The making of a fishing fanatic

My first recollection of fishing is when I was 8 years old. Since I was in Japan until then, I guess I started fishing after I arrived to the USA. By the time I got here, my father had taken it up and seemed to enjoy it. He would take me to Malibu Pier, Santa Monica Pier, the rocks along Ballona Creek in Playa Del Rey, Crystal Lake and Alondra Park. Not sure when I really started to like it...need it is more like it. By the time I went to Peary Junior High School, I was thoroughly hooked and could not get enough of fishing. I had always been a bit uncoordinated and not athletic at all. So my mother got me into judo at a very early age. My dad would challenge me to ever tougher goals to take me fishing. 50 jump ropes without stopping...then 100....200. And grades. For every A....a fishing trip. I remember the feeling of elation as I would finally get to the goal! That was also about the time we rented a house from Hiro. Once he found out how crazy I was about fishing, he would take me fishing too. And give me rods and reels. By the time I got to North High School, I was on the wrestling and football teams. I was not all that good at it, but I tried hard. I also went fishing a lot. Between high school and college, I took a 5 year sabbatical and did not fish much. I did fish a little bit in Lake Havasu when I lived in Vegas - but not much. So I was away from LA for a while - but once I got back, I started fishing again. Now I was serious about fishing. I wanted to get good at it. I went every chance I got - once, twice a week minimum. And I did not focus on any one boat or landing in particular. I just went everywhere. Then when I decided to go to college at 27, I figured the only way I was going to get to fish is if I worked on a boat. Various boats during the first three years - then at Yo's for another year or so.I don't remember exactly how I got work on a boat. I must have just gone fishing on the boat - and asked the skipper if he could use another deckhand. This is a very transient position and skippers were constantly on the lookout for help anyway. I first worked on the FuryII. Tim Ullon was running the boat, FrankG and I were on deck. We had various relief skippers - Pat Jackson, Wally, Mike Shanahan...I'm sure there were others. I would work every day I could. If I got a day off - I was back on the boat fishing. I had a small 25' trailer I lived in, located in Gardena. Rent was $100 a month. No problem. Side money was not great, but enough to pay rent and tuition at El Camino. At Ports-O-Call Sportfishing, there was...the Shogun (65' Seaway), Mustang (65' Drake), Rebel, Matt Walsh, Explorer II...about all I remember. Most of the boats came back in about the same time - and I would see the other deckhands off the other boats walking by talking about how much side money they had made. Frank and I would split $100 or so - $50 each. The Mustang guys were always bragging about making $100 and more EACH! The Shogun was run by Norm Kagawa - Vince, Allan and Mark (who sold me an original BR100), they too would talk about how our side money just sucked. I would work as a relief deckhand on Shogun, ExplorerII and Mustang. I think it was the second season I was working on the Fury, I got an opportunity to work on the Mustang. Go to San Diego (Islandia Sportfishing in Mission Bay) with the boat and work an albacore season. The albacore fishing was really good. 150+ on most days. We would filet or gill/gut most of the fish and make $2 or $3 a fish. The side money was AWESOME. By the time I had to get off the boat to go back to school, I had worked 60 days or so and had $9000 in cash - plus a paycheck for $30 or $40 a day. That would pay rent for a year, tuition at El Camino and even a little extra. On my way home, I bought my pop a Penn International 30. He was thrilled! I finished off my college career at Cal State Long Beach. By now, I had worked on boats for a few years - and was ready for a land job. I got a job at Yo's Custom Rods - the local tackle shop in Gardena that Yo Yoshida build from the ground up. He had one of the small shops in the little strip mall to begin with - but would eventually move to the biggest store on the end. His custom wrapped rods were famoust amongst fishermen - both fresh and salt water. Yo would be closed on Mondays. This was his fishing day. We were always invited - and he would go to San Diego and fish on the Searcher (run by Al Rich at the time). The fishing was great! Yo was good friends with the famous FrankL, who had bought the RP from Bill Poole. Yo supplied all the boat rods and tackle too. While I was at Yo's, I got the opportunity to go on a 16 day trip for 'food and fuel'. I don't remember exactly how much - but it was not much more than a few hundred dollars. There I got to fish with a lot of the guys who were Yo's customers. Another guys I had heard about - but never fished with was on the boat. The famous Butch Greene. The man was a fishing machine. Fishing at San Benedicto, Socorro and Roca Partida - the tuna fishing was spectacular! We all took 9 pound spools of 100# test Ande - the line of choice. And the reel of choice was a Penn 50, modified by none other than Butch - who would put a solid brass ring in between the clam washers. The reel went from no drag - to almost full lock with very little effort. When you hooked a fish, 100 pounders were on the boat in minutes with the drag locked. The bigger ones would either come in quick - or break off. There was not much room inbetween. I was in absolute piggy heaven! Stymie was an ex-navy cook and was great in the galley. We ate like kings. By the end of the trip - I had 50 or 60 tuna...obscene by today's standards. And the fish were all kept come out of the fish holds like popsicles, and in horrible shape. All brown and beat up. A trade for cans was available - was 3 or 4 pounds for one 6.5 ounce can. Did not seem like a fair deal to me - but what do you do with a few thousand pounds of brown tuna? After the trip, I did an interview for the local Gardena newspaper, and even got a mention on 976-TUNA. By now, I am a full blown fishing addict!

Fishing for Calico Bass

Fishing for calico bass just may be my favorite fish to fish for. Specifically, throwing a nice swimming surface jig for these fish just cannot be beat. Calico bass are not a particularly glamorous fish to catch. Almost everybody that goes fishing with any regularity in Southern California has in all likelihood caught many calico bass. For most, it is just another fish to catch. Frankly, it was for me as well for many years. As previously mentioned, I started working on boats as a regular deckhand when I started college. A couple of seasons on the Fury II out of Ports O Call Sportfishing in San Pedro. As spring approached, anchovies got smaller and smaller. Many of the transient fleet started leaving for San Diego on their yearly summer fishing albacore. We were the nightly island boat leaving at mid-night, and we would run a lot with 8 to 10 fishermen. Though these trips stunk for side money - it did afford the fishing fanatics that we were, a chance to fish a lot.....daily no less. I would go back on the boat on my days off just to fish. Much of the time, we would have two full tanks of 'chummers' - anchovies so small, you can fit 10 to 12 in your hand. For the bait fishermen, this was a sad situation. Multiple anchovies on a size 2 or 4 hook and a rubber core. However - for the jig fishermen....this is a situation made in heaven!! We could go to any number of spots on the front and the back side of Catalina and pepper the hell out of these spots with brailfulls of chummers. Not only would the abundant chum bring out any fish in the area - they would come out in full attack/eat mode. There were days when Frank Garcia (the other deckhand - Timmy's son Toby nicknamed him Fank), the Maggot (Jason the pinhead's nickname) and I would fill the bait tanks with enough calicos to fill out limits for all the passengers. All before the skipper (Tim Ullon) would wake up from his morning nap. The Isthmus Reef was particularly good at times. With the current running east, we would make a chum circle over the west edge of the reef. Before the anchor was set - the calicos would be going nuts on the chum. One of us would grab my jig stick and start firing the candybar. My rig of choice was a Sabre 540 - cut about 6 inches off the tip, a Newell 338 filled with 40# and a green and yellow candybar. Absolutely the best swimming 'straight off the rack' jig there ever was. I started off using a full length 540 which was ten foot. But right away after the first few casts with a full size candybar (#112), the tip was too soft. I initially took two to three inches off, and ended up taking about six inches off, which felt just about right. I also started out using 20 pound test, but quickly ramped up after losing a jig or two to 25 to 30 and eventually to 40. The line started to get unamanageable over 40 lb. Everywhere we went, that 540 surface iron setup was ready to go. On one particular trip, we had filled the bait tank with nice calicos - all 3 to 5 pounders. At the end of the trip, we had filet bags with limits for all passengers. As we were handing the bags out and collecting for the fish cleaning - everybody appreciated the bag of bass filets and tipped us nicely. I think we were charging 45 cents per fish - so a limit of bass was $4.50. Most folks gave us $8 to $10 and thanked us. One guy though - he gave us a $5. Both Fank and I looked at each other and thought - dang, a cheapie...he was going to tip us fifty cents. But he stood there....and waited. I asked him did we miss something? He said he counted the filets we put in his bag....it was one short. He said...'if you guys had given me the last filet, I would have give you the .50'. Well, sometimes you see a little bit of everything. One day Timmy was off - and Pat Jackson was running relief. We went to Farnsworth to have a looksee and ran right into a school of nice 20 to 40 lb yellowtail. Pat came right out of the wheelhouse, grabbed my jigstick and was on a yellow. On this particular trip, we had a couple of deadheads off another boat (I don't remember which one), but I remember his name was Bill. We nicknamed him Billdo for short. We had put a very large green mackerel in the bait tank - not sure why, but we did. Billdo grabbed one of the boat's trolling rods (broom stick with a Penn 6/0 and 80 lb line), cut off the feather, tied on an 8/0 hook, threw the giant green mackerel out and BAM. He was pinned to the rail. That yellow was a solid 40 lbs. All the yellows we caught were 25 to 30 lbs - with the exception of Billdo's 40 pounder. What we did not see much of was white sea bass. We would occasionally get one or two - but not in any numbers. The yellows were fun to hook on the jigstick. But the bigger ones would just tear you up and break you off. Not much fun. Barracuda were also fun to catch on the surface iron - but the bigger ones would swallow the jig and bite you off, and they were slimy! EEEEW. Not much fun here either. But the calicos were fun. The bigger ones would pull good - but not enough to break you off on 40 pound line. Nothing quite like watching your surface iron swim back to the boat with multiple fish following it....

Where the hell did whatshisname go?

During the years I was fishing a lot on the open party boats around LA, I would see a lot of the same guys over and over - which means of course that they saw me too...maybe. But anyway, here it is 40 years later - and sometimes I wonder just where in the hell did some of these guys go. I don't remember all the names - but once in a while, I think of one. Ted....Ted Shono. I would see him fishing on the City of Redondo all the time. From when Roy Peters was running the boat - to Rick and Jacky running the boat - with Derry on deck and Doris in the galley. Sometimes data just dribbles out. Ted was a few years younger than me, but close. Going on a boat out of Redondo was just so convenient. Didn't matter if anything was biting or not - there would always be a crowd on the City. From the early days when the boats used to sit a mile or so off the horseshoe pier fishing small Bluefin Tuna - to yellowtail and white seabass around Palos Verdes - Hagerdy's, Dominator.......what memories. If I had to think about it, I probably fished out of Redondo more than I fished out of Pierpoint. Pierpoint was when I was too young to drive - and could only get there if my dad took me. Redondo was a different story. From the time I had a Schwinn Stingray to a Honda CB350 motorcycle and a permit at 15 and 1/2, I was going to Redondo Pier. And it was cheap. I don't remember exactly - but I think it was $10 or so to go on the 1/2 day. And the three (3) barges. Anyway, I was on my way home from LA and stopping by the Japanese market to shop....and in the fresh fruit and veggie section was an older guy stocking. Kind of looked familiar......I reached out and said 'Your name isn't Ted is it?....Ted S####? He said yes. I was wearing my Royal Star jacket - so he said I probably knew him from fishing, because he fishes a lot. I asked him if he remembered going into Yo's tackle shop and fishing on the City 30 or 40 years ago. He says, yup...that was me. He used to fish with all the good fishermen of the day. I asked him if he remembered a guy named Kohei? He says, yeah....I remember him. He was a pretty good fisherman. Damn....made my day.

The art of the 'short pump' and other things you talk about at the tackle shop

The first time I saw the 'short pump' in action - I was on the Freedom out of Pierpoint Landing around 1966/1967. I had just started to go on the islands / all day trips. My dad had come home with yellowtails and halibuts, and I wanted to catch those. Tackle-wise, I was still ill equipped...not horrible, just marginal. Big spinning reels - Garcia 302's (always wanted a 402, oh well!) and Optimo with blue monofilament from Thrifty. We went to San Clemente Island - around the east end somewhere west of China Point. Big yellowtail were biting! I was in the fray in the stern, but was just a little kid getting in the way and being pushed around. Bobby Carr was running the boat and was fishing. I watched in amazement as he threw in a bait, and hooked a nice yellow. He just quickly reeled and pumped the rod in a very quick fashion and bounced a nice fat yellow. Looked big to me - but more I think about it, the fish was probably 20 pounds or so. Still a heck of a feat. He never gave the fish an inch of line. He looked at me, quickly grabbed another bait and hooked a fish....then handed it off to me. This fish just turned, pinned me to the rail and broke me off. Just like that. I don't remember what he said - something like, 'kid you need to learn how to short pump'. Took a while, but I finally got it after a while. I still see people on TV shows and on boats trying to 'short pump' - with mixed results. Mostly, I'm not sure people know how. The whole point is to not let the fish turn its head so it can take off. When you first hook the fish, the first couple of pumps on the rod and cranks on the reel are crucial. Once you get a couple of grinds and you know the fish is pointed at you, you have to continue to apply pressure and keep it coming at you. One constant pull is what the fish should feel. When you pump the rod - each pump of the rod gives you a certain amount of line. That certain amount of line has to be put onto your reel, immediately followed by another pump of the rod and repeat. Any slack in this process gives the fish an opportunity to turn its head and hence take off. Which isn't all bad - just adds more time for other potential mishaps to occur. What do you have to have in order to do this right? Well, heavier than normal line is a must. One cannot 'short pump' a 50 pound tuna on 15 pound line very well. You can however 'short pump' a 50 pound tuna on 40 pound line. I think most folks tend to fish with a light drag, afraid of breaking their line. Most line breakage occurs at the knot. Hence, use a good knot. Ask around and find the best knot. We used to sit around at Yo's shop after closing time. The usual troop that had nothing better to do than hang out at the local tackle shop. We'd have contests to see whose knot held up the best. I use a Palomar knot now. But you have to be careful not to cross the lines at the hook. If you take a magnifying glass (if you are older - and need it) and look at the two lines at the hook, you'll be able to tell if the lines are crossed or not. It makes a difference. If they are crossed, the knot will break before the uncrossed one does. This is just one of many. So once you have a favorite knot that does not break, we are good to go. Remember the more knots you have on your line the less you can pull. Just thought of a funny story. When I was working on the Fury II during the summers when I was going to college, we used to get an array of good fishermen coming on the boat fishing. I never knew Marv's last name - but he used to run one of the Catalina ferry's from San Pedro/Long Beach to Avalon. He was a good fisherman! I recall we had a good yellowtail bit going on at Farnsworth Bank. Make a tank of big greenies on the front side of the island - and off to Farnsworth. All 25 lbs+ yellows - nice ones. Marv came out fishing on one of those days. We had 25 or 30 people fishing on the boat. Most folks had no idea how to fish the big baits for these yellows. This fishing was right up Marv's alley. He had to be in his mid to late 60's by then - so he had been fishing for a long time. He was a quiet sort of guy - and lot of history on his face. I just remember seeing him bit every time I saw him. At the end of the day, we only had 15 or 20 of these jumbo yellows - and Marv.....he had 5 or 6 fish, filling two sacks! He'd fish heavy line and once he hooked the fish - did not give them an inch. That was awesome. As far as a rod goes, my preference is for a heavier parabolic type rather than a fast taper type. The long parabolic Harnells are great rods to short pump with. The first true fast taper rod I remember catching a big fish with was a Sabre 865XH. Had a nice soft tip to be able to cast an anchovy - but once you put a load on the rod, it shut off quickly. The first bigeye tuna I caught locally was 130 lbs and was caught on that rod with an old Newell 300C/500 full of 40 lb line. I don't remember if I was using Ande or Meslon. Catching that fish on that rod made me decide I liked parabolic rods better. We also discussed hooks. At that time it was all Mustads. I started with the non-forged regular hooks - 94150 I think. But soon changed to a forged hook - 9174's. For some reason, the bait swam better with these hooks. Remember, it was all anchovies then - big ones in the winter/spring, and straight 'chummers' (small 2-3" anchovies) in the summertime. I broke a few 9174's and changed to the 92677's - which were forged and slightly offset. Pretty much use these hooks all the time for dang near everything, even today. For the long range trips - I do use the fancy Gamakatsu's, but for local fishing - 94150's is it. When I think about it, I can't believe them hooks are a few bucks apiece. We were using Mustad 118H's before the fancy hooks came along - and really, we did just fine, for caballito fishing anyway. For the big baits - was a different story. 7691's were and continue to be it for me.

Local Southern California BFT fishing / Sept - 2017

After at least a couple of years of banner fishing for crewcuts (BFT) in socal, I finally broke down and went on a 11 man charter on the MV Outrider. JimmyL and JohnK put the trip together from some of the guys that used to either work at Yo's or just hung around the shop. When I worked in the 80's, Jimmy would come in the shop often and talk fishing. He was going on a lot of long trips (16 day) on the Qualifier 105. I did not go on a long trip on it - but some one day trips. Extremely comfortable boat for shorter people like me. Kind of a wet boat as it was so low to the water - but what a comfortable fishing platform. John wrapped rods for Yo. DarrenK went too - and he also wrapped rods, repaired reels as well as worked in the shop. GeraldC used to come in the shop from time to time. He was the one that got me on the Scotia to fish with Lee Wong. Banner trips fishing Catalina - absolutely spectacular fishing. CraigS also hung out in the shop a lot. He would volunteer his time and work the counter. SteveT also would come into the shop often. JonH - his dad would come into the shop from time to time with Kobo. His dad was instrumental in getting me into party/charter boat fishing. We all converged on one of everybody's favorite places to eat and gather - Gardena Bowl. Home of the best Bacon Fried Rice in LA.(Well, some of think so anyway) I had not seen most of these guys in 20 years or more. Jeeeesus, they got old....just like me, I guess. We were a raucous crowd in there, making all kinds of noise. Then it was down to 22nd Street Landing to get on the boat. The schedule was, leave the landing around 8pm Sunday night, fish all day Monday and come back to dock on Tuesday morning. Like I said, the crewcut bite had been awesome for the last few years. There is definitely better days than others - but overall, awesome. When we woke up at 430/500am, we were in a very familiar place. A few miles off the Runway at the West end of San Clemente Island. Wow...what memories I had of fishing this area! Crewcuts no less! Another boat the Ultra was on the same schedule and had gotten there before us. The change in the pitch of the engines was Tucker (owner/Outrider) kicking the boat in the ass to get there quicker. Jacob (Ultra) was already bit. We meter around and stop - right away three (3) of us get bit. I went in with 20# gear - don't ask me why - I just did. Without much fuss - we get three crewcuts around 10/12 lbs. I thought - see that, there was a reason I went in with 20# gear. That was it for the little ones. I went back in with 20# and was sadly outgunned by fish that were all 40# plus. So much for the 20# gear. I switched over to the 40# rig.....much better. The bite was not WFO, but a nice steady pick bite. Soak your bait for 5 minutes - and you were bendo. Even with 40# gear, these fish would take a while to bring to gaff. I lost a few, but also got some too. After the first wave or two, there were yellowfin in the mix. The same size as the crewcuts - and bigger....up to 60#. By mid-morning, we were done on the crewcuts and working on the yellowfin. Good fishing! In the afternoon, Tucker announced we would now go trophy hunting at the East end. An area I had not heard of - Desperation Reef. We got there just before dark and hooked a few more of the 40/50 lb fish. About that time, Tucker announces he has bigger fish on the meter. It is just about dark - and Darren gets bit on his flatfall. While Darren is pulling on his fish, I look around the boat - and with squid lights and deck lights, we can see the surface of the water is alive with activity. As far as the light would reach - the water was full of baby sauries. And to make it even more interesting - there was squid underneath the sauries picking them off and eating them. I see now why the fish we caught were so fat. They had been feasting on the abundant forage in the area. Darren is still pulling on his fish. The fish does not spool him - but would not give him much. After over two (2) hours of going around the boat and not making much headway, the hook pulled. It was 9 or 10pm and we would start our ride in. I'll add more as I think of it - but suffice to say, this is definitely one of the better crewcut bites I have seen. As previously mentioned, I had fished for tuna around the West end of San Clemente. Those bites were never all that great - but we would invariably get a few. Also fished the same tuna at Cortez Bank. We did not have small 2 speed reels, nor did we have spectra or small circle hooks. It was straight monofilament. So many time we would fish with bigger baits and wire. Not many bites, but we would get some of the fish - 100#+. I also happened upon a good BFT bite in the 90's - straight BFT's....all 60 - 100 lb fish. We were fishing straight 50 and 60# gear with sardines. It was a good bite. I think I ended up with 8 or 9 nice fish. (no limit on these tuna at the time).

Fishing babble

My first recollections of fishing is from the rocks at Playa Del Rey with pieces of shrimp. Catching small calico bass and opaleye. Fishing from the Malibu Pier catching baby halibut, perch and tom cod. As curiosity began to take over and I started to explore, there were other people fishing from the pier using BIG tackle.....by that I mean something bigger than 6 lb test on a freshwater setup. 8 - 10 ft poles, penn jigmasters, surfmasters with 20 and 25 lb test. As I watched, they would just have a sinker tied on and underhanded cast the sinker way out. Then a leader with swivel on one end and a hook with a live anchovy - and clipped the swivel on the line and let it slide down their main line. And wait. Of course they were halibut fishing and on occasion they would hook one. Lower a big net down to the water and guide the fish in. People would be gathered around 'ooing and aahing'. I remember meeting an old black man fishing on the pier. He said his name was Sammy.....Sammy Davis. I did not think about this until much later....but I'm relatively certain he was Sammy Davis Jr's father! He even looked a lot like Jr. As I fished more and more, I noticed the seasons - and the fish that came along with it. The winter was mainly rockcod fishing, squid fishing for white sea bass and calico bass. The surface action limited anyway - so if you wanted to fish, it was rockcod. Synonymous with rockcod was squid. Rock cod seemed to always be available to catch. I am not sure if anchovies were tougher to get in the winter or not - but my recollection was getting squid for bait in the winter time. Just about 50 years ago, we lived in a rented house in Gardena - around 1967. The landlord was a fisherman. His name was Hiro Hirabayashi and he fished a LOT. Once he found out I did too - he would take me fishing occasionally and give me tackle. My dad would go fishing on boats on occasion - but he wasn't really into it, and he would go by himself. He would bring home calico bass and yellowtail and we would feast for weeks. Later he would take me to the landings and drop me off, but he would not go with me. I think it was because he got seasick. Matter of fact, now that I think about it - I cannot remember a time he went fishing with me on a boat, barge or pier. I do recall fishing on the Playa Del Rey rocks with him - but that's about it. My best memory fishing with Hiro was after we moved out of the Gardena rental - and my folks bought a house in North Torrance. It was a winter seabass trip in 1970 on the Point Loma - Eddie Diehl running the boat. We fished an area south of San Diego - called Tijuana Flats. The weather was windy and the water was lumpy. There were other boats in the area - along with small commercial boats (these were no bigger than 20 to 25 foot boats. They were called rat-trappers - rod and reel fishermen. The weather worked in their favor - the rocking boat would yo yo their jigs for them automatically. I watched them as their rods were left in the holders - and they would hook fish. Live squid bunched up on a heavy salas 6X, yoyoing on the bottom. We were drifting in an area called Tijuana Flats in rough weather. We didn't really have to yoyo, the boat was doing that for us. I recall seeing small boats (rat trappers they were called) with rods in holders on both sides hooking and catching fish. I recall the boat being in the trough trying to hang on in the stern - everybody was fishing on the port side of the boat. We would catch fish in waves. I'd look towards the bow and see people hook fish in sequence towards the stern. I caught two (2) fish that day - the numbers I remember were 32 and 25 pounds. For some reason, Hiro was having an off day and did not have one - so I shared and gave him one of mine. A good day. It is 2017 - Hiro recently passed away. A sad day that was. Fishing for sand bass and bay bass in King Harbor with Dewayne, Marty and Mark. Right under the Harbor Master's window no less. Fishing on the Toronado for bluefin with Bryan. Fishing for striped bass at Quail Lake with Craig - before it was open to the public. Fishing and pinheading on the Freedom with Mel. Going on the half day boats out of Redondo Beach with Brian. Sneaking into Churches and Golf Courses to fish for bass in their lakes with Craig and Brian. Grey scroungers thrown into the aquaduct water going into Quail. Fishing was always more fun when you went with your buddies. Buddies that were just about as proficient at fishing as yourself. God forbid going fishing with a guy that was way better than you. That would be embarrassing. Besides, we were 'meat-fishermen'. Catch as many as you can, as often as possible. After a while, taking non-fishermen fishing did get to be fun. Not only that, I sort of grew out of killing as many fish as possible. But it took a while. Fishing was serious business! Like, I could not imagine taking a non-fisherman fishing for bluefin at San Clemente Island. Except for one guy. George Mowery. He was one of our neighbors when we lived in North Torrance. We did not get to be buddies right away. But after a while, we got along pretty good. He liked to fish - so I am not sure I could call him a non-fisherman, but somehow he always seemed to catch his share. His tackle was more rental tackle-ish for a lack of better description. He refused to buy anything more than he needed - and bought on his own without any input from anybody. For example, I recall he went on the Toronado bluefin fishing. He was using 20 or 25 pound gear - way too heavy for bluefin fishing really. But for one reason or another, he would catch one. I mean, the boat had 30 or 40 people, and there were maybe 6 bluefin. Bryan and I would have the bulk of the fish 4 out of the 6, and there was George. He got one. Not even sure when or how, but he would have one in his sack. All with his patented 'shit-eating' grin on his face. Most of the time when we would go fishing, the way he fished just invited a comment. 'George, you may want to try.....', 'shuddup' he would say. And he would smoke these 5 cent cigars. Made everyone want to puke. Especially in the galley. People would ask him to leave. There weren't any rules against smoking in them days. Yuchhhh. Just for shits and giggles, I tried smoking one......tasted as bad as they smelled. I had a long acquaintance with Russ Izor. The first time I went on the same boat with Russ was in 1974. He was running the Indian - and the apartments I lived in had a lot of folks that like to fish and chartered the Indian - owned and operated by Russ Izor. I had known of Russ for many years before. The legendary Russ Izor of 22nd Street Landing. He had built and run many many boats. His favorite and only place to fish - as far as he was concerned, was Catalina Island....his island. It would be many years after that when my mother talked me out of being a vagabond and asked me to work in the health food business she had started. A few years in, she decided that running a health food store was not the right 'fit'. Besides, she had two other sons she had to figure out what to do with. Pushing the right buttons and saying the right things - I started college at the ripe old age of 27. I started working on boats to pay for rent and school. I'd run into Russ here and there - by that time, he had stopped running boats and was running Izorline - a fishing tackle distributor. Working on boats and in tackle shops - I started to run into Russ a lot. He would even invite me to go fishing on occasion. After I got out of college I entered the corporate world and eventually bought a house. Not sure where I ran into him again - but I find out his house is a mere mile away. We would go fishing and hang out quite a bit. His wife Louise (Lura) was a former flight attendant for Pan American Airways - so there would always be lots of classy ladies at their house. Even ended up marrying one of those ladies. Jeesus. What a tangent that was. I was actually going to write about some thoughts I have been having lately in regards to long range fishing. On one of the trips on the Royal Star, I had just landed a 253 chunk fishing with a tuna heart (on Blake's suggestion). A good fish. When the deckhands stuck four gaffs in it and brought the fish aboard, I noticed liquid squirting out of the tuna's butthole. Huh? A closer look reveals the fish was in spawning mode and was squirting eggs all over the deck. That scene's been swirling around my head for a while. That fish was caught at Isla Clarion - one of the two remaining places where long range boats can fish. So the area is a spawning zone for yellowfin tuna. I have been catching the brood stock. On the first few long trips I took - the fish were just placed in the holds. Out of sight, out of mind - until the boat got back to San Diego. But on the two boats I have been fishing for the last 7 or 8 years - the fish are bled, gilled and gutted before being place in the RSW tanks. And you get to see what form of critters this fish has been eating and whether it is male or female. After working on many boats and cleaning many many fish - I can about tell when the fish are ready to spawn. All the local tuna I have caught locally in Southern California never had much for roe or milt sacks. But these bigger fish down in long range land - had well developed roe and milt sacks. I did not realize how well developed and far along they were until that 253. They are actually spawning during the time we are fishing. So I have been dealing with the thought of killing brood stock yellowfin tuna at their 'hatchery'.

Long trip - 2015, all good things must come to an end

This would be the long trip taken on the Angler in January, 2014. Well, the string finally broke. I did not get a 200# fish this trip. 5 trips and 13 deuces is not bad - matter of fact, it is more than I could ever have dreamed. I was back on the American Angler with Accurate group. I could not imagine a better meshed group of fishermen - so instead of doing what I thought I would do, which was alternate years with the Royal Star, I booked and went with the Angler. This season, the wahoo have been thick at Alijos. Since the long trip season started around OCT of last year, most - if not all the long trips have been stopping on the way down or up or both. Unlike the wahoo at the bank or the island, these fish seem to not mind the boats coming around weekly (seemed almost daily) and hammering away at their brethren. Normally, the first few boats to an area holding wahoo will do good. Subsequent trip will get a few - but the fish eventually become wary and getting them to bite is tough. But this group of wahoo are differnt. They have been biting good for the boats now for the last four months or more. Not only that, they are slugs - 40 lbs or better, and not many smaller ones. Jigs and bait were both working good. On our way down, 19 of us got 70 wahoo - and on the way back we got another 50 or so. What was a bit challenging however, was the weather at our normal tuna grounds - Hurricane Bank and Clarion. We had great weather getting to Alijos - and going back home from Alijos. But that was about it. Ten days of 20 - 40 knot winds and matching seas. We went from Alijos to the bank first. The first day at the bank was OK. We got maybe 20 fish or so - all 120 to 150 lb fish...nice ones. Then the second day, the place became a desert. Add to that a weather front approaching from the south - and we decided to go to the island. The weather followed us. We did not get to do much of my favorite fishing - salamis on the big gear. I think one night, we made enough big bait to fish with - the rest of the time, it was sardine fishing. We fished at the island for 3 days or so - and headed back up to Alijos. The weather was rough. Fishing anywhere on the boat was an effort just to keep your balance. Still caught fish though - just not too many big ones. I think my big one this trip was 157. We were still left with a little time - so we stopped at Colnett and fished for yellowtail - we got 30 or 40 small fish on the yoyo iron. It was fun. This was the first long trip, where we did not get more than a 2 day boat ride before we got to fish. Pretty damn nice, really. Most of these long trips are three and a half days down and up. I ended up with ten tuna and eight wahoo - more than enough tuna and wahoo to pass out on my way home. And the detachment therapy is always outstanding!

When King Harbor was AWESOME!

Around 1967 I was 12 years old, had a green Schwinn Stingray and rode the damn thing everywhere. Not sure how I discovered King Harbor. We lived in a rented house on 134th Street between Western and Normandie. So I would ride down Western to 190th Street, then follow 190th down to King Harbor. I would bum enough money to buy ice cream at Thrifty on the way home on the corner of 190th and Anza. I think a double was a dime. Going down the 190th street hill on the way to PCH was awesome! Going back...not so much. Going by the big sign was exciting - for I knew I would be fishing soon. I had a Garcia-Mitchell outfit, a light two (2) piece rod and a 308 filled with 6 lb mono. In my pocket would be Tiny Tots - white ones and yellow ones which I would buy at Red's Bait & Tackle or Jerry's. I would cast and whip the little jigs back in - and it was game on! I remember the first few times - I would put the bonito in a backpack and take them home with me. Not a great idea, since they were in bad shape when I got home. After a few trips - I would just let the fish go. And then I would see other people using frozen anchovies for bait. They would be getting hooked up when I was not - though most of the time it was pretty good. The best bites I can remember was when it was raining. The bite on the Tiny Tots would be awesome! The water was so clear in the harbor that one could watch the bonito eat the jigs. There were other fish in the water that would not eat the jigs.....bigger fish. Yellowtail! Every once in a while, they would eat a frozen anchovie. Only problem was, you'd hook one - and in one good run, they would spool the 308 - and my trip would be over. As I stayed later and later in the day, I would start seeing people with big spinning rods with sinkers and treble hooks. These guys would attach sinkers to their lines and tie multiple treble hooks above the sinker. At dark, these guys would begin flinging their rigs and make big jerking swings and start snagging bonito. Lots of bonito. These guys would take big gunny sacks full of fish home. Two years later, I was between Peary Junior High and North Torrance High School and had friends that also liked to fish. We would rent the wooden skiffs in King Harbor with live bait skids in tow. The fishing was outstanding. I also remember going to the Fox Redondo Theatre to watch movies. I'm fairly certain I saw the first Godfather there for 75 cents. I looked it up - the Godfather came out in March/1972, and the theater had its final movie in December/1972 and was knocked down early 1973. I am sure I saw the Godfather there in late 1972. By this time, I had a gold colored 1971 Honda CB350. Distance was no longer an issue - and I tied the rod onto the sissy bar and rode that scooter everywhere. Not sure how I stayed alive riding that bike with no helmet. Remarkable.

Thoughts on tackle for the long trips

I do not portend to be the master of anything. I have been fishing for a while, though. And in the process have figured out what works for me, and what does not. Tackle for my first long trip consisted mainly of rods and reels borrowed from Yo Yoshida. I worked in his shop and got a great deal to ride the RP - food & fuel, $500. Even in 1985, that was a great deal. A lot of the long trip folks would start coming to the shop around late summer / fall. Butch Greene used to come to the shop - and you could tell right away he fished the long trips a lot - and had the fishing and tackle down to a science. Russ Izor used to refer to him as....Butch Greene, boy fisherman! He must have fished quite a bit in the 50's and 60's. I'm not sure when he started fishing the long trips - but Frank LoPreste knew Butch well. 'Butchka' Frank would called him - and Butch called Frank...'Franko'. All skippers (even now), like fishermen that could catch fish - because it improves the fish counts and entices more fishermen to come fishing and ride their vessels. Butch must have gone on long trips a few times per season. For me, going on long trips started in 1985. The reels of choice were the Penn Senators and Internationals. There were 4/0's, 6/0's, 9/0's and bigger - up to 16/0's, though I think those things were too big. 10/0's or 12/0's were about as big as you can use 'stand up-style'. The Internationals were 30's, 50's, 50W's and 80's. Since we were mainly using 80# and 100# monofilament (mostly 100#), the 30's were out of the question as they just would not hold enough line. We would use the 30's for catching bigger baits. The 50W's were cumbersome, and keeping the line level was always a pain. The 80's and 80W's were just too big - like the 10/0's and 12/0 Senators. Though I must admit, I do like using the 80S and 70VSX now for 200# fishing. Size-wise, the 50's were just right. They didn't really hold enough 100# - about 250 or 300 yards, but just enough that if you fished a really tight drag - you could catch most of the fish you hooked. The drags on the Internationals were inadequate for using 100# - they just were not made for fishing anything heavier than 50-60 lb line. Butch had figured out a way to get more than enough drag out of the 50's. There are two (2) sets of compression washers as part of the drag system on the Internationals. Butch replaced one of the sets with a solid brass washer - reducing the amount of drag variability, but the drags got very tight - very quickly. This was one of my early lessons on how tight you can actually fish with any particular pound test of fishing line. As it turns out, the majority of yellowfin tuna can be caught on 100# line....if you fish it tight enough. Yes, you do lose some of the bigger/tougher fish. If I had to think about it, there was only two(2) fish that I have hooked that fit into this bigger/tougher category. A 240 lb model I caught on the Royal Star in 2011. That fish emptied out an Accurate 30 filled with 130# spectra and another 300 yards off the backup - for a total of 600+ yards. And the other I hooked on the RP back in 1993 on Taka's 16 day. Middle of the day at Socorro we had a nice bite going on 80 - 100 lb tuna. In the middle of that, I hooked a fish on the International 50 rig that emptied the reel faster than we could attach a backup. It was amazing how fast that 300 yards of 100# left the reel. Other than that, we normally took a load of anchovies - there were not any sardines around at that time. So every night, everybody would be up fishing caballito. What a great bait the caballito were. Our hook of choice was the Mustad 118H Mag hooks in the 8/0 size. These baits would tote the 100# mono for hours - and still be alive enough to continue fishing. There were the cow-size tuna being caught, but not many. And when they were caught - it was big news. Which I believe is why the 388 lb world record stood for so long. All bets are off now. Catching a 200 lb fish is commonplace now. The number of fish over 300 lbs recently caught is unprecedented. The world record has been broken at least a couple of times - from 388 to 400+ lbs. When you are fishing the long trips, you notice yourself going back to the same couple of rigs over and over. Those would be your standard outfits. For most situations fishing sardines, I think a 7 and a half foot rods are ideal. Some folks would have you think 8 and even 9 foot rods are OK for fishing 130 lb line. Not true. Yeah, you might be able to cast a bait further.....maybe, but for the most part, it is just too long to fish efficiently. I notice a lot of people pointing their rods at the fish once they are hooked up. I see no point in that. Might as well fish with a handline. My next trip - whenever that is, is going to be with a lot less tackle. I am fairly certain I can fish the whole trip with 5 or 6 rods. 2 rods for bait fishing on 130#, 1 rod for chunk/skipjack, 1 rod for salami fishing - then a couple of rods for hoo and bait fishing. All the stuff I keep taking and bringing back home unused - is staying home. Time for a garage sale.

If some of these older fishing poles could talk

As I enter the last third or quarter of my life, I basically have all the fishing tackle I could ever use. But like most other enthusiastic hobbyists - I continue to go 'jonesing' around for more 'stuff'. The difference is, lately I have been buying tackle I always wanted as a kid. When I first started going boat fishing out of Pierpoint Landing in the early 1960's, the guys that looked to always catch more than the the rest of the anglers were older (to me at the time anyway) Japanese guys with nice tackle. I found out a lot of them were gardeners in Los Angeles. The bait was all anchovies, so the rods and reels were considerably lighter than the stuff being used today. There were Garcia Conolon, Harnell - and later there were Fenwick, Sabre, Truline amongst others. The name that's stuck in my mind was the Silaflex. Not sure when Browning bought Silaflex, but the Silaflex was the rod to have. They were considered the Cadillacs of the time and were very expensive. Guys were paying $80 and more for new ones in the 50's and 60's. When you consider a gallon of gas was probably in the 20 cent range or less, along with everything else being relatively low - that was a lot of money to be paying for a fishing pole. Silaflex Magnum PT-67, PT70...all the nicest anchovy fishing pole money could buy. And these old Japanese guys were fishing with them. I had a Tuna King pole and Optimo spinning reel. Don't get me wrong, I caught my share of fish - but I never had a Silaflex. Jump ahead to the 2000's. Not sure where I found it, but I found a Browning/Silaflex version of the PT70. Don't remember what year exactly, but I caught the largest Albacore I ever caught in my life on this pole - 67.5 lbs. Sometime after that, I lent this pole to a friend of mine (a semi-fisherman, at best) and he promptly broke off a foot off the tip. Irreplaceable. A few years ago on Ebay, I found the same rod and bought it. Subsequently found a Silaflex Magnum PT67 - and more recently a Silaflex Magnum PT70. Mind you with all the sardine fishing being done now - and not much for anchovy fishing, these poles are relatively useless. Matter of fact, with all the new technologies - there would be even better anchovy fishing poles than all that old stuff anyway. But I just had to get it. Why go through life not getting something you have always wanted? Especially something as menial as a fishing pole. So as I was driving home with my new (to me) PT70, I thought about all the people that must have owned the pole since it was first made. Looking at the pole, it looked to be re-wrapped - a while back I'm sure, but definitely re-wrapped. Absolutely the wrong guides for a rod of this caliber - stiff spinning guides. The original guides were thin wire and selected to allow the rod to bend as it was designed. But the cork and reel seat are original - and in good shape. So the rod is made in Costa Mesa in either the late 50's or early 60's. I don't know which stores would have carried such an expensive fishing pole, but definitely would have been bought by an fishing enthusiast with money. Those old Japanese gardeners probably saved up their monies for a while to buy them. The PT70's would have used with 15 to 20 pound line, even 25 pound. Flylining an anchovy for yellowtail or albacore fishing from a party boat. Some of them guys used spinning reels as well. Unlike most fishermen - even today, they fish their with drags extremely tight. At the time I always wondered why they used spinning reels - which would invariably twist your line. I'll write about my concept on this on a later post. If we're going to make some shit up, might as well make it about one of those gardeners - except a gardener just getting into fishing. He had been talking to his older buddies about fishing. Sounded interesting to him - but the expense of the equipment was making him hesitate. His buddies all belonged to a club called 'Tsuri-Kichi'....meaning fishing maniacs in Japanese. They had been trying to get him into the club and fishing for a long time. Both he and his wife were feeling bad about frequently being given a share of someone else's fish. They wanted to return the favor by sharing a part of their own catch. So the couple discussed this and decided to save a dollar here and a dollar there - into a fishing fund. Soon he had enough to start buying tackle. The terminal stuff was easy - hooks, sinkers, jigs, pliers....the basics either from Thrifty Drug Store or the neighborhood fishing store. He had been talking to his buddies about what rods and reels to buy. He liked the idea of catching fish with lures/jigs. So he decided a Penn 500 Jigmaster would be his first reel - came with two (2) quick change spools! They were plastic, but he was assured by the store salesperson that they would fine as long as he put a layer of dacron or something similar on the bottom to cushion the effects of the monofilament. So he thought he would put 15 pound on one of the spools for bait fishing, and 25 pound on the other for jig fishing. There were many different brands, but his friends suggested Meslon, Maxima was too expensive. Now the pole. His friends told him to spend a bit more and buy a Silaflex. He decided most of his fishing to start would be bait fishing. His friends all told him to buy a Silaflex. 'The best bait stick money can buy' - they all said. He went to the neighborhood White Front and looked at the Silaflex rods and was shocked at the price. He could easily buy a couple or more other brands for the price of one Silaflex. He had the money he had been saving for almost a year. So he bought it, a Silaflex Magnum PT70. This completed what he would need to go fishing with his friends and join the club. He was now a Tsuri-kichi member! The next trip for the Tsuri-kichis' was the on the Sharpshooter from 22nd Street Landing in San Pedro with Frank Hall. Yellowtail and White Sea Bass were biting at Catalina. He could hardly contain his excitement. Being on a boat with all his buddies. Somehow he felt as if he was leaving the world behind. The first fish he hooked at Catalina was a calico bass. The Silaflex and Jigmaster handled it beautifully! Then the Sea Bass and Yellows started to bite. His equipment handled that even better. By the end of the day, he had yellowtail, white sea bass and calico bass. What a day! When the boat got back to the docks later that day, he had his picture taken with his rod in hand and his fish laid out in front of him. Over the next few years, he would go on many charters - and even go on open party boats (cattle boats - they were called, because the passengers were packed on like cattle) by himself. And he would start accumulating tackle. A few more Silaflex rods, More Penn reels - Squidders, Surfmasters, Senators for conventional reels. And even a few spinning reels. As he got older, his ability to go fishing waned. His mind wanted to go - but his body just would not comply. His fishing days were over, and over time his kids would take over. Not having much interest in fishing, the kids would have estate sales and sell all the fishing tackle so fervently collected by their father. The Silaflex PT70 would be bought by a novice fisherman just looking for inexpensive equipment. He had no idea this was the 'finest bait stick money can buy'. All he knew was in dire need of new guides and wrapping. So he took it to a tackle shop specializing in custom wrapping of fishing poles. He didn't care about how the pole was designed to bend - he just wanted it to fish with, and he already had a spinning reel. Fishing was not his favorite thing to do - but he enjoyed going with his buddies from time to time. After a time, he stopped going fishing and during a garage sale, he decided to sell what was not longer being used. A buyer seeing some fishing stuff he could use - offered him a lump sum for the whole lot of the fishing stuff. The new owner took the stuff back to his warehouse and culled what he wanted - and put the rest up for sale. He doesn't know a Silaflex from a Berkely. Its just a fishing he wanted to sell. I see the ad on Ebay - and bam....Kohei has a Silaflex Magnum PT-70 for his collection. Haven't fished with it yet - but soon.

2016 tuna fishing thoughts / how different was it really?

The BFT tuna bite off SoCal for this year is finally about over. For some reason, I just couldn't get excited enough to go fishing for them - so I passed. Did last year too. Shit, they were even bigger this year. Not that I was overwhelmed with invites - but if I really wanted to go, I could have drug my skiff down there and had a reasonable shot at getting one. I recall reading/hearing about the BFT bites that used to occur in the Catalina channel. 100 pounders....200 pounders....and even bigger. I used think, the old days - that'll never happen again. So much for that idea. This is two years in a row for those tuna. I don't know what years in the past the big BFT would bite off SoCal - early 1900's or so? When we would hang out at Yo's or Payne's, the old guys would talk about the big tuna biting in the channel. How it would mostly show - and not much go. This is the mid-1960's. So the old guys (probably about my age) in their 60's would have been fishing hard 1920 - 1950. That was the old days for them. Which just means - at some point, the bites we had the last couple of years - will the the good old days for some of the younger fisherfolks in another 20 or 40 years. The gear those guys used to use were astonishingly primitive. I would imagine if the gear we have today were used, the landings would have been vastly different. Guess that goes to all fishing - not just BFT fishing, but all fishing. The available tackle is absolutely amazing. Also amazing are the prices. I come from a world where going on the 1/2 day boat would cost 3 or 4 dollars. When I think about paying over 100 dollars to go fishing on a day boat - I am in a constant state of shock. And the tackle. I think I paid 8 or 10 bucks for my first Penn Jigmaster - a 501. At a tackle store in Playa Del Rey - near the beach on Culver. Shit, I just saw a 501 on Ebay for a 100 bucks! How the hell is that? So if the fishing is cyclic - how about some of them prices coming down to where they used to be? NOT!!!

Long trip - Jan / 2016

Well, wasn't sure I was going to be able to go this season with all the expenditures connected to a new house. But my wife and kids made sure I was on the boat and paid for the trip. Wow. I have developed quite the attachment to the Angler - and this annual Accurate trip. The group remains the most cohesive and raucous of all the trips I have been on. There is a core group of 14 guys or so - and a yearly newbie group of 5. After a few days, there was no newbie group - and all 19 passengers were busy flinging copious amounts of acrid verbiage - friendly, but like they had been part of the group all along. The TV was actually turned on this trip for an hour or so to show a video from a passenger's drone on a windless day at Hurricane Bank. All I have to say is WOW! Amazing footage. This is the third trip for my friend Russell to go on a long trip. A few days before departure, a spot opened up - and Freddie was able to go. His first trip on the Angler. Russell was on the same trip last year - and knew most of the others from the year before. I got to San Diego the usual day before and checked in at the Point Loma Inn. Once Russell got there we had dinner at a place Randy and Brian suggested down the street on Scott - Pomodoro. Great dinner. They also suggested a red wine which we ordered - and was awesome. The first of many drunks I would endure for the next 14 days. I just ordered a case - Le Volte. Good shit. We all line up as usual around 5am the next morning and the after all the annual greetings - we boarded and got bait. As soon as we got bait and headed out of the harbor - the 31 games started. For four days, the 31 games were constant. Wake up for breakfast at 6am, play 31, morning snacks at 9am, play 31, lunch at noon, play 31, afternoon snacks at 3pm, play 31, dinner at 6pm - get drunk, and more 31. This went on for 4 days. I don't know how many games we played, but I did not win one game. Good thing I brought lots of $1 bills. At 4am on the 5th day, we arrived at Clarion. Went in shallow to catch bait and started fishing. We had to check in with the Mexican Navy at 10am, so we got a little fishing in - maybe a half dozen tuna or so. Not very many, but the average size was nice - 100 to 150 lbs. The fishing was really slow. For the folks that did not like soaking bait for a long time (i.e. drowning worms!) - me included, this was a tough time. On the second day, tired of watching folks catching fish after soaking their bait for hours, I did the same and hooked a nice fish. After an hour or so, I had my first nice fish - 260 lbs on the scale. Made my day - and was good for the daily prize of a new rod. Good thing because I put it to immediate use. The kite fishing had been pretty steady - and the morning started with me and Russell on the kites at 630am. Dreading being in kite jail was quickly dismissed as I got bit on a nice one. Knowing Russell did not have one yet - I quickly handed the rod off to Russell. As he worked on the fish, the rod I took over from Russell got bit. Saw the fish's back and sickles (dorsal fin) out of the water as he ate the kite bait - was a good one. Russell got his to gaff in 15 minutes or so, and I continued to work mine. Half an hour later, I have mine to gaff. Russell had weighed his and came out at 150 lbs. Mine looked to be a bit better - and it was, 205 lbs. Of course the first bit of vitriol is - hah, mine's bigger than yours! Oh yeah? that was supposed to my fish! And on and on for the next few hours - and bam, Russell is bit. He's on this fish for over an hour before it comes to gaff.....266 and a half pounds. Now the tables are turned. See what happens? Mine's bigger than yours! Well, no more shit about catching his fish on the kite anyway. The next few days were the same - slow, pick fishing. The boat was now at 15 fish over 200 lbs - with me having two of them, along with a few smaller ones - my trip was made. On the last full day of fishing, I was up on the kite again. One of the dreaded all day affairs - in kite jail. From dawn to damn near dusk, when all of the sudden - I see a small swirl under my bait, and the balloon slowly descending! Sometime during the day, I got a chair and was sitting in a beach chair - so here I was, yelling and screaming 'AAAAAAAAA, I'm bit!!!' reeling as fast as I could to catch up with the fish. When the line got tight - bam, I was on. For the next hour or more, the fish would take 200 to 300 yards of line at a time - and I would work it back in. Finally, the fish was straight up and down - and became dead weight. No tail beat, no circles - just dead weight. Worked the fish in slowly and finally the fish came to the surface tail first. Tail wrapped...I thought. Four gaffs and the fish is on the boat. I know it's a good fish - but now sure about the weight....I figured 250 plus anyway. Turns out the leader to the hook in the mouth was busted off. The other hook however, was intact and imbedded about a foot from the tail. We were all astonished the hook held - on a small patch of skin. To the scale......300 lbs even. Amazing. We had one more morning to fish - but with the 300 pounder the night before, my trip was done. I took it easy and watched the rest of the guys get in their last few casts for this trip. So long until next year......I hope.

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.

Local fishing....how things have changed!

(started this in August - and just finished it) Recently, I went on a charter. Mind you I have not been on anything but long trips in quite a few years - not sure how many years...maybe 10 - 15 years ago? I cannot recall. It was a two (2) day trip with some folks I haven't fished with before, and a couple that I have. The BFT fishing had just been shut down by the Mexican government in the waters south, which was a bit of a bummer because they had been biting pretty good. Well, I get down to San Diego early and putter around for a while waiting for the rest of the troops to show up. I start seeing a few of the folks that are going. Their tackle is different. I have what I would have considered standard BFT tackle - 20, 30, 40 and 50 lb tackle on Newells and 4/0's on Trulines and Silaflexes. These guys have Avets, Accurates, Shimanos and all these new-fangled rods and reels with.....2 speeds! Wait a minute, ain't this just local fishing? 2 speed reels? What the hell for? With the BFT fishing closed, there were plenty of rat YFT's being caught locally - so off to catch mini YFT. Well, as it happens, we go BFT fishing anyway. Not size-large, but nice ones - 25 to 30 pounds. They bite the first morning for a couple of hours - and that was it for the trip. The rest of the trip was the rat yellowfin. I thought I fished my ass off. I was flinging the bait hard - and getting my share of bites. But after the bite was over, I think I had three. 18 guys and 40 tuna or so - and I had three. There was a time I would have been quite disappointed about this - because it really was a pretty good bite. But somehow, I was OK with it. The kicker is, these guys were having a relatively easy time with their 2 speeds - while I was toiling away with my old Newells and 4/0's. They would just put their reels in low gear. Hey!! This is basically the same shit I do on the long trips - except everything is smaller. So, if I am to be serious about this local fishing 2014 style, I have to rearm myself with all new tackle. I'm going back to fishing out of PSL. Much easier, and I have the tackle for that. This getting old thing is a bitch.

The choice of working on a boat or transitioning to 'Passenger Kingdom'

As I have mentioned on previous posts, I had been a 'pinhead' on sportboats out of Pierpoint Landing (Long Beach) in the late 60's - scrubbing the boat to get a free ride. I had also worked on some boats during my years in college (early 80's). When I was working on the sportboats and I had a day off, I went back on the same boat and fished. Given the virtually unlimited availability of engaging in my favorite hobby - I could not get enough. I had enough documented sea time to get an operator's license. I wanted to be a sportboat captain! But, after seeing the recreational fishing industry from the side of the worker, I decided that a career in fishing was not for me. I envisioned getting lucky at some point and owning a boat and operating a passenger fishing business. I envisioned spending my working life in the environment which I truly loved. However, as time went on - I began to see the difficulty of making a career out of your favorite hobby. There are people that can do this - the exceptional ones that made a career out of their passions. These are the people I envy. But there are not many - and I am certainly not one of them. I began to realize that at some point, being inundated in fishing would eventually negate my passion for this hobby I loved so much. I did not want my passion for fishing to wane. I have a small skiff now - with which I can be a mini-party boat captain! I love taking people fishing - and watching them catch fish. This past year, I happened to meet a guy at the local AAA. He was talking to some other guys about fishing, their sons and....life. When the subject turned to offspring pride - one guy says, 'my boy is in Harvard'....another guys says, 'yeah? Well mine is at Yale!'....I could see the irritation in this guy's eyes and he says, 'mine just bought me a new 750IL'. Pretty much ended the conversation. I started a conversation with this guy - he had recently moved up to the central coast. Retired, 72 years old and loved to fish. He talked about catching a white seabass from a partyboat out of Oxnard. I said - 'why do that? We catch seabass right here, and as a matter of fact there are salmon to be caught now!' He says, 'bullshit, you have to go to Alaska or something for those...what kind of salmon are we talking about?'. 'King Salmon!!' I said. His expression turned to complete disbelief. A week later, we went trolling out of Port San Luis and promptly caught two King Salmon!! He could not wipe the smile off his face. Sent the picture to all his family and friends. Awesome. Anyway, back to the subject. A few years ago....no, more than that, 30 years ago....Frank LoPreste called and asks if I wanted to work a trip - a 10 day. Steve Loomis ran the trip - Rich Rogers, Bill Lang, Reese and Rollo Heyn - what a character Rollo was. I was between jobs after getting out of college - so I said OK. Turned into a great fishing trip to Alijos - lots of 60 to 80 pound yellowfin tuna, wahoo and yellowtail. Interesting to note on this trip - one of the passengers looked familiar. His name was John. I asked if he'd ever worked on the Freedom out of the old Pierpoint. Turns out I was his pinhead! Anyway, taking my turns on wheel watch, deck watch, anchor duty, checking the engine room, serving meals and all the normal duties of a deckhand. Not being used the hours - I was completely wiped out. The last leg of the trip back to the docks - and we are pulling fish out of the holds. I swear to god, I thought I was going to die. Then, after we pull in to the slip, we had to throw fish from the boat to the carts. Holy Shit!!! After cleaning up and refueling, I go out to my car - and just as I was getting ready to pull out, a police car blocks me in. The officer comes to my window and says I am parked illegally. After 10 days in the same spot? Come on!!! I said - 'look, I just got off the RP after 10 days of working myself to death. So hurry up and write a ticket, take me to jail, or whatever you want to do because if you don't - I'm going to puke and pass out'. I must of looked like it too - because he just shook his head and walked off. I knew right then that Passenger Kingdom was where I belonged. No more working on a boat. A lot of the guys I used to work with on the boats became successful businessmen - owning their boats and generally being a success in life. Except for one thing. Most of these guys are just not crazy about going fishing anymore. Fishing is no longer what they want to do in their spare time. Fishing is no longer their passion. Fishing is their living! I remain crazy about fishing. Perhaps not as maniacal about it as I used to be, but definitely the activity of choice for me. Here it is almost Christmas 2014, and I am about three weeks from my next long trip. I can hardly contain myself. My fishing partner is not going on this trip. Quite bummed about it. Another interesting occurrence. I normally pay a deposit for these trips about a year in advance when I make my reservation. Out of the $4500 or so fare, I put in a thousand. About a month or two before the trip, I call the landing and ask for the balance - which I normally pay off. I have a good idea what the balance is - but I call anyway. Lori tells me I have a zero balance. I tell her she must be mistaken - I do not misplace $3500. She says 'no, I am not mistaken - someone paid off your trip'. WHAT!!!! This is not a tank of gas or a dinner we are talking about here. It is 35 hundred dollar bills. Then I think - perhaps my wife paid it off for my Christmas present. This is essentially a left pocket or right pocket of the same set of trousers routine. So I call her, and she says no. She does not even know which boat I am going on. So I proceed to call everybody I can think of that may possibly be a candidate for doing such a dastardly deed. I say 'dastardly' - because I do not have a $3500 'thank you' in my repertoire. Assuming this person knows me well enough - this person knew...one, I would be driving myself nuts trying to figure out who it is...two, I would be relentless in trying to pay back the deed. It has been over five weeks now, and I have no clue who did it. I mean, I'm not going to not go....and I could not be more thankful....but HOLY SHIT!! Neither Lori or Brian, the owner is giving up any info. Brian Kiyohara is one of those success stories in the fishing business I wrote about earlier. Having known him for a good part of the last 20+ years, I thought surely he would tell me who this culprit is, and put me out of my misery. But, nooooo. Well, in less than three weeks, I will be on the same boat with him for 14 days. Question is, how badly do I want to know?

Decline of recreational fishing and other random thoughts.

As some of you may or may not know, I have quite the drive to/from work. I drive approximately 200 miles one way, stay in a hotel for a couple of nights then drive home - almost every week. Which leads to a considerable amount of time by myself in the car with plenty of time to ponder. For instance, since there is almost a certainty that I will encounter automobile traffic - I started to wonder why? Firstly, for every mile of freeway - a considerable number of cars can line up bumper to bumper. Let's see, if a car is 10 feet long and a mile is 5,280 feet - that means 528 cars can line up for each mile of freeway. If they all moved at the same speed, they should all be able to move at a particular speed - let's say 65 miles per hour. So the guy in the front of the line is moving at 65 miles per hour, but the guy behind him is going 64 miles per hour, and the guy behind him is going 63 miles per hour - and so on. That means the 65th car in line is at 0 miles per hour. I think the traffic jams in LA are some form of this thought. At 1/2 mile per hour less per car, the 130th car is at 0, and at 1/4 mile per hour less per car - 260th car is at 0. That's basically a half a mile. Most of you would think....way too much time on my hands. Correctomundo, as Samuel L. Jackson said in Pulp Fiction. Then another good one - ass gaskets. Who the hell thinks much about those 'keep your butt germ-free while sitting' wastes of paper. Well, I used to find myself almost shitting where I was not supposed to while breaking the perforations along the middle of the gasket. I was relating this to my co-workers one day and lo and behold find out that this de-perforating pre-defecating ceremony is gender specific. I was going to call into the Mark and Brian Show on KLOS and relate this to those guys - but they quit before I got around to it. It's only the men that tear the perforations before placement and finally discovering nirvana. Women are much smarter than that. They just place the gasket on the seat and promptly sit down. The middle just breaks the perforations from the pliable arse applying pressure at the perforations and the middle just floating down below. So I tried this. Well, my arse shape must be different. The middle just stays there and nothing happens. Much akin to running into an invisible wall. There's much more - but fishing....that's what I'm supposed to be writing about. When I first started ocean fishing around 1963, there were lots of choices for public recreational fishing. There were boats and barges all along the coast of southern California. Earlier posts describe the barges from Malibu Pier to Long Beach. Each of these barges and boats were operated by a landing. There was enough public interest for multiple landings in very close proximity to each other. A lot of the old fishermen talk about how good the fishing used to be. I am not so convinced. I still believe there were more days spent fishing than catching. If you look at the numbers of fish caught, no doubt there were more fish caught - both commercially and recreationally than today. But the number of players are vastly different. I don't remember the exact numbers - but I recall looking at the number of fishing licenses bought in California these last few years - versus 40 or 50 years ago. They are about half. So what is it that chased the fishermen off? In all likelihood a variety of factors. Increases in oil prices resulting in fishing fare increases, vast increases in recreational choices and lots of other reasons, I am sure all contributed. In 1963, an overnight fishing trip would cost around $14. I don't know about diesel fuel - but a gallon of regular at the Texaco or Atlantic Richfield around the corner was around $0.31 so I would think diesel was considerably less. Matter of fact, I remember seeing gas at a Lerner station for twenty some-odd cents. Well the highway diesel is now just under $4 at 3.90/gal. I do not know the exact price of diesel in 1965 - but, in a little less than 50 years the price of diesel goes from around ten cents to 3.90 per gallon. Astonishing. So the price of an overnight fishing trip goes from $14 to $100+. Fishing for most folks just is not that exciting. No wonder the sales of fishing licenses are half of what they were. On the other hand, with less fishing pressure - are the fish populations on the increase? Add all the protection and environmental concerns and you would really think the biomass of fish would be nothing short of incredible. Perhaps the commercial and recreational fishing pressure had been so heavy for so long, that it will take lots of time to recover. So at some point in time in the future, the fishing will become what some of us 'old-timers' would call....'the old days'. Fishing was good in 1965...no doubt. But I have had days quite recently that was also pretty damn good. So maybe the good old days were really in the early 1900's......