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.