Other kinds of fishing - fly fishing

I think I have been bubbling so much about salt-water fishing, that I forgot about all the other available types of fishing I have done. I did not start fly fishing until much later in life. I have had a fly rod for a long time - but did not really use it. A girlfriend I was with at the time, was an avid fishergirl. I will do another post on her - she was awesome. Anyhow, her and I took a fly fishing class. Many years later - I started a new job as an outside salesman (>twenty-five (25) years ago), I used to meet all sorts of people - who do all sorts of things. It was always a good thing to look around the client's desk and figure out what they were into. If I saw anything to do with a fish - I could already tell we were going to get along good. One of these guys was a flyfisherman named Mike. Every time I made a sales call at his office, we would invariably talk about fishing. My territory included not only a good portion of SoCal, but Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. When I would make my rounds - I would carry around a pack-rod, a ultra-light spinning rig. It did not work for everything - but for lakes/rivers/streams, it worked fine. As soon as my last sales call was done for the day, I would find the nearest fishing tackle store, buy a license and ask where the nearest place to fish was. Around Phoenix and Tucson, there were small urban lakes that had the usual bluegill, crappie, bass and catfish - and in the winter-time, planters (trout). Since minimal luggage was always the case, most of what I carried around was 2 and 4 pound test and a bunch of small lures. I must of looked funny - sport coat and tie, with a fishing pole in my hand. There were other places to fish, but they were too out of the way to go. New Mexico was about the same - except in the northwest corner (four corners), there was a small city called Bloomington. Nearby was a 'blue-ribbon' rainbow trout river called the San Juan River. After all the stories I had heard about this place, I met up with a flyfisherman (and aerospace raw material buyer) named Eric - who loved flyfishing. So we planned it and went. First thing I remember is all the concessions were owned by the same guy - Abe. It was Abe's tackle store, Abe's cabins, Abe's Restaurant, Abe's gas station - everything was Abe's. So we checked into one of the cabins and prepared for the next day. Here, I figured out what I needed to do this right. All the little widgets needed for the various tasks. I had enough 'stuff' to fish with - just not very efficiently. The San Juan River was a nice river - in a nice setting. I think at least a part of fly-fishing is the immediate surroundings. The fishing and scenery are equally important for the complete experience. We did not do that well. I think I caught one small rainbow for two days of fishing - not what I would call a banner trip. I watched a fellow fisherman catch one after another - nice fish too. Irritating. I made a mental note of all the things (widgets) that I would acquire for my next trip. Another place I went was in Utah - the Provo River. I had a customer I called on in Spanish Fork - and as usual asked around about the nearest fishing hole. The lower section of the Provo is a slight detour on the way back to Salt Lake City. It was mid-afternoon, my sales call was finished - time to go fishing. I had my usual ultra-light spinning outfit with me, and along with the usual small lures - a few flies in my small tackle box and a small cast-a-bubble. After watching a fly-fisherman catch a few, I decided to rig up my spinning rod with the cast-a-bubble and a fly. A couple of casts later - my first fly-caught brown trout. I went there every time I had sales calls to make around SLC. I talked to my friend Mike and we decided to make a trip there. I also found out that a cousin of a good friend of mine is a guide in SLC and specialized in fishing the Provo and Green. We were set. Not only that, he offered us his guest house to stay in. I have a funny story. The guy who introduced me to his cousin in SLC is Danny. He is a good friend of mine - we've worked together and fished together. It was his cousin Stew that is the fly-fishing guide in SLC. Danny and I are somewhat similar - we are both Japanese, we are both fat, we both have hair on our face - well, all right he has more hair than I do, but similar. The first time I met Stew, we met on the lower section of the Provo. We had already talked on the phone and he gave us the full scoop on where to fish with what. He took one look at me and said, 'Danny, you got taller!!'. After a few minutes of uncontrollable laughter - I knew we were going to get along just fine. Stew had everything in the back of his Suburban - more stuff than I've seen in some stores. He gave us full instructions on how, where and when to fish. The fishing was phenomenal. He stayed with us all day and both Mike and I caught more of the biggest trout we had ever caught in our lives - both Rainbows and Browns. He knew this place. The lower section was somewhat similar in surroundings to the San Juan. But the middle section was very urban. Neither Mike or I would consiider ourselves much more than amateurs at best - and the fishing here made us look and feel like professionals! It was not a place you could make the long 'The River Runs Through It' type of casts - but large and deep enough that you could not walk across it. Of course it helped that a guide was showing us the spots to fish, what to fish with and how to fling it. But the fishing was really good. Mike and I made a trip or so a year for a while. He got married, had a couple of kids and is 'busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest'. We talk on occasion - but have not gone fishing in a while. I intend to show my friend Mark this place. I think he would like it.

Yet another long trip

Well, it's been a while since the boat got back. As usual, the afterthoughts are many. As previously mentioned, the boat was nothing short of awesome. Let's start at the beginning. Mark picks me up in the morning and we start our trek south. Arrival in San Diego at the usual hotel, dinner at Butch's restaurant and before we knew it, we were at the landing ready to board. The boarding process was organized. This is the first time I had seen an 'organized' boarding. A few guys were hired specifically to help with our gear and board the boat - sequentially. None of the usual 'first come, first served' mad dashes for the carts. The 'red-shirts'(they were called) made sure we all had a cart, were lined up in sequence and boarded in sequence. Still did not bode well for the guys with higher numbers - who wanted the 'choice' places to place their tackle boxes. But still, more organized than I had seen or experienced before. Nice. After the initial 'why-the-fuck-did-we-bring-all-this-shit!' was stated by everyone, we were sitting in the galley waiting to leave. I am waiting patiently for the initial 'VROOM, VROOM' of the engines starting. Nothing. What the hell is the holdup? Well, I look outside, and we are already moving - and I didn't hear a damned thing. WOW! Time and again throughout this trip, we would be amazed at how quiet this boat was. On the way out to the bait receivers, the cook made us a sandwich for lunch. Initially, I thought......'pretty good sandwich'. Not really out of the ordinary in the world of sandwich kingdom....but, a good sandwich nonetheless. As the trip progressed, the food was nothing short of awesome. In the world of fishing boat food, this food was spectacular. Javier was his name. He was no ordinary boat cook - but a chef. Now I may not be the preeminent judge of the culinary arts - but, this guy's food was awesome. By now, some readers may start to wonder why I went fishing, and haven't mentioned the fishing yet. In my previous post, I wrote that the fishing experience is no longer just the fishing. It is the boat, the accommodations, the food and other necessities (read, niceties), that complete the multi-day fishing experience. The four day ride to the fishing grounds was very nice - boat, food, accommodations, all of it - thus far. I know if I was on another boat looking at us, I'd be thinking that I wanted to be on THAT BOAT. All right, enough burbling about all of that. Somewhere in the conversations with some of the crew, I found out that none of the crew (with the exception of the skipper) had been on a long trip before. Not necessarily bad, but not necessarily good either. We had known from our previous voyage about the 'black sheep' description that this operation had.

Here, I am going to go off on a bit of a tangent away from this trip to describe the overall environment. The patrons of this recreation are a dedicated group. By dedicated, I mean these are folks that like this type of fishing and go regularly. We're talking about a type of fishing that can't be had anywhere else in the world. There are places you can fish tuna and wahoo similar to ones caught on these trips - but the way you fish for them is the key. I mean, you have to be a true addict to go on a boat for two (2) weeks, not touch land - and do nothing but fish. For the money these trips cost - you can take your wife somewhere really nice. I don't think the number of patrons have grown much or shrunk much over the years. When I first started going on these fifteen to eighteen day trips 25 years ago, there were fewer boats - four, I think. So the boats that made the long trek were going much of the time at or near full capacity - to fish an area made up of three (3) islands (San Benedicto, Socorro and Clarion), one (1) rocky outcropping (Roca Partida) and Hurricane Bank (if the fishing at the islands got really tough). Over the years, the number of dedicated long-range fishermen have not grown much - but the numbers of boats have at least doubled to ten. As such, the trips these days are now going with a much lighter load. Add this situation to the environmentalists minimizing the areas (Revillagigedos are now closed to fishing) allowable to fishing - basically to one (1) spot - Hurricane Bank. Well, fishing boats are allowed to fish six (6) miles out side of the islands. We can make a whole separate issue with this one. Anyway, it is unfortunate, but I think there will be an adjustment soon. What I'm trying to get at is, the competition is fierce. And despite this competitive environment, newcomers kept slicing the pie thinner. So like I said, an adjustment is forthcoming and inevitable.

The 'Black Sheep' description is not necessary negative. This new boat has now been in the water a couple of years, and it is holding its own. Not necessarily to reveal the fickle side of the long-range fishermen, but to prove that - yes, some fishermen (especially the ones that can afford to go on these long range trips) do like a nice new boat. The staterooms are still small - but new! Each stateroom had its own flat screen and DVD player - not that you need it, but a nice touch. All pretty standard stuff in the staterooms, except for the portholes. Each room had its own porthole - basically a window to see outside. Makes the tiny spaces they are, seem just a bit less 'coffin-ish'. Nice, very nice. For me, I can sum up the deck with - nice stern area to fish and an actual set of stairs to the sun deck. Instead of climbing up a ladder - stairs you can actually walk up. And stabilizers on either side of the boat make the ride in lumpy weather steady. Not much good when you have a nice fish on and have to get past it - but, damn nice when you are riding uphill in crummy weather. So that about describes the boat. The fishing is pretty much the same no matter what boat you are on. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it isn't. It does help to have an operator that has been at it for a while, and a crew too. For a fifteen (15) day trip, we got relatively little time to fish. Besides having some unexpected mishaps with our bait supply, the water being 85 degrees and a bit of a green crew, there were a couple of chubascos chasing us around. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time moving out of the way of the storms. We trolled through some great areas that might have been good - but, by that time - our bait supply was almost gone. The lack of chum makes things tough. And oh, by the way the RSW system decided to break down about halfway into the trip. Not that we had that much in there anyway. Mark was having a salty trip. I think his back was bothering him more than he cared to mention. I had one good day of fishing for a few medium sized tuna, and Mark had a few wahoo. At the end of trip, we had enough fish to take home. As an added bonus, the cans of tuna we thought we got screwed out of on the last trip, came back to us. Good thing - because we were ready to beat 'em up with our fishing poles (we're too old to kick the crap out of anything - besides, we could get hurt!!!). For some reason, I must have been expecting more. I am scheming to go on another trip in a few weeks. Can I afford another act of PURE selfishness? Probably not. But I can scheme.

Another long trip

It is now September 29. It is a week and a day or two away from a trip I have been looking forward to for 20 months or so. In 2008, I was on the Rooster for 15 days in January. After that trip, we discussed and decided on this trip on the Intrepid. At the time, it was the first scheduled trip to Hurricane Bank. I began the slow painful process of paying off this trip. About a month ago, during one my vicarious fishing trips on the net, i noticed something interesting. The Q had scheduled a long trip a week before ours. What fricking nerve. The bastards decided to do the 'one-upsmanship' (read 'macro-phallic) thing and replace us as the first ones on the bank. Well, you know what? We will be on a much nicer boat - and not only that, they are going to get the fish in biting mode for us. I have been on the Q before. It is very low in the water - and for fishing purposes, a great boat. But it is old now. And so am I. It is a fishing trip - and it is about going fishing. However, I have gotten to a point now - where it is not just about getting there ASAP and fishing. It is now about how I get there as well. The food, the stateroom and really the boat in general. Even how the boat looks counts - where it did not really count at all before. And let me tell you, the boat looks 'awesome'. As the days wind down to hours before this trip leaves, I cannot help but think about how selfish these trips are. No phone, no car, no email (relatively recent phenomena), no fax (used to be telexes), no family (yes, I will miss my wife......after a week or so......well, maybe two weeks), no dog (I will miss him, but not picking up his turds), and even if something REALLY bad happened - I am over 900 miles away in the middle of the ocean. I could not do a damn thing about it anyway! The first long trip I took was in the late 1980's on Yo's first long trip. It was also the first long trip for many of the so-called 'reigning kings' of long range fishing today. Butch Green was on this trip. Russ Izor used to call him - 'Butch Green - boy fisherman'. What a fishing machine he was. His fishing arsenal was simple. Penn 50's - no wides, and a narrow 80. There was no spectra at that time - so it was straight 100 pound monofilament. All his reels had one of the sets of clamshell spring washers replaced with a solid brass ring. Basically, it made his reels put out 50 pounds of drag or more - without all the fancy re-working done at various locales now. He fished straight 50's for all his bait fishing - and he did not lose very many. The 80 was used for trolling his favorite jig - a big Dynatroll. For those of you unfamiliar with Dynatrolls - the lure was later replicated in smaller models by SeaStrike I think. Not sure. All I remember was - the damn jig was about a foot long and had hooks all over it. He let me troll with his rig once. That jig was bit ALL the time. He trolled it further back than most - because he was looking to catch a 200 pound tuna, he used to say (in those days, there just weren't that many 200 pounders - let alone 300's). For wahoo though (which incidentally, was also the name of his dog), he would tell me to NOT yell 'HOOKUP' until we drug the wahoo for a little while. He said if I yelled as soon as it got bit - the wahoo would fall off. Sure enough, the first time it got bit with me watching it - I yelled 'HOOKUP'. As soon as I started to reel it in - the fish came off. Amazing. So when we got the boat going again, sure enough it got bit right away. But I waited....and waited.....and waited, had to be 30 seconds or more (which is a long time when you have a fish on the end of your line and are doing absolutely nothing about it) - finally yelled 'HOOKUUUUUUP'. It stayed on the hook and up came my first wahoo. Amazing. Now that I think about it, the tackle used on the long trips now is vastly improved from what it was. We were told not to use the rails. It had to be because the owners did not want their nice wood railings scratched up. The long trips now consider 100 pound mono to be too light. Getting back to Butch. He used a harness - but no butt belt. People used to wonder - how the hell could he fish that tight and not use a belt? I was determined to try and keep up. The first day at San Benedicto - we both had about 20 or 25 fish - they weren't real large, probably between 100 and 150 pounds. Caballitos were the bait of choice - and we had to catch them almost every night. Night fishing was also standard on these trips - almost everybody would have a set time for the deckhand to wake them up. These were straight catch your own - fish your own (i.e. catch your own bait and fish your own bait) affairs. On the last long trip - I thought about why it is that night fishing has all but disappeared. I think it is because the islands (Revilla Gigedo Island chain) are now off limits to fishing. Why tuna would be nocturnal feeders near an island - and not when they are in open water, does not make much sense to me. Matter of fact, I think this trip - I am going to put in some time fishing at night. Two to three in the morning. Yeah, that's a good time. Looking forward to a trip for this long is both good and bad. Good, because.........it teaches you patience, and proves that some things are worth waiting over 20 months for. Bad, because........I know I have fished this trip in mind countless times in the last 6 months. In that sense, this trip will be anti-climactic. And lastly, many changes have taken place since that first long trip. The improved tackle, the boat owners allowing the use of the rails, chunking, kites, just a multitude of stuff that has made it much easier for the fisherman to catch bigger fish. I recall catching an absolutely rude quantity of tuna on my first long trip. If I traded it all for cans - I would probably still have canned tuna. Later, I would end up going on Taka's first long trip - on which I landed a 'fish of a lifetime'. You know what though? I still hate soaking bait. Maybe I will be a little better at it this time. The dog and trick saying comes to mind.

Recently I have noticed.......

When I was younger - and full of piss and vinegar, I wanted to fish every chance I got. I wanted to fish when I could, when I couldn't, when I should, when I shouldn't.....just all the fricking time. And for a while after I got to know how to fish, wanted to catch as many as I could. Limit? What limit? Well, after that, I did get to a point where I stayed within established limits. I still wanted to go where I shouldn't to fish - but THAT'S different. Lately, I am running into people that have just started fishing - and are absolutely crazy about it. They want to catch every damn thing - sharks, rays, sunfish, sardines and just any damn thing that swims. I am just not that excited about catching any damn thing any more. I went fishing with a neighbor who just started fishing a year or so ago - on my boat. For the most part - I am not much for soaking bait. I like using artificials - just lures of any sort. So out we went on boat out of PSL - going my usual 'bat out of hell' speed. I started to go to some of my favorite numbers on the GPS. Since I don't use bait - if the fish aren't interested in my swimbaits or jigs, screw 'em - I'm moving. Well my buddy is using bait. He's getting bites. So, I'm starting the engine and moving around (my usual) and looking for a better spot - while my buddy is not having much time to soak his bait. Naturally, he got a bit irritated and started to say so. He started to say something about the importance of catching a limit of fish. Well, I don't really give a shit about a limit of fish. I just wanted something to eat my swimbait lures. If I caught a limit, great - but I certainly don't give that much of a shit about that. My buddy got to a point, where he just wanted to soak his bait anywhere. He just asked me to stop the boat - whether there were any marks on the fart-o-meter (that's fathometer, for the unaware folks) or not. So we ended up with less than one (1) limit of fish - and I gave them all to my buddy to take home. After we got back, I'm cleaning and scrubbing the boat. And all the time I'm thinking - what a pain in the ass it is to take my boat out. And I am also thinking about the difficult person I have become to fish with - a geniune asshole by any bait fisherman's standards. I could have paid my 70 or 80 bucks and gone out on a party boat - and not have to worry about cleaning any damn boat.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - I still love to fish. I still can't think of any other activity I would rather be doing than fishing. But my own rules are not the same. I no longer want to fish for anything that will bite a hook. I no longer want to catch all I can. And presently, I am not so fond of cleaning my boat after going out with it either.

My last season on the Mustang

It was the mid-1980's, and one of the last banner years for albacore. It June, and I had gotten a job decking on the Mustang. Now I was going to make BIG sidemoney. Around that time, the albies were already biting in San Diego, but it was not yet time for us to go yet. One day, we all had a trip off and we were all itching to go fishing. Danny Kadota called Islandia in San Diego to see if there were any boats available that we could commandeer. The Pursuit was available - however, the steering was shot. There was a couple of guys that hung around Ports'O'Call at the time - Tom Vernor and a friend of his, they were welders. So, off we all went to San Diego - Danny, Marty, Ed, Tom, Target, Timmy and a couple of others I don't remember. Once we got down to San Diego, the welders went right to work. Within a couple of hours, the steering was fixed and we were on our way to the bait receivers. The steering was not the only thing not working. The loran was not working either. Oh well. We were underway around 2 in the morning. By daylight - we didn't really know where we were. Some of us had a bit of whiskey the night before and were not in the best of shape. We proceeded to put out the jigs and BAM. We were into the fish. WIDE OPEN. The rest of the fleet were having a tough day - and wanted to know where we were. We could not tell them where we were. By around noon, we had more albacore than we knew what to do with - well over 100 fish for 10 guys or so. We started towards home - and I remember Tom had this meat stick of a trolling rod he was trolling with. We all decided not to fish anymore - except Tom. He had his jig in the water as soon as we started for home. Well, while he was not paying attention to his rod - he gets bit. We all see it, but decide not to tell Tom. It took him a couple of minutes - but once he realized he was on, neither Timmy or Danny would stop the boat. All of us laughed our heads off while Tom struggled with the fish. We were back to the docks by 1 or 2 in the afternoon with 0ver 100 albacore. What the heck were we going to do with it all? Off the back of the boat, we would give an albacore to anyone walking by that wanted one. This trip started thing off for the upcoming season. By the time we took the Mustang to San Diego, the bite was WFO. Most of the boats were reporting 150+ fish daily. The Mustang was a very popular charter boat at the time and was booked almost solid with charters from the time we got down there in early July to well into September. A normal day would start at around 8 or 9 at night when the charter group would start to arrive. The excited people would ask the same questions every night - what time did the fish start biting, what pound test should they use, what size hook should they use, how big were the fish, etc etc. After a while, you would not have to pay attention to the questions - the answers were programmed in our heads. At around 10 pm, we would leave the docks and head for the bait receivers. After loading bait, we were out of the harbor by 11 or so. Normally, the fish were out 60 to 80 miles or more sometimes. Which meant 6 to 8 hours of driving the boat. Since the pinhead wasn't allowed to drive, the three deckhands would have to drive until daybreak. Every third day was the reprieve - 5 to 6 hours of sleep! It was amazing that we would all function. We would fish until 2 in the afternoon or so, and start our way back to the docks. A couple of us would scrub the boat while the other two would cut fish - fileting and head/gut. Most days when we had over 150 fish, the scrubbers would finish and help finish cutting the fish. By 7 or 8 at night, we would be pulling into the docks and help the passengers unload their fish and tackle. And the whole routine would start all over again. After two weeks of this, I remember calling around to see who had the day off and wanted to work relief. The Fortune - which parked next to us was also busy with charters, but not like us. DeWayne Fox - who is now a respected professor in Delaware, would work relief for me sometimes. Brian Kiyohara - who is now a respected owner/operator of the American Angler used to work relief too. I recall begging and pleading with Brian on the radio - please work for me!! Sometimes, we would get lucky and get to the docks while there was sunlight left. Bonus time!!!! We got to take showers. My favorite thing to do with what little time I had was to sit in the dark behind the tackle shop with a wine cooler. Sometimes we had a couple of minutes, sometimes we had an hour or two. Most of the time it was an hour or less. And on really rare occasions, the boat would break down and have to cancel a trip the next day. OH BOY!!!! We got to go the friendly neighborhood bar and get shitfaced. It might still be there - across the street from the Islandia Hyatt. I was into gin gimlets, Moose was into Whiskey Sours. Yucch. How can anybody drink those. The boat broke down one time and we all went to the bar. We had already been working for a while by then and had plenty of cash. Each of us must have taken a few hundred dollars - and made some waitresses very happy. Somehow, we all made it back to the boat and passed out. The next morning, we all woke up one by one - except Moose. And Danny - being the worst prankster of us all, had an idea. He said - 'when Moose wakes up, what's the first thing he's going to do? He's going to walk around the boat a bit, fill the bucket full of water and go to the head for his morning ritual'. Now a couple of things to mention here - when the boat is tied up at the dock, the shore power is plugged in so that everything works, except the toilets. The toilets usually have running water when the generator is running - but not when we are tied up at the dock. So, you had to take a bucket of water with you if you wanted to go 'number two'. Also, we did have showers on the boat - however, they were in the same room as the toilets. Now, we pointed the shower heads right at the toilet - and shut off the power to the water pump. Get the picture? Now all we had to do was wait for Moose to wake up and go to the head for his morning routine. A while later, Moose wakes up. While the rest of us sat in the galley and watched - just as Danny said, he walked around a bit, then filled up one of the buckets with water and slowly made his way to the head. OH BOY!!!! We made sure to give him plenty of time to pull down his pants, sit down and start concentrating. And then.........'click' - we turned on the water pumps. Moose came out a minute later - thoroughly soaked and cursing at all of us. 'Payback's a bitch!!!!!'. This was one of the most memorable moments during the time I spent on the boats. Hell, this may have been one of the memorable moments in my LIFE!!. All in all, I think we all had a great time working on the Mustang. Another one of the guys we worked with - Mike Frank, went on to get his license, buy a crew boat and converted it to a fishing boat - 'New Image' he called it. After that, he and a partner bought the Freedom from Fred Carrozzo.

working on the boats / 1969 - 2001

I'm not sure about the timeframe. I do know it in the late 60's when I started pinheading on the Freedom - and the last time I worked was on the Royal Polaris on a 10 dayer some time around 2000. I mentioned it a bit on an earlier posting, but the first time I worked on a boat was the 'Freedom'. Scrubbing the boat for a free trip. As a kid, you just couldn't beat it. One of the deckhands at the time - John....I don't remember his last name, and a tall red-haired guy with the mirrored ski sunglasses. I subsequently ran into John on the Royal Polaris, the last time I worked on a boat. He didn't remember me, but I remembered him. He looked pretty much the same, just a bit older. The galley guy was 'Moose'. Now that I think about it, he had the same name as a good friend who I was to work with later. Moose would feed me leftovers after we got done scrubbing. I say 'we' because a lot of times I would work with a guy I went to school with - Mel Mitchell. One particularly memorable meal on the boat I remember was tamales and chili, which I promptly hurled. Funny how my mind works. Some things I remember with amazing clarity, while others are barely a thought. I don't remember how often I worked - but, I remember going quite a bit. Around the late 60's when I was really starting to like fishing, my dad would challenge me to do things after which he would take me fishing. One of the memorable ones was jump-roping 100 times without stopping. If I could accomplish that, my dad would take me fishing. After my stint in the late 60's and early 70's as a pinhead, I would not work on a boat until I started going to college. I moved around a bit after I got out of high school. In a nutshell, I moved out of my folks' house into an apartment complex - 'Friday USA Apartments' it was called. What a party place!! Then I relocated to Las Vegas and the south rim of the Grand Canyon for a few years. I came back to LA and started to work for my parents at their health food stores and eventually started a small takeout restaurant. I fished a lot during those years. When I turned 27, my mother dared me to go to college. I took her up on it and started El Camino Junior College. Then to Cal State Long Beach. But this is the time I worked on the boats a lot. I worked on the Fury out of Ports'O'Call Sportfishing. Every night, we would take out a load of people and fish either Catalina or Santa Barbara. We didn't go to San Clemente much. Timmy Ullon ran the boat, John Haas owned the boat and on deck was Frank Garcia Jr. - and we had our own pinhead. A kid belonging to a rich family - I think the folks just wanted to get him out of their hair. This work was mainly in the summer. Every night at 11pm we would leave, get bait and anchor up at Catalina in the dark waiting for sunrise. One of us would always be up on deckwatch. During the winter and spring, we would have a lot of company at Catalina - the charter boats....namely the Mustang. Danny, Moose, Mark, DeWayne - and them guys always made the 'BIG' sidemoney. As deckhands, we survived on sidemoney - tips and fish cleaning money. On a good trip - Timmy, Frank, the maggot(our pinhead) and I would split $300. Them guys on the Mustang always made $100 or more each. It was irritating. And Moose would needle me all the time. What a miserable individual he was!! We would leave about the same time - and talk to each other on our wheel watches. The ride across the channel to Catalina was not very long - but, we split it up anyway. So, from 12am to 6am was split three ways - 2 hours each. The first watch was cool. You were already awake anyway, and a couple more hours was a piece of cake. The second watch STUNK. After loading bait, you get cleaned up and go immediately to bed, only to be woken up at 2am for your wheel watch. At the end of your watch, you had to wake up the guy on the last watch - and then get another couple of hours before the day started. The third watch was the best. After the bait ordeal, you go immediately to bed for an uninterrupted five to six hours. It was pure heaven. So every third trip - you got the third watch. There was more to the bait ordeal than most people saw. You had to be careful and put the bait into the tanks gingerly and softly. Otherwise, the bait would roll - die in other words. And there is nothing worse than trying to make a day at the island with no live bait. Yeah, we did have frozen squid in the freezers. But with the frozen stuff - you were pretty much limited to what you were going to catch. I'm going to fit in a side story here. The jig sticks of choice were the Sabre 540's - with just a bit cut off the tip so you could fish 40 lb. I don't remember which reel I was using. I think it was the original 300C Newell, but I don't remember. My favorite jig became the CandyBar - the 112, the big one. They came in three sizes, but the one to use was the 112. The color of choice was the GM green - called that because the GM Diesels which powered many of the boats were painted this color. Everywhere we went at Catalina - I threw the CandyBar on the 540. The calico bass fishing at times was awesome. One of the spots we did particularly well at was 'Isthmus Reef'. There were a few spots you could park - our favorite was the west edge of the reef. During the spring, a large portion of the bait was chummers. By that I mean the anchovies were very small - 2 to 3" in size. Not much for putting on a hook - but OH BOY were they good for chumming. You could throw handfuls of the chummers for hours and the fish would continue to bite. So, we would slowly make a chum circle at the west edge of the reef and anchor up. The current had to be going east - otherwise this does not work. So when the conditions were right, the big calicos would bite the jigs....really good. Until mid to late June, the Mustang would remain at Ports'O'Call and fish at Catalina. I remember sitting side by side at Isthmus Reef. Us, the Mustang and even the original Shogun. There were not very many people that fished the longer rods for jigs and much of the time we had this type of fishing to ourselves. Norman Kagawa was running the Shogun. I worked for him a few times too - with Vince Otani and Allan.....an all buddha-head crew. Norman had this jig stick I always wanted. For some reason you couldn't get it anymore - a Lamiglass 6909. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I tried to talk Norman out of that rod. Anyway, by early summer - the charter boats would take off for San Diego for the albacore fishing, and we would have Catalina all to ourselves. I worked on the Fury for a couple of seasons, and I eventually hit the big time.......a job on the Mustang! After the winter/spring season at San Pedro, we were off to San Diego. We parked at Islandia Sportfishing's docks in Mission Bay. The last year I worked on the Mustang was the last year I was at Cal State LB. And what a albacore season it was! For a good portion of the three months of summer, the boat had 150+ albacore every day. This is getting too long. I will continue this story on my next posting.

Moose & Virg's / Avila, Morro Bay & San Simeon

First of all, I just found out one of best friends (a very carefully added 's') is reading my blog. His name is Moose and is one of the most terrible fishermen I have ever seen. Just kidding. He is one of the few people I know that actually spent a lot of our younger years in the same places. His dad ran boats out of Pierpoint Landing - the 'REAL' Pierpoint Landing back in the 60's. He's only a few years younger than me - but, he hung out at the landing about the same time I did. He knows about selling blue perch and blacksmiths to Dearden's for 25 cents a pound. Even fished for them the same way I did. Mashed up anchovies in the bucket, threw them a little bit at a time, let the fish gather around real good then....yeah!! Scoop them puppies up and into another bucket. His dad was one of the skippers running the Freedom - and probably others, I don't know. Those were some of the first trips I took to Catalina and San Clements Islands. I recall one of the trips to San Clemente with tanks of squid. What a trip. Big halibut, white sea bass, black sea bass, yellowtail and calico bass. Bobby Carr hooked and handed me one of the yellows - but I was just too inexperienced to do much about it. Oh well. I'll write more about those trips later.

My recollection of time just sucks. I don't know exactly how many years ago - but I think it was about 1978 or so. I was going to school and working on various boats and tackle shops. A small group of us led by a couple of guys that went to school at CalPoly/SLO would go all the way to San Simeon Pier from Gardena. They couldn't rant and rave enough about how good the shallow water rock cod fishing was. We would leave around midnight and get there about 4 or 5 in the morning. Park and wait for the landing to open. I think the boats were the Lotta Fun, Mallard and maybe others I don't recall. But the fishing was nothing short of phenomenal. First catch blue bass (blue rockfish) and slab them out. Put the slabs on big kirby hooks - 6/0 or so, and to the bottom with a 8 or 10 oz sinker. The big lings would climb on one after another. Reds, Goldeneyes, Chuckles and they were all jumbos. This is one of those areas that are still as good today, as it was then. One day, I am going to venture up that way with my skiff. For now, I have not had to go much further than 5 to 10 miles from Port San Luis. The fishing is just outstanding. There are days when the fish just don't bite as well - but, the worst day around here is way better than the local fishing in the South Bay area. I'm still in exploring mode. I meter around everywhere I go and find new spots. There is a point south of PSL about 20 to 30 miles - Purisima Point. I hear all sorts of stuff about the place - but, I have yet to go there. Actually, from what I see of the fish others bring back from Purisima, I think most of my days staying within a few miles of PSL is just as good. And I don't use bait.

I have to cut this posting short, but I am hoping that Moose comes up soon and fishes with me. Well, I do have to tell one story of fishing with Moose. I don't remember what boat it was - but it was a slow morning and we were all fishing on the bottom for whatever might bite. I was looking out on the surface of the water and all of the sudden, I see a boil a good distance from the boat. Not wanting to give away the farm, I casually started to reel up from the bottom - intending to get my jig stick to throw an iron at the boil. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Moose. He is also casually reeling in from the bottom. I start reeling faster, he starts reeling faster. Damned if he didn't see the same thing I did. Miserable person!! I don't remember who caught what. But that scene just makes me laugh every time.

More old memories - landings and boats

Recently, I heard Dick Helgren passed away. That's sad. Many of the old timers are disappearing. I never fished out of Norm's landing much - but I do know Dick Helgren and Roger Hess ran the two 75 footers from there. I think the Sport King was too. I was also aware of 22nd Street Landing - but didn't fish much out of there either. Most of my fishing time was spent at Pierpoint Landing. It was a lot like Ports 'O' Call village - stores, restaurants, fish markets and gift stores. I can still smell the distinct odor the area had - a mix of petroleum and the ocean. For a while, the landing had a barge parked in front of Dearden's - the fish market. When I wasn't on one of the sport boats - I was on the barge. The fishing was pretty good. Bonito - lots of bonito, and big piling perch - along with the occasional halibut. It was great. I think I wrote a lot about Pierpoint on another one of my posts - but, the three big Dittmar-Donaldsons - Freedom, Liberty and America are all still running today. The big boats were being run by Bobby Carr, Jim Peterson, Cookie Cooke and Taka Tanaka - and probably others. The Freedom is still the Freeom - except out of 22nd Street now. The Liberty is still the Liberty - out of the new Pierpoint Landing, I think. And the America is now the Grande in San Diego. Back to the barge fishing - the fishing was better at the barge in Malibu, but Long Beach was closer than Malibu from our house in Gardena. I also fished out of Pacific Landing - home of the Pacific Queen and Eddie McEwen. The landing also had the FishermenII and III, along with the Estrella. I think I started rock cod fishing seriously about this time. 5 lb sinkers and 4 or 5 hooks. We'd fish anywhere from 60 to over 150 fathoms. It was fun - but a lot of work. I'm going off on tangents. Pierpoint had a charter boat called the 'Miss L'. A 50 foot boat that was known for its speed. That boat eventually ended up at Sea Landing in Santa Barbara - being run by Merit. Great Calico Bass fishing on the 'GM green' candybars and 45's at Naples Reef. There was a landing being run from the Santa Monica Pier - Kiaora is the only boat I remember. I don't remember a boat ever being run from the Manhattan Beach Pier - but, there was a 1/2 day being run from Hermosa Beach Pier. I don't remember the name of that boat. And finally, the biggest landing in that area - Redondo Sportfishing. The Reel Special run by Homer Lightfoot (I remember being in the wheelhouse watching Homer look intently at the paper graph on the fishfinder at Hidden Reef), the Pursuit run by Louie Abbott, the two 1/2 day boats City of Redondo and Redondo Special and the barges. I think at one point, there were three barges there. I don't remember all the names - the Sacramento and California is about the only ones I remember. Ferrying all the passengers from shore and between the barges was the Voyager. I think the boat is still there today, along with the two 1/2 day boats. The Reel Special is called the Royal Pacifico I think and it is being operated out of Ensenada. The Pursuit is now at 22nd Street Landing running the local all day. On the coastline next to Los Angeles, the two big landings were Pierpoint and Redondo. Back to the barge at Malibu Pier - the Star of Malibu. I have great memories of that barge and the pier. I remember meeting Sammy Davis Sr. while he was fishing on the pier for halibut. The ferry was the 'Wae We Go'. Paradise Cove also had a landing - operating on the pier. I can't remember the names of the boats off hand - but, there is a restaurant where the pier used to be - and there are pictures there. If I go back there and see the pictures - I'll post again. Going up the coast, the big landing - and the rock cod capital of California (at the time) - CISCO's - Channel Island Sportfishing Company. Lots of boats here - all fishing for rock cod - Ranger 85, Coroloma and a few others. This is when I got into rockcod fishing big time. 8 lb sash weights and 15 hooks. I was not fucking around here. I made my own rigs. I had Yo make me a 9 foot gaff blank into a cod pole. Look out!! We would fish 60 to 80 fathoms for cows, lings, warthogs and all sorts - and they were all big. I did not venture much further north than Oxnard until much later. I would imagine Virg's at Morro Bay and San Simeon were operating - and fishing had to be nothing short of awesome. I also did not fish much south - Oceanside and San Diego. The only boat I recall was the Point Loma run by Eddie Diehl. White Sea Bass fishing at Tijuana flats - with squid bunched up on heavy 6X's. The sea bass were big ones too. I think the landing at Oceanside has been there for a long time. I have never fished out of there. Oh well. Enough ranting and raving for now.

2007, 2008 and the beginning of 2009 / long range fishing

2008 was not a particularly busy fishing year for me. But in October of 2007, I went on a 10 day trip on the Shogun. I hadn't seen my buddy Norm in a long time, and it would be a good chance for me to catch up with him. And catch up we did....we talked about all kinds of old memories. When he was running the original Shogun - a rocky and rolly Seaway, with his crew - Allan, Vince and Mark. I don't know what happened to Allan, but Vince went on to become a Ventura Sheriff - retired now I think. I saw Mark a few times much later - still working on the sport boats. I had been looking for a Roddy BR100 for a long time - and Mark had one. Bought it and rewrapped it. Nice rod. Anyway, the 10 day trip was mediocre at best. They had caught larger yellowfin tuna outside Magdalena Bay the past year on the 10 dayers, at about the same time of year. But this year, we must have been too early. We caught small tuna and yellowtail at the Ridge. We also fished at Alijos - for small tuna and yellows here also. The best thing to come out of this trip was my roommate Mark. He and I promised to make more trips together. We eventually planned a 15 day trip on the Red Rooster 3, leaving on 02JAN08. We took a straight shot to Clarion and fished outside for nothing. After a look around, we left for Hurricane. Slow plunker bite for 8 or 9 days. We were the second boat to get there out of 4 boats - the Royal Polaris was already there and had great fishing, almost filling the boat, the Qualifier had fished with us at Clarion and stayed a bit longer for nothing and the Independence had left a couple of days after ours and were on their way. We caught good tuna - but you had to soak your bait FOREVER. I hate soaking bait. I finally had to do it, but I hated it. Mark had done well - 3 or 4 fish really close to 200. Until the 3rd or 4th day, I had not caught anything. Finally when I made myself soak a bait - I finally started to catch fish. I did have an exciting moment though. One of the guys had caught a skipjack and hooked a larger fish. So I did the same thing - caught a skippie and started to soak it. With most of my line out - I got bit. I could not have had much more than 150 to 200 yards left on the spool. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing I didn't hook it. So the trip went - a few wahoo every day and a few tuna - for the people who soaked their bait for long periods of time. By the time we started for home - I had maybe 10 fish or so. Mark fared batter - he had at least 3 fish pushing 200 and various others. The only other thing that stands out about this trip was after we got back in. We gave the RSW fish to 4-star and the trade-for-cans to World Famous. The guy from World Famous had run out of cans and promised to send us the cans the following week. A year or more later - and we still haven't seen the cans. The next trip we have planned is a 15 dayer on the new boat - 'Intrepid'. I'll write about that after the trip.