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.