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.