4 weeks and counting

It's almost time to go on my next long trip. The Royal Star this time. I have known one of the two guys that own this boat for a while. Randy used to fish on the Toronado out of Queen's Wharf many many moons ago - when the boat used to fish for Bluefin Tuna at Northwest Harbor on San Clemente Island. I think I wrote a post about that a while back. Since I was twenty-something at the time - he had to be in his early teens. Now that I think about it, Jeff DeBuys - who runs the Independence for Mark and Paul - used to fish locally on the Redondo half-day's for halibut, white sea bass and barracuda.....and so dd I. I don't know how old he is, but I think this is after the barges at Redondo Beach and the Bluefin at the Redondo Canyon in front of the Redondo Pier. Oh well. The big news around fishing is the MLPA closures on the California coastline. I have mixed feelings about that. Most of the businesses and owners dependent on the local fishery are understandably upset. Our local fishing is already regulated - I wonder if the regulations are as deficient as all of that. The ocean fishing was pretty good when I started fishing locally. But even then - everybody talked about the 'old days' when the fishing was so much better. Well, here it is forty years later - and we are all saying the same thing again. I guess the real question is - did the commercial fishing and recreational fishing really do that much damage over the years. Or is it cyclic and environmental? Is fishing going to be getting better soon? Is global warming going to affect anything? Maybe there will be a bonito and barracuda season every year in San Francisco. Maybe there will be an overall migration of calico bass northward. Well, the governmental powers to be have at least partially agreed with the environmentalists and closed off a part of our fishable coastline. I guess we will just have to see what happens.

In the meantime, my next long trip is a mere few weeks away. I have been waiting close to two years - so I am beyond ready to go. This is another area of fishing that is different now. I wrote about this before - more and more boats fishing further and further away. Perhaps it is good news that the Revillagigedos are closed to fishing. Unless more areas to fish are found than the worefully overfished Hurricane Bank, even the longest of trips will have to start offering something else. I always looked to these 15 - 16 day trips as the epitome of the type of fishing I enjoyed most. If these trips morph into something else.....what do I do now, Batman? Well, at this point in my life - assuming no catastrophes, I have maybe another 15 to 20 years left. Now, if these trips will just remain unchanged for another 15 to 20 years.

Fishing with people you only heard about.

Through the years, I had heard stories about the great fishing people had experienced on open party, charter and private boats. I'm not sure where I heard the names of all the 'big-time' skippers - Frankie Hall, Russ Izor, Cookie Cooke, Louie Abbott, Roger Hess, Dick Helgren, Taka Tanaka, Bobby Carr, Jim Peterson, Eddie McEwen......and many more. These guys ran mostly open party boats. All you had to do was make reservations and go - provided there was room! On weekends, most of the boats these guys ran were invariably full. Hanging out at the local tackle shops - Art's Fishing Tackle, Yo's Custom Rods, Payne's Sporting Goods......these were the only three shops I can remember that were accessible to my skateboard. I used to ride my skateboard to all of them. All gone now. Anyway, hanging out at any of these stores - you would hear the guys talking about some fabulous trip they had on one vessel or another. One of the guys I would hear a lot about while I was working at Yo's was a guy by the name of Lee Wong. He had a private boat - named 'Scotia', and was unlike any other private boat I had ever seen or heard of. It was about a 45 or 50 foot Seaway - built specifically for local fishing. Sort of a miniature open party boat - complete walk around, three big bait tanks (held more than some party boats), bunks, a small galley and an anchor winch. Now all of that may not sound all that special - but, Lee Wong fished Catalina every week. Several times a week in the winter when the squid were at the island. He was a diesel mechanic by trade (he owned a truck repair garage downtown), which meant his boat always ran like a clock. The boat had a single Detroit 8V53, so it was no speed demon - but, man...did he get the fish. He did fish locally some - even SBI or San Clemente - but mostly, he would run to Catalina. Every week I would hear the story about how great the calico fishing was, or yellowtail, or white sea bass. But he would offset his departure time so that he would not coincide with the open party boats that would all arrive between midnight and two in the morning. He would leave his dock with four or five guys at 6 or 7pm. Most of the time, his tanks would be full of squid by the time the open party boats got there. He would always make it a point to tell a few of the guys where he made the bait - and got along great with all of the skippers. Before I ramble on too damn far - one day I got invited to go on the Scotia. I was so fucking excited - I could of shit myself. The trip was every bit of all the stories I had heard. At the end of the day, we had limits (or better) and everyone got an even share of the fish. Then everyone would leave some gas money for Lee and that was that. I don't remember exactly, but I think he was in his seventies. Hands down, the most energetic 70+ year old man I ever saw. Something about he wasn't really getting along with his wife all that well, so he would bring his girlfriend fishing. Next to Russ Izor, he knew Catalina better than most skippers. By the time first light came along at 6am or so, we already had more fish than we knew what to do with - and headed back in. Some of the spots he fished - I had fished the same spots on open party boats. I had no idea the same spots could produce this kind of fishing. OK, OK...we were meat fishermen. Not only that we caught more fish than we should have. But damn, was it a lot of fun. There was another guy that seemed to have his share of good fishing trips - George Yoshioka. He had a 35 or 40 foot Bertram(?) I think. He owned a machine shop and had his boat not only setup for local fishing - but running pretty damn good most of the time (thanks to Harold Ueda). So working at one of the more prominent fishing tackle stores had its perks. Not only that, I got to go on some long range trips for food and fuel. These were good times for a fishing addict.

Girlfriends that love to fish

While I was going through college, I met a girl named Lori. She loved to fish. We met through a friend that belonged to the same fishing club she did. It took a few months to get thoroughly involved - but, wow! Once we got involved - it was the best of the two worlds I was in at the time. I had a girl I was madly in love with - and she loved to fish as much as I did. Not only that, she had a boat - 17 foot Boston Whaler Montauk. We went fishing together. For a while - this was the relationship of my dreams. We went on charter boats together - where we would almost always get a lion's share of the fish. There were spots at Catalina Island that Russ Izor told me about - that I had always wanted to fish in a small boat. Here was the opportunity. Just inside Church Rock in very shallow water. White Sea Bass! In no more than 10 feet of water or so. Memory is a bit foggy - but we caught calico bass and halibut too. There was also a spot Lee Wong showed me at Point Fermin - line up the Pagoda on top of the hill with the gap in a line of trees near the edge of the cliff. Interesting story - we got there and started to fish. We hooked a sea bass as soon as we got set - and promptly dropped the anchor over. Only problem was - we forgot to tie the anchor to the boat. Laughable, but quite the bummer at the time. We fished a lot. This relationship lasted a few years - but alas, things just did not work out. This was just about the time I was at CSULB and was nearly finished. I think we broke up soon after I graduated. So, the morale of the story is, sometimes having your favorite hobby as a common ground is not enough.