Surface iron fishing - my favorite

One of the excusable faux pas of being older is repetition. So if there is repeats here - sorry. Watching the most recent iteration of Inside Sportfishing made me think of my favorite kind of fishing. In retrospect, the first time I saw somebody fishing a 'surface' iron was in 1965 - on a 1/2 day boat out of Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach. I had a Thrifty Drug Store spinning reel / rod combination which at the time worked just fine. Optimo was the brand of the reel, and I think I had a Garcia Conolon rod (the rod was much better than the reel). Bright blue monofilament line - don't recall the brand...matter of fact, it might have been Thrifty brand. I don't recall how or what I was fishing - but I was fishing. A guy next to me was throwing a Crocodile - a gold one. Every time he would cast, he would have a fish. Whether it was a bonito, barracuda or mackeral - he would catch something. I was bait fishing - as I did not know how to do much of anything else. I was fascinated by this guy throwing a lure and catching a fish on every cast. From then on, I had to learn how to fish lures - metal jigs in particular. Around the late 60's, early 70's - I used hang out a lot at the local tackle stores - Payne's Sporting Goods (Tom Payne and a guy that worked for him, Jerry - great light line fisherman), Yo's Custom Rods (Yoshiro Yoshida and the guy that worked for him, Lou - fished on the Holiday with Steve Giffin every Monday....religiously) and to a lesser extent, Art's Tackle. I would ride my skateboard (made in Mr. Creasy's wood shop at Peary Junior High) to all the stores. I remember a trip when Jerry from Payne's was on the Freedom - and caught a 30 lbs+ yellowtail on 12 lbs line at Catalina. What a feat at that time. Yo used to get so pissed when I rode the board in his shop! Yo's was closed every Monday - so they could go fishing. Yo would ride on the Searcher, and Lou would ride on the Holiday. I was fishing on the Freedom a lot in those days - four (4) guys would trade off running the three (3) big 85' boats. Freedom, Liberty and the America. Jim Peterson (passed recently), Bobby Carr (disappeared commercial fishing), Taka Tanaka (owns a tackle shop in Buena Park) and Arnold "Cookie" Cooke - one of these guys would run the boat, and I would pinhead. Moose was in the galley - and whatever he had left over, I would gladly scarf! The only time I recall seasickness - was after eating one of Moose's leftover tamales with chili on top. In those days, I was still trying to figure out how to fish jigs. I did it, but not very well. In the mid-80's, while going to CSULB - I started to work in 'THE' tackle shop (Yo's) and open party boats. While working on the Fury II, I would hang out in Yo's a lot - and started using 10' Sabre 540's. I started with Penn 500's with 20 lb mono - but soon graduated to using 40 lb when I realized fish were not line shy when throwing iron - and lost a lot less gear as well. A full length 540 was a bit light - so I started to cut off a few inches at a time from the tip - until 6 inches was just about right for 40 lb. Carl Newell started to make his reels about this time - and a 338 was Penn 500 size and perfect for 40 lb. So the outfit of choice was a Sabre 540 cut 6" off the tip and a Newell 338 with 40 lb mono. The boat would fish Catalina every day - so I had the rod on the boat - and got to throw jigs pretty much every day during the week. After throwing a lot of different jigs - Candybars became my jig of choice, the larger 112's. The Tady 45's and Salas 7X's were OK. The 45's, good thing I worked at Yo's, I got first look and picked the colors I liked with a concave flat side. The 7X's pretty much all swam about the same - pretty good. The Candybars for some reason always swam great right off the rack. The straight green or mostly green and yellow was my favorite colors. The jigs never really had to be retrieved very fast - and they swam great. Yellows and Calicos just loved these jigs. When the passengers saw us catching fish - they invariably bought these jigs when we got back to the dock. At about the same time, Norm Kagawa just launched his 65' Seaway - Shogun. During winter and spring months - there would be three (3) boats sitting at Isthmus Reef - Danny Kadota on the Mustang, Norm Kagawa on the Shogun and us on the Fury II. Every spare moment I could find - I would be throwing Candybars, Norm was throwing 45's and Danny would be throwing Tady 9's. At times, the Calico fishing on the surface iron at Isthmus Reef was awesome. All we had in the tanks was chummers (small/tiny anchovies not large enough to put on a #4 hook) - which was great for chumming. The bass were difficult for the passengers to catch on the tiny baits - but was great for chumming - and made for an absolutely WFO bite on the jigs. Many days, the crew would take turns on the jig stick and fill everybody's limits before starting to make galley moves. Norm's jig stick of choice was his dad's Lamiglas 6909. It was a 9' stick similar to the Harnells - very parabolic, and great for throwing surface iron. Leon Todd heard about this and made a blank similar - 690J. But you could not beat the 10' rods for distance. One of the problems with the 540 was the diameter of the butt section - it was big, too big for some. That's where the Harnells had an edge. They were long, parabolic, able to handle 40, even 50 lb line - and smaller in diameter around the butt section. After spending some time working on the boats, I worked at Yo's shop. Working there was great. Always heard the latest on where the bite was, what works and does not. In the winters, the long range guys came in and we got to hear all about the 16 day trips and the big tuna and wahoo. Through all the fishing I was immersed in, throwing surface iron remained my absolute favorite thing to do. I have done all sorts of fishing now - and I think I know why surface iron fishing is fun. When done right - you fling the jig as far as you can, and watch the jig swim on the surface while retrieving. You get to see the fish chase the jig - and a lot of times, eat the jig. Adrenaline! Whether it's throwing a Zara Spook for fresh water bass, or flinging a dry fly for trout - it's the visual aspect that gets you going. When you are drowning a worm, the excitement starts when you get a bite - pretty short lived really. But when you are 'sight' fishing - it's a whole new ball game.

One of the reasons why I love where I live!!

The other day, a friend of mine calls and tells me he's been in Monterey with his family - his daughter is being looked at by a few colleges wanting her for their soccer abilities. He tells me they are coming south on the 101 on their way home and asked me to dinner at Jocko's. No carnivore of any substance would deny such an invitation. While thinking of what I would order the following evening, I thought it would nice if they could go home with a nice bag of rockfish filets from our local waters (they love fish!). The following morning around 6am - I hitch up the boat, grab a few rods and yank the boat to Port San Luis. I'm in the water by 630am and fishing by 700am. Before long, I catch a couple of dandy reds, blues and a nice ling that decided to hitchhike on a nice size johnny - and it really was a nice johnny, just mangled it though. I knew the moment it latched on. When I got to the bottom and wiggled the jig a bit, a got a nice bite and started to reel up. A couple of winds later, it got really heavy! Yup, hitchhiker - a good one too. And sure enough, at the boat he has clamped onto the johnny bass and is not about to let go. Bang goes the gaff - and my fishing is done for the day. Plenty of fish filets for my friend William, wife Collette and daughter Danielle! I look at my watch and it's 830am. I had been fishing for an hour and a half. I love this place.

Ticket stubs from the past

While I did not keep all the ticket stubs - which would have been awesome, I did keep some. I put them in some kind of chronological order. I must have had something about keeping stubs going on in 1982. Other than that, I wish I would have kept some stubs from the Pierpoint days....oh well. March 1974 / Chubasco - Lee Palm's (San Diego) / 8 day / $390....I put in a $50 deposit (was a lot back then)...the boat was fast, but the fishing stunk. Don't remember where we went - but did not catch much. There was a fuel surcharge even then - at .17 cents per gallon. March 1982 / Sea Hawk - Sea Landing (Santa Barbara)/ all day / this was after seeing Bruce Root come back with a limit of 5# plus calicos all on the surface iron. Limit of calicos and rockfish around Naples Reef. I went fishing on this boat a few times over the years. This boat is the same boat that used to run charters from Pierpoint Landing in the 1960's as the 'Miss L'. As such, this is a fast boat. I recall one time when I was talking to Merit about that - and he kicked it in the ass momentarily. The boat came right up on a plane and I am sure we were 18 knots or better. The boat is 45 or 50 ft and had twin 8-53's. He didn't punch it like that very often - but the boat moves right along when throttled. July 1982 / Lot a Fun - Virg's ($26)/ 3/4 day out of San Simeon Pier / full on salmon grouper and reds. A small group of us would drive up to San Simeon from LA at 1 or 2am and park outside the gates at San Simeon until they opened at 6am or so. July 1982 / Toronado - Queen's Whart (Long Beach) / overnight / fishing at Catalina we got news Albacore were being caught 6 miles off the East end of Catalina. Pulled up anchor and shot out to the area and got 16 Albacore - I got 3, have pictures with Catalina in the background. JP. July 1982 / Toronado - Queen's Wharf (Long Beach) / overnight / though I did not keep the stub, I distinctly remember this trip. The bite at San Clemente Island had shut off, and Dennis Luckenbeck had heard there were bluefin at Santa Barbara Island. I am not sure, but I may have had the only bluefin - a small 12 or 14 lb. At the end of the day, we were weighing up the JP. Some guy comes up with a big sheephead. Got beat out of the JP by a sheephead. August 1982 / Toronado - Queen's Wharf (Long Beach) / overnight / BFT are biting at San Clemente Island (West End - NW Harbor / 9 fathom), the boat got 6 - I got 1. Light line (10/12#) and small hook (#8/10) fishing with anchovies. JP. August 1982 / Shogun - Fisherman's Landing (San Diego) / overnight / BFT are biting at the Coronados also (inside South Island), 4 out of 33 BFT for 28 folks. Light line (10/12 lb) and small hook (#8/10) fishing with anchovies. August 1982 / Prowler - Fisherman's Landing (San Diego) / overnight / Albacore - nice ones, 25 lbers...3 of 40 for 30 folks. Oct 1982 / Shogun (65' Seaway) - Fisherman's Landing (San Diego) / overnight / Norm, Vince, Alan and Mark were working at the time (I think), this is the day before the New Lo-An trip (used to go back to back in them days), got 3 YT and 2 Barracuda. Oct 1982 / New Lo-An - Point Loma Sportfishing (San Diego) / overnight / I think Nick Cates had/ran the boat / fished the Coronados - had 2 of 8 BFT on the boat, the light line, small hook fish on anchovies, then got 1 of 11 YT at North Island (Pukey Point) on yoyo iron...not bad with 30 folks on the boat. Oct 1982 / New Lo-An - Point Loma Sportfishing (San Diego) / overnight / no BFT this trip, 38 YT at the Rockpile (south of South Island), had 4 of 38 YT for 40 folks...2 fish on the surface iron. Nov 1982 / Prowler - Fisherman's Landing (San Diego) / overnight / Not sure, but I think Mike Groesbeck owned the boat and the boat had three (3) engines. I remember he fired up the center main when he spotted a breezer of yellows....had no idea that boat went that fast. November 1984 / Liberty - Queen's Wharf Sportfishing (Long Beach) / local all day / There were huge bait balls of anchovies just outside Horseshoe Kelp that were holding huge albacore. They only bit for a week or so, but I got in on this bite. Gary Nordbye was running the boat and we chased these bait balls around for most of the afternoon. About 4pm, we slid in on another bait ball and four of us got bit. These fish were skittish and did not bite heavy line - I was using 15 or 20 lb gear. For some reason, I remember the rod - a Silaflex PT70, but I don't remember the reel. So the four of us are yanking on fish and after the first hour, fish were breaking people off one by one. I was the only one left after an hour and a half. The boat was pretty much full - probably 40 or 50 folks, but my fish was the only fish going. It is dark - around 6pm, and I get the fish to color. Doesn't even look like an albacore it is so big. Finally at the gaff - yes, it is an albacore. 67 lbs. I see Curt Weggener back at the landing and he says I should mount the damn thing - I'll never see another one like that again. What did I do? I ate it. I guess I can always order one from Lyons/O'Haver - I have pictures (and the fish report from the LA Times). Sure was good eating though! April 1986 / Lot a Fun - Virg's / 3/4 day out of San Simeon Pier / full on ling cod and reds. We started first catching blues and blacks and slabbing them out and used them on 8/0 kirbys with a 10 oz sinker - worked great for big lings and chuckleheads(white bellies). September 1986 / Toronado / overnight - Queen's Wharf / got a call the bluefin were biting at Catalina Island at Black Rock. Hopped on and at daybreak at Black Rock, we hooked a few. These were a bit larger and we were able to use a little heavier line - 15 lb with #6 hooks. I think three of us got bit - and after a hour or more, mine was the only one left. This fish went in the weeds (we were relatively shallow and in tight). I worked on this for 15 minutes or more - and finally got him out and coming to the boat...weeds and all. Within 40 ft of the boat, the weeds came off and the fish took off. I thought tuna needed to be moving to stay alive! He ripped off a 100 yards or better and I finally got the fish to gaff, an hour and a half later. Weighed 31.5 lbs. JP. October 1986 / American Angler - Point Loma Sportfishing / overnight - albacore ($115) / I had heard there was a new boat owned by Dan Sansome which was really nice, and the albacore were running. So off I went, ended up with 3 albacore. October 1986 / New Lo-An - Point Loma Sportfishing / overnight - I heard there were bigeye being caught in San Diego. Off to San Diego. The fish were big - most over 100 lbs. There were 20 of us or so on the boat, and most of us hooked fish. I remember details from this trip (rare). I was using a Sabre 865XH, a Newell 300C (500 size), 40 lb blue Izor and a #2 commercial tuna hook. The fish I hooked took me right around 2 hours - spooled the reel twice, but the fish just could not break the line (lots of stretch at 300 yards). A two gaffer - 130 lbs. Nick Cates was fishing and had one hooked on heavier gear - 50 lb on a 4/0. He had to hand it off to Lori Lang (cook/girlfriend) and after a while I was done with my fish - and she handed the rod to me. Half an hour later - another two gaffer, 130 lbs. Ended up with both fish. What a day. Got my picture in the paper for that one. JP. October 1986 / New Lo-An - Point Loma Sportfishing ($65) / overnight - well, worked last week - so a week later back to San Diego. I heard the bigeye were still around, so back to San Diego. The bite was not as good, and the fish were smaller. Had small green mackeral for bait this time. We saw a lot of fish - but only hooked a few. I got one - 85 lbs. on the heavy gear...80 lb. JP. December 1986 /City of Redondo - Redondo Sportfishing / 1/2 day / I remember this trip well. Rick Oefinger was running the boat in the afternoon - and he took us to an area around Short Banks (due West of Marina Del Rey). He must have heard from somebody the white sea bass were there. He told us to yoyo heavy white jigs (blue/white 6X Jr.) off the bottom. We started to hook fish - I hooked two, one fell off but the other was a good one...33 1/2 lbs. December 1986 / City of Redondo - Redondo Sportfishing / 1/2 day / the day after Christmas, yellows were biting around Point Vincente. Small ones - but got one around 6#. Ended up with JP. March 1987 / City of Redondo - Redondo Sportfishing / 1/2 day / there was a halibut bite going on, and I'm not sure - but I think Jeff DeBuys was on the boat (he now runs the Independence in San Diego). He showed me an interesting rig he uses for halibut - a dropper rig with a long leader on 15# gear. Ended up with two flatties - small ones, but keepers. The bigger of the two ended up being JP. May 1987 / City of Redondo - Redondo Sportfishing / 1/2 day / there were a few yellow being caught daily off Rocky Point and Point Vincente. Ended up with one yellow and a few calico bass. JP. May 1987 / Redondo Special / 1/2 day / tried to get on the City, but they were full. Tough fishing - ended up with the only barracuda on the boat. JP. May 1987 / Sport King - Ports O Call Sportfishing / 3/4 day / good barracuda bite at Horseshoe Kelp. Ended up with 7 fish on surface iron. JP. June 1987 / Redondo Special - Redondo Sportfishing / 1/2 day / I don't have a stub for this trip either - but remember this trip well. There wasn't much of a bite going on for anything - and we dropped anchor off Hagerty's to try to catch a few calico bass or anything. I recall we had quite a few sardines in the tank along with anchovies this trip. I flung a sardine and hooked a nice fish - turns out to be a white sea bass. From that moment - the bite was good. Every sardine was a sea bass. Got to a point, I was using sardines that the sea bass spit out when they hit the deck - and they worked just fine. I ended the day with 7 or 8 sea bass. None of them were that big - all around 15 lbs. What a nice 1/2 day. September 1992 / Shogun (new 90') - Ports O Call Sportfishing / 1.5 day / Norm had just put his new boat in the water this year. I am sure the boat was put in the water in San Diego first - so this is after their summer season in San Diego. This 1.5 trip was scheduled to fish Cortez Bank. I had a good day. Fishing 15 lb gear all day - I think the boat ended up with 40 or 50 tuna for 30 guys or more. Ended up with 10 bluefin tuna from 15 to 30 lbs. January 1993 / Royal Polaris - Fisherman's Landing / 16 day Yo's charter / this is the first long trip I took, which was only possible because I worked at Yo's. I don't recall having all these big swag giveaways like these trips have now. Most of the tackle was primitive by today's standards. Butch Greene was fishing these long trips regularly, and his tackle of choice was 6.5' heavy sticks with Penn 50's. We all carried around 9 lbs spools of 100 lb monofilament - and damn near used it all in the course of the trip. We were also afforded the opportunity to fish all the islands of the Revillagigedo chain - San Benedicto, Socorro, Roca Partida - and if the fishing was slow, we went to Clarion, and worst case is going out to Hurricane Bank. Since there were no sardines - just anchovies, the bait of choice was the caballitos we made at Benedicto and Socorro. Absolutely wide open fishing for 80 to 150 lb tuna, and great wahoo fishing too. April 1995 / Mallard - Virg's (Morro Bay) / 3/4 day / There was a lot of salmon being caught this year. I made a couple of trips up to Morro Bay and got in on the action. The fish were also being caught off Oxnard, Venture and Santa Barbara - but the most consistent action seemed to be off Morro Bay. The fishing was amazing. The boat was trolling 18 or 20 lines at once, mostly on the sinker release rigs with bait and lures. I don't remember the fish being particularly big - just lots and lots of salmon - mostly kings, but silvers too. March 1998 / Pacific Queen - Fisherman's Landing (San Diego) / overnight / some time around 1998, my friend Brian Kiyohara and Sam Patella bought the PQ from Eddie McEwen. I last time I had been on this boat was when it ran trips from Pacific Landing in Long Beach, near Pierpoint Landing. I have the stub - but no details, but I believe there were small bluefin tuna being caught at the 60 mile bank. I hooked a few fish this trip, but did not land a one. One of them days. August 2001 / Bright and Morning Star - H & M Landing (San Diego) / 1.75 day / I had heard this boat was fast and the price was right. I don't remember what I paid, but it was very reasonable. I seem to recall Dave Williams ran this trip - but not sure. This was basically an albacore trip - so we bombed it an area 100+ miles to the south. And yes, this boat did haul ass. We had a few stops for albacore and the fishing was OK. On one of the stops, there were bluefin tuna mixed with the albacore. The albacore were right next to the boat - while the bluefin were on the outside, so you had to be able to flyline a bait. This is where a 10 ft bait stick comes in handy. I ended the trip with 7 bluefin and 6 albacore. A couple of things I recall about this trip. On our way out to get bait, we were given a welcome talk and fishing update. The first thing I recall the skipper telling us - "Folks, don't expect the luxury accommodations like the other long range boats - we are the Motel 6 of the long range fleet". He was right. The conditions were spartan at best. But man, did this boat move. We were 120 miles from San Diego when we were done fishing - around 7 or 8pm, we kicked it for home. And kick it he did. Three motors started screaming and this 100 ft boat was on plane - with a huge rooster tail behind us. I don't know how fast - but we had to be at least 20 knots plus. All I know is, we were inside San Diego Harbor at about 3am. Absolutely the fastest big boat I have ever been on.

Memories of Russ Izor

In 1974, I was a year out of high school and living on my own. I had already been fishing for many years - but now, no more rides from dad to the landing. The apartment I lived in (Friday USA Apartments) on 182nd and Hawthorne Boulevards, damn....I remember going to the Akron next door and buying a set of Melmac dishes and a cheap set of silverware. And a bachelor apartment for $160 or $180 a month. Imagine that. So I put a group of guys/gals from the apartment complex and chartered the Indian out of 22nd Street Landing. I had heard of Russ Izor, but did not know him personally. We all had a great time - but the most interesting part was getting acquainted with Russ. He had already had a few boats by then, and the Indian was just his latest. Seem to recall we caught a bunch of sculpin at the Rock Quarry on the east end of Catalina Island. Catalina was 'his' island. According to him, he had been fishing this island for 30 years or more - which would go back to....the 1940's? 200+ days a year for 30+ years...that's 6000+ days at Catalina Island! He was just a world of knowledge on fishing and seemed to have a story and details of every inch of Catalina. He knew all the old party boat skippers by their first names - before they had nicknames. Any other island in the vicinity - San Clemente, San Nicholas, Santa Barbara - they were all 'godforesaken' places that he did not like. I recall going on charters with Russ to San Clements Island. He would wake up in the morning, come out of the bunkroom and exclaim....'Who the hell brought us to this godforesaken place?'. He not only ran fishing boats - but he liked to fish. So when he was at the rail fishing - his knowledge and competitive nature came flying out and he would catch more than most and say....'here, sonny - let me show you how it's done!'. I did not see much more of Russ until the late 1980's (I think). I had a late educational awakening and went to college at the ripe age of 27. When I finished, I was 31 or so and a little while later bought a house in Gardena. As mentioned earlier, I worked my way through college at various fishing-related jobs - boats and Yo's. At Yo's, Russ Izor had retired from boat captain-hood and started Izorline and came to the shop once a week or so, selling monofilament and various fishing gear. Up until then, I had been using Ande, Meslon and if I had money - Maxima. At the incessant urging of Russ, I tried his First String line - blue and clear. As with most other things that work when you have faith in it - the line really worked out good for me. As such, I started using First String almost exclusively - still do today. When I found out his house was a mere 5 minutes from mine, I started to visit him and Lura (short for Louise - his wife). He would get invited to run various boats and yachts, speak at various functions and was generally viewed as one of the strongest proponents of recreational fishermen. We would go to DFG hearings and would invite their biologists to delineate their 'facts' - which he loved to engage and challenge. Most of the time, they were just not able to compete with a man that had spent the last 50+ years running boats in/around southern California. Though Russ lacked a formal education, he was a voracious reader and a very intuitive man to boot. So when he spoke, there was little resistance - even from representatives of academia. I spent a lot of time at Russ and Lura's. He was also a unabashedly emotional man - and would be prone to emotional outbursts. That is, he was not afraid to show his emotions. When one of his pets (Eugene the cat) got run over - he cried for hours. Few folks knew that Russ loved to fish for trout in streams and rivers. Russ and I would fish both forks of the San Gabriel River for planters. Ultra light setups with 2 pound test - and using 'his' salmon eggs, not Pautzke's. We also went to the Kern River - where we would have impromptu competitions to see who would catch the most. And this was about the time he and a few investors took on the project to build the vessel - First String. He put a lot of thought into building this vessel - and if you have ever been on this boat, it is one of the most comfortable boats I have ever fished on. To this day, given a choice - I would fish on the First String. On some of the many trips to Catalina with Russ - he pointed out spots where he had fished. Sometimes it was uncanny when he would stop the boat and tell you within a certain period of time, we should catch fish. And sure enough - we would start catching fish. Around the same time, I had a girlfriend that loved to fish. She had a small skiff - and I would take us to some of the spots Russ pointed out. One of the places was a shallow area inside Church Rock - the current had to be going east. Russ said to chum with cut squid and wait. Sure enough within a half an hour or so, we had white sea bass - nice ones, too. Around that time, he got involved with a new fishing line - spectra. The line was strong, thin and lasted a long time. Just about everyone in the fishing community shunned the idea, saying it would never work. Too bad Russ did not live long enough to see his 'spectra' become the standard for just about all fishing - both fresh and salt water.