it was an instant 'Holy SHIT!!'. This tuna looked like a small car gliding through the water vacuuming up the chunks Brian was throwing in. Grabbed my harness, belt and 100lb rig on a 80S. Threw in a nice chunk and was it was immediate. At strike the line melted off the reel - 150/200 yards? Then all of the sudden it just stopped. Shark? Whatever!! I just put it in low gear and started reeling. It took a while, but soon I could make out a black spot at deep color. The fish surfaced tail first. UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE. This is by far the largest fish I have ever had on the end of my line - ended up being 262 lbs at the dock. Tail-wrapped with somebody else's rig attached. There were 3 or 4 other fish similarly sized on this trip. All caught a few days after mine. I could of swore I was in the money. 1st place - 280, 2nd place 270, 3rd place 268..........damn it. As Maxwell Smart put it - 'Missed it by THAT much!!'.

Ticket Stubs from the past/Catalina on the Fury

Our house is in the final throes of a interior remodeling venture. In the process, I am finding stuff from long ago - disposable and indisposable. One of the thing I found is a small plastic bag with old ticket stubs from fishing trips. I used to put the dates, boat and what I caught on the backs of them. Here are a few....13SEPT92, on the new Shogun when it was just launched. Norm took the overnight boat passengers to Cortez Bank on a day and a half trip. I recall a group of guys who used to frequent Yo's Tackle shop in Gardena on the boat. We had a nice trip over and started fishing in the morning. The Bluefin Tuna were biting. The usual light line and small hook affair. They was a good current and the fish were on the chumline. It was one of those 'can't do any wrong' days. The corners were crowded. It didn't matter which corner I threw in - I had an instant bite. Ten fish for the day. When you consider 30 or 40 guys catching 30 or 40 fish - that's not bad. All the fish were 20 to 30 lbs. I was using an old Silaflex PT70 with a small 229 Newell with 15 lb, and #6 hooks. Ted Kagawa - Norm's dad took a picture of my catch that day and sent it to the Rafu Shimpo (A Japanese-American Newspaper/Los Angeles). They even published it. Hurt a few folks feelings on the boat that day. One of my favorite things to do on a boat is throwing surface irons - particularly Candy Bars, #112's in green and yellow. While going through College - El Camino and Long Beach, I worked on a few boats on weekends and summers. The first boat I worked on was the Fury II out of what was then Ports-O-Call Sportfishing in San Pedro. Tim Ullon was the skipper and ran the boat for John Haas the owner. Catalina was the place of choice to fish. The boat left at midnight every night and fished Catalina. Winters and Springs were spent in competition with other boats to catch the most fish. The original Shogun (a 65' Seaway), the Mustang (a 65' Drake) and other boats would fish the same areas. I recall days at Isthmus Reef - all three of the mentioned boats would be fishing Calico Bass there. We would be close enough to yell at each other. Danny Kadota (Mustang) would be throwing his Tady 9's, Norm Kagawa (Shogun) had his Lamiglass 6909 and throwing the Candy Bar. We would give each other endless grief as to who had the most and the biggest. At this time, I was given a nickname, well actually two nicknames. On the Fury, Tim named me 'Bohunka'. The name was out of a current at the time Playboy article - a parody of sushi. Bohunka was whale anus. Lovely. The other name was 'Vavoom'. Vavoom was a character out of the Felix the Cat cartoon series. He was the little guys from the Alps who would yell - 'Vavoom!!!!' and blow holes in the side of mountains. Even as a deckhand, I would find time during the day to throw the surface iron. Some of the wildest bass bites in memory would occur here. The best time was late Spring when most of the charter boats would head to San Diego for the Albacore bite. We would have Catalina all to ourselves. One particular day, we had a light load - maybe 12 people. It was summer and we had tanks full of chummers - small anchovies that were great for chum, but terrible for hook bait. We would be sitting at the edge of Isthmus Reef and throw a nice steady chum. The Calico's would come out of the reef and go nuts on our chum. Frank Garcia Jr. was the other deckhand. The passengers just weren't able to throw the surface iron and the baits just weren't big enough to cast out. So, Frank and I would take turns coming off the tank and catching one bass after another on the iron. By noon, we would have filled everyone's limit of bass - along with a few bass for ourselves. And these weren't little guys - all 3 to 5 pound units. I had a Sabre 540 with a couple of inches cut off the tip, with a 338 Newell and 40 lb line. It was awesome. Our pinhead was a kid by the name of Jason. His parents were attorneys, and would drop him off at the landing every night during the summers. What a way to keep your kid out of trouble. Anyway, so here we had filled a bass limit for 12 people - 120 bass. We made a few traditional galley moves, before heading for home. Frank and I cleaned/filleted all the bass. I'll never forget this one guy. We charged .75 apiece for filleting. His bill was $6.75 - so he flips us $7. I thought....a $0.25 tip, cheap bastard. Not. Not even a $0.25 tip. That guy waited until we were completely done - to collect his $0.25 change. He said, 'If you guys had given me MY tenth bass, I would have given you the twenty five cents!!'. You see all kinds when you're working on a boat.

Great seabass bites

I've seen quite a few good White Sea Bass bites. I mean, I know there's a strong recurrence of these fish with all the fish-rearing going on. But I really have seen some good ones. As previously mentioned, the first good seabass bite was at Tijuana Flats out of San Diego. Did not see much of these fish for a while after that. Another time, I caught wind of a good seabass bite just outside the Marina Del Rey breakwater on the Redondo half-day boats - an afternoon deal no less. So off I went on the City of Redondo (Rick Oefinger was running the boat - which should give an indication of the timeframe - mid 70's. We got to the spot - a barely visible low spot on the meter in 100' of water. Nothing until 5pm or so. I got bit on on the yoyo iron (6X JR) on the bottom. YoYoing jigs back then was not the 'go to the bottom and wind up as fast as you can' ordeal it is today. It was going to the bottom and just up and down with the rod. I started using a 10' rod - I don't recall the brand - but, light and parabolic, with 40 lb line. We hooked a few on the first go-around. Mine fell off on the way up. All the fish were nice ones - 30/40 lbs. I immediately went back down and got bit again. 36 lbs. Nice fish. That picture went in the Western Outdoor News. There was 30 or 40 guys on the boat and we had 20 or so. Another time, I was on the Redondo Special (don't remember the owner/operator's name) on another afternoon venture. I used to fish a lot on the Redondo half-days. Spur of the moment - got a hair up my ass kind of thing. A lot of times, there wouldn't be anything in particular biting - but I went anyway. So here we were at Haggerdy's (a kelpy/beachy area at the South side of Palos Verdes. We had about a half a tank of sardines and anchovies. All of the sudden - there were sea bass everywhere. They didn't want the anchovies, but every sardine was a sea bass. Not big - but all keepers in the 15 lb category. I learned here, rather than a hot lively sardine - half dead and dead worked better. People would get a bite, pull too fast, bring up their scratched-up half-dead sardines and throw them on the deck. I would pick them up and immediately get bit. For the 20 or so anglers that day, we had about 40 keepers. I had nine, and the jackpot to boot. Two other memorable seabass bites come to mind. The first one was on the Scotia. This is a 45 or 50 foot Seaway owned by Lee Wong. Everybody wanted to fish on the Scotia. I got to know Lee - who was 70-something at the time, through Gerald Chun I think. Anyway, Lee took a liking to me and I fished with him quite a bit. Catalina was his favorite place - especially during winters. We'd leave at 6 or 7 pm out of San Pedro and setup at Catalina for squid. After loading up - and I mean loaded up, as he had 5 or 6 large bait tanks on this boat. I saw some of the most fabulous Calico Bass bites I'd ever seen. A lot of these bites were in places and at times when the regular passenger vessels from San Pedro and Long Beach were just leaving the landing. Between 9/10pm and 1 or 2 in the morning - the bass bites were nothing short of phenomenal. I had sat at many of these same spots on the open party boats and never saw anything close. And the seabass bites. The most memorable of these - for me anyway, was at Point Fermin. It is an area no more than a mile or two outside the San Pedro/Long Beach breakwater. He had a spot - the bearing was a Pagoda on top of PV when it lined up with between two sets of trees, in 50' of water. We had sat there with full tanks of squid, after an already successful day of bass fishing at Catalina. After an hour or so, Lee wanted to go in. For some reason, I asked him to stay for a while longer. I thought they were going to bite very soon. Sure enough, not more than 10 minutes later - we were wide open. The six of us had 30 or 40 seabass in short order. After we got our fill, we called in the Matt Walsh. Ray was very appreciative and got in on the bite also. The second and last one for this post was on a 17' Boston Whaler at Catalina. I had a girlfriend at the time that loved to fish as much as I did - her name was Lori. Her and I went fishing a lot. One day, we were at Catalina around the East end inside Church Rock in 8/10 feet of water. This is a spot Russ Izor showed us and we had been itching to try it in a small boat - rather than the First String. We had been chumming cut squid for an hour or so - we had caught halibut, calico bass and few others the whole time. Then all of the sudden, the meter (fishfinder) went solid under the boat. A large seabass boiled on one of the chummed cut squid. We caught 3 seabass for our efforts. I can't stand it, I have one more. Lori and I were fishing in the same spot where we caught the seabass on the Scotia - at Point Fermin. We drifted for a while and when we got bit, dropped anchor. I think we were both hooked up and pulling on fish and completely ignorant of anything else. We forgot to tie the anchor line to the boat. We both watched as the last of the rope went over the side. On the positive side, we did catch a few seabass.

difficulties in sequential thinking / Giant Albacore

I am having a difficult time recalling memories in sequence. It is also too time-consuming to read all I have written every time I write. So, I may repeat myself and be totally out of sequence - but from here on, at least for a while - write as memories hit me.

I got a ride up from LA from my friend Adam yesterday. I was even fortunate enough to introduce him to a couple of new places. Fresh locally caught shrimp at a small vendor in La Conchita. La Conchita, if you all will recall is the seaside community that got hit with massive mud slides during rain storms a few years back. A lot of the folks are still there, despite the potential for a recurrence. Kind of like New Orleans, I guess. Anyway, my friend Ronald has been telling me about the fabulous shrimp you can get at this roadside store (truck). Adam and I stopped in and got a few pounds - great looking stuff. Before I got home, we also stopped in at a Chinese restaurant in Santa Maria, which coincidentally serves Tacos Al Pastor. Adam pointed out the many idiosyncracies of this place. A chinese restaurant with multi-cultural decor, no chinese workers serving you and great tacos - Al Pastor no less. Great diversion. Incidentally, I made Shrimp Pasta that evening - it was awesome.

Let's see, after I graduated from North Torrance High School - 1973, I moved around a bit. Las Vegas for a year or so, and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for another year or so - then back to Las Vegas for another year or so, before moving back to California. I didn't fish a lot during those years. Just kind of tripped around. After a stint at a small takeout restaurant and working at my folk's health food store, I decided to go back to school. Wait a minute, I did fish a bit during this time. Half day trips out of Redondo, Giant Albacore a few miles outside of Long Beach...to name a few.

The giant Albacore appearing was an interesting phenomenon. They only bit for a week or so. As soon as I got word of the bite at Yo's, I went on the Liberty out of Queen's Wharf in Long Beach. I think I mentioned in a previous post that Gary Nordbye was running the boat. These large Albacore were on meatballs of bait a few miles outside the Huntington Beach oil rigs. We looked around a good portion of the day and finally mid afternoon, found what we were looking for. A big ball of anchovies with fish on it. There must have been 20 or so people on the boat that threw in at the same time. These fish were line shy and would only bite 15/20 pound test and small hooks. Four people got bit. With each passing hour - yes, it took hours to bring these things up - we'd lose one. At the end of the third hour, mine was the only one left. I hooked this fish at around 4pm. I recall it was dark when we got it to color. After four hours of getting nearly spooled countless times, we saw the fish. It was massive (by my standards anyway) at color. I recall thinking this could not possibly be an albacore. They don't make 'em that big. When the deckhands finally gaffed the fish, it was an unbelievable sight. The pectoral fins were longer than the biggest Albacore I had seen to date. We got it back to the fish market scales at Queen's Wharf - 66.5 lbs. Phenomenal!! The world record at the time was around that weight.
The record was not to be, as later that week an Albacore of over 80 lbs was caught. What a week!! What a fish!!!

Redondo Beach

I spent a lot of time around Redondo Beach. I recall seeing the Godfather at Fox Redondo for 75 cents. I caught just about everything out of Redondo Sportfishing. Yellowtail, White Sea Bass, Calico and Sand Bass, Halibut, Black Sea Bass, various sharks, all sorts of rockfish - chilis, grouper, starries, reds, lings - just all kinds of fish. There was also a period of time I fished inside King Harbor. Unbeknownst to most, King Harbor is home to some of the largest Spotted Sand Bass (aka Bay Bass) on the coast. Somewhere along the line we discovered that the Harbor Master (Harbor Police) left his office for about an hour or two between 2 and 3 in the morning. I went fishing there with a lot of friends. But the one I spent the most time fishing there with is Bryan. We would fish all along the walkway by the boat docks with bass rods, 15 lb test and black worms of various kinds - texas style. Some of the bay bass were large - 5 lbs or better sometimes. We never kept any of them - just catch and release. Another one of the guys I fished there with would eventually get his PhD in fisheries and teach back East - DeWayne. He actually ended up mounting one of the larger ones. Anyway, we normally fished the tides - and it was generally good. The Harbor Master's docks were something else. There were three different basses there - bay, sand and calico basses. Not sure that we ever got any big ones - but lots. There were times when the slots were not biting very well. We would climb out on the breakwall in back of the Harbor Master's offices - right under his window. We could hear him talking on the phone sometimes. There was something vicarious about fishing where you weren't supposed to - right under the nose of the police.

thoughts on the Imus thing / continuation

Today, I was going to continue where I left off - but, I'm going on a tangent. What a phenomenal waste of time this Imus thing is. For three days now, everybody from the ordinary citizen to Jesse Jackson has demanded media time. Just fire the bastard and move on. Besides, I could never understand why the folks here are so thoroughly engrossed with words and gesticulations. Somebody flips the finger - or tells somebody to fuck off. So what??? Why waste time responding? Apparently he said something about the non-whites on a college women's basketball team. Whoopedy doo. The media is trying to incite another riot!!

Now on to more productive thoughts. The last few posts bring me to my teens. My teenage years were filled with being a mediocre (at best) athlete, drugs, mediocre grades and drugs. I enjoyed all of it. The bottles of Annie Green Springs, Ripple, Thunderbird, Yago Santgria and when I had a few bucks - Mateus and Lancers(both Rose and White). I worked at Tosh's Chevron on the corner of Normandie and Redondo Beach Boulevard. I went fishing too - just not quite as often. I recall frequenting Payne's Sporting Goods in Gardena, as well as Yo's. I made a skateboard in Mr. Creasy's Wood shop at Peary Junior High School. I rode that damn thing everywhere. I was even voted Home Room President one semester in Mr. Reagan's homeroom. All right, so was everybody else. I don't care - I felt pretty good about it. About this time the family moved from Gardena to Torrance. From Peary to North Torrance High School. This is now 1970. From here on, I lost a portion of my grey matter to drugs. Absolutely no regrets - that's another waste of time thing.

Back to fishing. In San Pedro, there was two landings - 22nd Street Landing and Norm's Landing. 22nd Street was home to a couple of legendary (in fishing anyway) skippers - Frank Hall and Russ Izor. Frank ran the Sharpshooter and Russ the Indian. I always wanted to ride the Sharpshooter - but it always seemed to be full. Those two always caught the seabass and yellows. Norm's had the two Drakes - Toronado and Electra, Roger Hess and Dick Helgren. Those guys were good too. I don't have many regrets - but, I do regret not fishing more during these years. I recall a charter on the Indian. Izor took us to Catalina. Matter of fact, I don't think Izor took his boats anywhere else. Catalina was HIS island. In my life, I have never seen anyone with such intimate knowlege of Catalina. A bit later in life, Izor and I would become good friends. He was already out of the skippering business and became a tackle peddler. I was to be there during his last few months. This is the first time I watched a passing. What an enlightening experience.

I didn't have much experience with fishing San Diego. Around 1967 or 1968, when the family was renting a house in Gardena - the owner of the property was a fisherman, Hiro Hirabayashi. He took me to San Diego to fish the Point Loma (Eddie Diehl) in the wintertime. In those days, the seabass would bite every year at Tijuana Flats. We would yoyo 6X heavy Salas tipped with live squid and drift. I caught my first seabass - 25 and 32 lbs. Very exciting. Hiro gave me two nice Fenwicks (rods) - which were later stolen on Redondo Pier. To be continued.

formative years

Redondo Beach in itself invokes a lot of memories. Before going on too many boats at other landings, I used to ride my Schwinn Stingray down to King Harbor and catch bonito.......lots of bonito. Dead anchovies andTiny Tots were the weapons of choice. By this time, I had a Garcia Mitchell 308. Must have been 6 or 8 lb test and a Garcia Conolon rod. The fishing was phenomenal. I could go there on any given day and catch all the bonito I wanted. On occasion, I would hook a yellowtail and it would spool me. Never did catch one from the rocks. The first few times I did this, I tried to take the bonito home in a gunny sack on my bicycle. Not smart. By the time I got home in Gardena - I had mush. After that, I just got into catch and release. I used to go there in the evenings too. All the meat fishermen would line the rocks and throw a 3 or 4 oz sinker with big treble hooks - and proceed to snag the bonito. Lots of bonito. Soon after, I started to fish on the City of Redondo - the half day boat. That was the boat to be on - with Roy Peters running the boat. I don't remember the exact time of year, but in the Redondo Canyon about a mile or two in front of the Redondo Pier the Bluefin Tuna would show up. You'd catch them on the bottom in 150 to 200 ft of water on light line (10/12 lb test) and small hooks (size 6/8) and a small sinker. I hooked one once - that was it. I watched a few guys catch them - and it was always just a few guys that would get 'em. About this time, there was a half day boat running out of either Hermosa or Manhattan Beach Pier. Tom Kitsuta and I used to go fishing there. What fun. All the barracuda and bonito you cared to catch. Tom's mom used to love eating the fish. There was also three barges you could go fish out of Redondo Sportfishing - California, Sacramento and I don't remember the name of the third one. You could take the ferry boat - the Voyager, and fish whichever one you wanted. If you got tired of fishing on one, you could transfer to the other. What fun. Redondo Sportfishing also had the Pursuit, Reel Special and the Redondo Special (the other half day boat). The Pursuit and the Reel Special were the all day island boats. I remember going on the rockcod trips to 'Hidden Reef' on the Reel Special. The captain was a guy by the name of Homer Lightfoot. He knew Hidden Reef. To the best of my recollection, it was somewhere near Santa Barbara Island - at a time when depth limitations did not exist for cod fishing. We'd fish 400, 500, 600 feet and more. The standard rig was a Penn 6/0 filled with 80lb dacron on a converted gaff blank. The real hard-core guys would use 9/0's and 10/0's filled with 100lb dacron. Where most of the guys would use 5 or 6 hooks - these hardcore guys would use 15 and 20 hooks. Meat fishermen. I would become one later - but, I wasn't one yet. The fish everybody wanted were the Cows and Lings. I didn't catch either one until much later. But the Salmon Grouper, Chili Peppers, Starrys, Warthogs and various others were standard fare. I think I was fishing with a guy by the name of Mel Mitchell at the time. Wintertime was rockcod time.

chapter 2 - Beginnings

The trips out on the Malibu barge was a good foundation. I'll only go into detail on these memories if I remember them. The other rod/reel setups I remember were the Roddy's. Shortly after the barge trips - I was introduced to Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach. What a hopping place that was. And all the boats - the three big boats, Freedom, Liberty and the America, the half day boats - Pierpoint and Matt Walsh. I don't remember all the charter boats, the Miss L I remembe though. The Miss L was to eventually become the Sea Hawk out of Sea Landing in Santa Barbara. There must have been another landing it was at in between, but that's the last place I remember it. A fella by the name of Merit McRea ran and owned it. Nice guy. The Freedom is at 22nd St. Landing now - owned by Tommy Lee and Mike Frank. Mike and I have a long history - I'll get into that later. The Liberty, I believe is being run out of a landing in Long Beach somewhere. Last time I was on it, I caught a 66lb Albacore - with Gary Nordbye running the boat. This is another story I will get into later. The America is now the Grande in San Diego. I don't know what happened to the Pierpoint. It kind of looks like the City of Seal Beach - but, I don't know if it is the same boat. The Matt Walsh is running half day trips out of Port O Call - I think its LA Harbor Sportfishing now. Anyway, it was just amazing. All these boats, and a Television show too. 'Fishing Flashes' with Mac McLintock. He had film clips from various trips and gave the current fishing news. Many great memories from that place. There was a barge parked right next to the landing. I recall lmy dad taking me down to the landing and fishing from this barge. Lots of big bonito, tom cod and a few halibut. Somewhere along the line, I got to go on one of the big boats - I do not remember which one. After I started to go on those trips - I went on all three. I think it was the Freedom, where I met the deckhands - who I would see in 2004 or so on the Royal Polaris on a 8 day Long Range trip, his name was John. This is now about 1967/1968 or so, John offered to let me on the boat for free if I scrubbed the boat. 'YEAH!!!!' was my response. My first job as a pinhead. One of the trips I remember vividly. We left the docks and made tanks of squid at Catalina. Then on to San Clemente Island. I am relatively certain we went around the East end of the island and somewhere around China Point. It was light - maybe 6 or 7 in the morning. We made a big chum circle and all hell broke loose in the circle. Yellowtail, White Sea Bass, Calico Bass - all up and eating chum. We anchored and started fishing. On this particular trip - Bobby Carr was skippering the boat. My tackle nor experience were enough for the yellowtail. I seem to recall I hooked one - when the fish took off, my reel blew up - my Optimo spinning reel. Shit!! Bobby came down to the deck and hooked one on a boat rod and handed it to me. It was just too much for me. I recall looking around the boat and seeing amazing things. A guy fishing on the bottom had his limit of halibut - all big ones, with tails sticking out of his gunny sack. The fishing was just phenomenal. On other trips, a Japanese guy was running the Freedom - Taka Tanaka, who I will become well acquainted with later in life, along with his sons. And Jim Peterson, he would end up owning Ports O Call Sportfishing, the Sport King and my dear friend's boat - the First String. There was another landing in the same area - Pacific Sportfishing. They had the Pacific Queen, Estrella, Fisherman I and II. I think my first Albacore trip I was on the Pacific Queen - I did not catch one. I was given one though - and pretended I caught it. Cheesy at best. Oh well. There were also rock cod trips on the Fisherman II. Deep water codding off the West end of Catalina (600/800ft) - Big Salmon Groupers and Cows. Up the coast a bit, there was Redondo Sportfishing. I'll start off my next segment there.

introduction to fishing

I got to the USofA at the age of 8 - in 1963. A bothersome inherent condition I've had all my life is a memory in dire need of improvement. I tell this hot dog story all the time. When I was young - in Japan, I used to go the the department store in Ikebukuro - Seibu. I used to love to get the hot dogs - served cut in half. Not knowing any better, I thought all hot dogs in the world were served cut in half. What a surprise I got when I got to Los Angeles, to the nearest burger stand and got served a WHOLE hot dog - not half, but the WHOLE hot dog. What a place this 'America' is. I've had an affair with hot dogs ever since. So much for the non-fishing stories for the moment. My dad liked to fish. Somehow, after I got into it big - he just seemed to lose interest. But as my interest amplified geometrically - he would take me and drop me off at different places. I'm not sure where I got introduced to fishing first. It had to be either the rocks along Playa del Rey/Marina Del Rey breakwater, using pieces of shrimp for bait. I recall catching small calico bass. There must have been more to it, but that's all I remember. The other place I recall vividly is fishing at Malibu Pier. Now that I think about this, fishing from the rocks must have come first. Because the fishing at Malibu Pier was from the barge. 'The Star of Malibu' it was called. Big bonito, mackerel, halibut and the occasional black sea bass. The ferry boat - 'Wae We Go'. I can still hear the announcer over the PA - ' In a few minutes, the 'Wayyyyyyy WeGooooooo' will be pulling up alongside the pier for the ride out to the barge'. I'm not sure about some of the verbiage - but, the 'Wayyyyyy WeGoooooo' part is an absolute. I had a 'Optimo' spinning reel - I don't remember the brand of rod. I would think at that time, being sold at Thrifty Drug Store was 'Tuna King'. I recall hooking large bonito and having them just ripping line off the reel. Fun. At this stage of the game, everyone else was catching the most fish. I'd hook the occasional fish - but, then as today - a few folks were catching the majority of the fish. After these ventures, I recall my dad coming home from fishing with big yellowtail. This was my introduction to Pierpoint Landing. More to come tomorrow.

Got it!!

I've been trying to think of what to write on this blog and have come up with a solution. Writing down daily thoughts at the end of the day is way too trying. Most of the time, I have a hard enough time recalling what I ate for lunch. So, I have decided to write about my fishing experiences. Should be quite fruitful. From 1964 to today (2007). I'll start this tonight. I will probably intersperce this with spontaneous thought as I go. Should be interesting.

Another day in slow motion

The work situation for me is in a state of flux. The one contract that I thought was going to turn into the 'one and only' - is fizzling fast. The overall situation is dissipating. So, I now have to make some decisions. I hate regressing. I hate revisiting situations that I thought I outgrew. At this point in my life, options are dwindling. Shit. On the brighter side, I went to Monterey and visited my friends. I don't have many friends. I am extremely careful not to abuse the term 'friends'. Friends are forever. They either are, or never were. These four (4) friends are from the same family - two brothers and two sisters. The oldest is now 31(?) or so. He's the only one I haven't known since birth. All four are by far the brightest, smartest people I know. All of them make my day - every time I see them.

Onward....through the fog!!

Now that I've created this, the spontaneity has overwhelmed me. Our household is in the throes of a refinance. Here we are, combining the primary and an equity home loan - and the establishment wants to know everything. Mind you, they asked for everything before. True, we are borrowing an relatively inordinate amount of money. Over 30 years time, we will have paid back about 2.5 times what we borrowed. Of course, chances of still being alive 30 years from now is a bit questionable. However, as every homeowner still paying mortgage knows - '90% of the mortgage payment is interest'. Yeah. It's of 'interest' all right. What a bunch of shit. On the brighter side, salmon season starts in about two weeks. And the rockfish season another four weeks after that. Now that folks, is excitement. Well, that's a start. Let's see if I can make this interesting enough for others.