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.