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!!!