Winter Solstice Greetings

 Gentle Readers:

Once again, it is time to celebrate the shortest day of the year with our traditional Solstice quarry, the band tail pigeon of Mt. Palomar.  This year, due to medical adventure, your narrator was unable to join our holiday hunters, as Tommy and Tash were the only ones to answer the call of the mountain for this winter family ritual.  More on that later.

This year has provided another round of good times, as our summer culminated in a fabulous chance to get everyone together for Lizzy and David Freeman's big wedding in San Francisco.

We started this year's postings, suitably enough,  with greetings from the Summer Solstice in Utah, where Tommy and Amelia continue to find fish and snow with which to frolic.

WendyJo and your narrator joined David in Seattle for the NCAA swim finals in that fabulous town.

David swam fast and found food at the world famous fish market, where shady fish mongers hold corners like urban crack dealers.

Isaac and Haley celebrated Isaac's ordination as a minister with another year of spiritual growth in San Francisco.

Tommy and David made it home for the summer and got out a few times on epic trips with Secret Skipper

It was the year of huge personal best lingcod and tuna for the youngest duo of our salty crew, courtesy of Our Skipper.

We filled our freezer and enjoyed some fabulous feeds with our friends from the seafood/landfood kingdoms and the good company of their predators.

We had some epic days of  lucking out, fattening up and catching sunsets on the water.

We did get a chance to sneak up to Tahoe for a few days of finalizing plans for Lizzy and David's big Labor Day wedding weekend

While we were shutting up and staying out of the way as the girls planned wedding strategy, the boys got in a little fly fishing on the Truckee, where David was the high stick because Tommy was not there.

The dogs were able to get in a few outings as they are seen here waiting for the Amtrak Coastliner on the platform in San Clemente.

Tash kept a watchful eye for pirates at Baby Beach in Dana Point Harbor, 

while Dersu posed with his prematurely sugar-faced grin at the sacred family tile from 2000 at the seawall.

The wedding in the Presidio was a wonderful Labor Day weekend celebration as we lucked into three of the best days of weather that The City had seen all year, with the Golden Gate as the backdrop for a cannon-infested line-up of festivities.

It was great to roam the grounds and renew our acquaintance with our old stomping grounds.

The wedding was a blast,

 as our family continues to expand by merger with the Freemans.

This year we have faced some dark days in our American reality. We continue to be subjected to the vulgarity of MAGA culture wars that smokescreen a kleptocracy, but we have seen signs of Hope for our Nation.  We have joined with others in celebrating our right to restore and maintain human decency.  Do not discount the importance of showing up to join the chorus of good people who gather to give voice to our values.

Even in Oz, there was hope that the journey would be guided by Reason. We have a chance to emerge into an enlightenment and rebirth, as the rhythm of optimistic voices begins to grow from a distance that gains volume and velocity as it beckons to us: 

You're out of the woods,

You're out of the dark,

You're out of the night.

Step into the Sun,

Step into the Light.

We hope that the Truth and Beauty that children can so plainly see inspires you to pursue Virtue...

as we gather with good friends to remind each other of the love and joy that is available to us right here, right now, when we take the chance to notice and share our time together....

and never forget that our dogs understand these virtues and sometimes seem to know what needs to be done to remind us all that

These are the Days

Tuna Helpers 7/26

Gentle Readers:

     Once again, your reporter has been derelict in advising this thirsty readership of recent piscatorial adventures, which have mostly consisted of salvaging some kind of harvest from the flotsam of our dreamy plans.

     This report is all about chasing tuna, with a few detours along the way.

      As a reminder, shown below is what they are supposed to look like when the deck becomes the final resting place of the combination of plans and dreams.

Earlier this month, Secret Skipper and your narrator headed out to St Stanwyck for yellowtail and white seabass.  We left at 10 pm and spent the night catching the few squid that the seals allowed and then spent the graylight failing to catch the exotics we were targeting.

Fortunately, we were able to take advantage of plan B and get a nice pile of Rockers and this superb 38 inch ling that put Secret Skipper back on the leader board.  Note the troller of hope in the background.

     A few days earlier, Tommy and David took David's team mate Tristan out to catch yellowtail and white seabass, but plan C prevailed and we  had a fun day on the light gear we brought as a hedge against failure.  We experienced a wide open bite on local calicos, sandies, and barracuda off the beaches above Cotton's in San Clemente on a boat we rented from Aaron Kitakis of Harbor Rentals in Dana Point.

     This time around, Skipper once again put out the idea of making our own squid and getting those white seabass and yellows that had failed to RSVP to our prior invitations (I think it is rude of them to not send their regrets when we yank squid jigs all night to get ready for them, but polite society is just so hard to come by these days).

    Your narrator requested a reset on the whole make-our-own-squid idea and begged into an equally unlikely quest for the bluefin tuna we have not really made the maximum effort to take on so far this season.

     Skipper insisted that the Little Boys, who still go by that classification, go with us.  This inclusion is not only because we have had remarkably good luck most of the time when they are on board, but also because in the event we actually encountered bluefin, we wanted someone young to turn the handle and make our fantasy of putting little boys on a big tuna into a reality.  They have been elevated to the ranks of tuna helpers.

     On this adventure, we decided to frontload our consolation bottom fishing and headed straight for Stanwyck at 3 am with a tank full of anchovies (they had no sardines) and our beloved frozen squid.

The ocean was lumpy and confused when we got on the spot in the gray light. Things started off slow, with way too many whitefish taking the elevator up for release.  We eventually found the red fish in 250 feet and began a pretty solid harvest, capped by your reporter's 21 pound ling cod, which became the season's best in a year that has seen us catch the 7 biggest lings in the last 35 years of pursuing these gators with Skipper.  This one took me into the rocks, but I managed to sweet talk him out and into the boat.  On any other day, this might have been a higher ranking fish.

     After we counted out close to limits on what was a very good early morning of rock fishing, we iced down our catch with 80 of the 120 pounds of ice we brought and turned our attention to the primary objective.

     We sent Tommy and David up to the tower to glass for breaking fish as we headed to a spot in the middle of the triangle formed by St. Stanwyck, Roberto Clemente and the Island of Romance.  Water temps had come back up to 67-68 degrees.

     We put out the Mad Macs about 300 yards behind the boat and watched a gray morning evolve into a sunny downswell ride with great visibility.

     We made a couple of stops at dry paddies and got to reel against these heavy resistance lures to the point that we wanted to change them out for the more visible but unwieldy Spreader Bar.

     The boys began to pick up spots of white water and whales to the south after we dragged around the 499 for nothing.  We got close to a few spots and they sunk out.  Some were holding what looked like 20 to 40 pound fish and others seem to have larger splashes.  There were Ferris-wheeling birds, as well as several whales crashing about.  The area was extremely fishy.

     As we got closer, it became clear that it was tuna, not dolphin, that were creating the ruckus on the surface.  We pulled up a little over casting distance from the boils. I could not resist throwing a big chrome and blue Tady with a giant single hook in the direction of the uproar that seemed to be coming toward us rather than sinking out.  I threw the jig with all my might just as I saw a fish that was certainly over 200 pounds come out of the water in the melee off the bow.  I reeled that lure in like my life depended on it, as I had no chance of stopping anything that big on my jig rod. 

    David came off the tower long enough to make a frantic cast toward the pile with my jig stick, but instead he hooked up Skippers jig stick and ripped out three of Skippers guides, disabling both rigs for the day and sending that cool jig to an ignominious burial at sea.

     The fish popped up again to the west and the boys sang out like Tashtego claiming his gold piece.

     We regrouped and had the Spreader Bar back about 350 yards as we looped into a turn that allowed us to drag that spreader into the foamer without driving too close.

     When the commotion of the spreader pulled into the scrum, the reel began to grunt its happy alarm as the rod tip flattened out toward the azure horizon beyond the transom.

     We put David on the stick and told him it was his to lose.

He is an athlete, so he enthusiastically put the muscle into subduing this critter that he figured he could vanquish because he has opposable thumbs, fish can't read and because the rod was still in the holder.

The fish had other ideas and charged the boat, causing David to stop reeling and think all was lost.  We screamed at him to keep turning the handle,which he did, and the fish came tight again after a minute of loose reeling. 

Then it took off and began an epic battle of constantly trying to get into the props and cut below the boat.  Over the next hour, Skipper spun the boat like a matador getting out of the way of a charging bull as the toll of a long fight began to manifest in David's body language and suggestions that someone else take over his job.

Eventually we got it along side and were able to sink a couple of gaffs into it to hoist it into the cockpit amidst cheers of celebration and relief.

     Before we got too pleased with ourselves for accomplishing our mission, we tidied up the cockpit and sent the boys back up in to the nest to look for another victim for Tommy to murder.  Your narrator was the one advocating for more carnage, as Skipper was trying to counsel against fish gluttony and making too long of a day, which is something your reporter constantly strives to achieve.

     The boys spotted what seemed to be the same foamer and we steamed toward it while paying out the spreader to drag across at a right angle.

     This time, before we got anywhere near the foamer, the rod started screaming.

     Skipper informed Tommy it was his turn and he happily began turning the handle with the rod in the holder before announcing that the lure was just tangled up in kelp, which was a total lie. 

With the motor out of gear, we went to the corner to confront Tommy's excuse for not reeling hard and then the kelp started taking line at an alarming speed for a vegetable.

Once again, it was game on as Tommy's heroic pose gave way to the slump of despair as the tuna railed him into silly putty.

     After we yelled at him, just as we had done with his brother, he found the energy to turn the handle and stopped begging for someone else to carry his cross.

     Tommy's fish came in quicker and greener than David's, but we got a gaff into it before cleating it off with a tail rope.

     Since the fish were the same size, we engaged in the efficient use of one fish for the photos, as we were too weak to move them about.

     Once again, it was time for whooping and hollering, though the boys celebration was muted a bit by fatigue and the shame of trying to weasel out of grinding these fish all the way to the boat. Tommy's fish was about one inch shorter than David's, which taped out to 130 pounds.

     We managed to get the second fish into the kill bag where the first had already burned down the 40 pounds of ice we had to spare

     Your narrator once again advocated for putting the line out right away, but Skipper countermanded that notion by pointing out the time of day and the fact that we were certainly going to have to go to Avalon to pick up another 100 pounds of ice before we even started to cut up the rockfish while the tuna cooled off for their turn with our medieval barber.

     We made it into Avalon around 7 pm and had to hike into town to get ice, as the ice for sale at the convenient end of the dock was closed for the day.  The Avalon party scene was cranking full blast with music and dingies full of happy people prowling for festivities.      We would have liked to have hit the cocktail circuit and join in the fun, except for the fact that we were tired, smelly, and had another three hours of wet work to perform before we started toward Pedro.

     We found a quiet spot past Descanso and then arranged our dead pets for an organized photo before we cut them up.  We did not want to go through the giant effort of pulling the tuna out of their icey pouch for the photos, so their appearance is marked by two sickle shaped tails that did not quite fit into the kill bag.

     We had a great assembly line of cutting, salt-water rinsing and sealing the bounty of our harvest before getting it on clean ice in the fish hold.

     As always, Skipper efficiently butchered the rockfish before turning to the tuna, which Tommy and David were able to hoist onto the cutting board after regaining their strength.

     Skipper displays his bladework after he had already cut up limits of rockfish.

     Tommy noted that the tuna were easier to hold up for the camera once a certain amount of disassembly created that Ozempic vibe.

     We got in to Pedro and staggered up the ramp with our gear and what we had killed.  It was 3:30 am when your reporter got out of my bloody Hitchcock Psycho shower and fell into bed.

     The following day, we had plenty of friends to help us mow through the sashimi and poke' we kept putting out, as folks came by to pick up bags of fish, play music and enjoy a Sunday afternoon.

   It was truly a dream come true for Skipper and your narrator to put the Little Boys on tuna and come home alive again.

It is a great feeling when a plan actually comes together and the fish perform to our loftiest expectations so we can have fun times with our friends.

One of the biggest elements of angling success is in the art of being there when they bite. In any plan to make dreams become reality, we must never forget the foundational notion that

These are the Days

Rock Bottom

Gentle Readers:

The Time has come today.  Tis' the Lusty Month of May.

Let us go then, you and I.

Once again, May has arrived with its inevitable optimism and hope for an early score on the gamefish.  It is the time your reporter consistently gets sucked into the enthusiasm that apparently cannot prevent the sugar plums of promised salt water slaughter from dancing in my head.

On May 30, the young, in the form of Thomas Edison and David Aaron Schmitt joined the old, namely Secret Skipper, to allow your own ancient mariner the opportunity to tell the tale of  plans that got made and their nexus with what actually occurred.

This was to be the first ocean trip of our year that is already almost half over.  "There will be time to murder and create,  time to lift  and drop these creatures on your plate." 

As always, we had a confused, but cool plan.  We had heard that there was squid at the island - not just ordinary squid, but big ones that would make J. Alfred Prufrock's step-mom shudder and shake if one were to invite her swim in a tub full of them while dad was away.

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas"

The problem was that the squid for sale were at the east end of the Island of Romance and not really available until 5 am.  There was a big bite on the back side of the east end, but we knew that the real bite would be at the west end. The gray-light bite up at that end would be over too quick to bring squid all the way west in time to kill all of those white seabass with which we had intended to rendezvou.

We figured that we might be able to catch our own squid if we left early enough, so we decided to leave before midnight to make the most of our chances.

We motored over to Mike's bait barge to get a safety scoop of sardines, only to discover that there is a sardine shortage in southern California and all they had was anchovies, like in the 1960s.  This may be a mere moment of scarcity, or a harbinger of a sea change after decades of uninterrupted bounty.  It has been a rise in the local sea mammal growth that seems unsustainable, like a Big Beautiful Bill fish that you need to keep growing to 75 feet long in order for you to ever retire. 

There will be time, There will be time. 

 Time for you and time for me. 

 And time yet for a hundred indecisions.

We decided to take our chances at the west end.  The boys went below for a channel crossing nap.  Skipper and I stayed up with our squid net at the ready as the squid appeared and remained at an unreachable depth.  All we had was our frozen squid and these game fish we wanted did not like leftovers.

Your narrator persevered with catching mackerel, which we added to the tank to bait the seabass and yellowtail we were to encounter with our great plan.

Well, they did not show up either.

As darkness gave way to gray, we saw other boats in the area anchored up, doing what we were doing, except we believed they all had live squid and therefore would begin to hoist OUR fish right before our very eyes.

The other boats did not light it up and all we had to show for 8 hours of effort so far was that rather large spider that David displayed for this documentary.  

It was at this point that Secret Skipper demonstrated leadership and initiative.  He said "This blows and none of these other guys are catching shit either, so let's use our frozen squid and get out of here to a magical spot near St. Stanwyck, known as Michelangelo's Reef.

It is a spot that we can fish today, because there will be no wind out there and no one will follow us."

There was no resistance from the crew, as we had grown weary of this Wasteland.  and so off we went to our appointment with alternative destiny.  

Oh, do not ask "What is it?'

Let us go and make our visit.

The boys, as always, got in another nap, curled up like puppies together in the cramped quarters below,  just like they did when they were five.  Skipper looked down at them snoring on top of all the gear and each other and remarked that it was like nothing had changed in 15 years of doing this.

We came to the first stop that Skipper had charted out.  The bite was instant as David's rod went bendo and he battled to the surface what turned out to be his first-ever ling cod.

Skipper gaffed it right in the head and it was a dandy. As will be explored later, there are many things that Skipper does better than any of us and we really like him to gaff our fish.  This specimen was nearly three feet long and was bigger than the lings we usually  encounter down south when we are lucky enough to catch one.

 The fish kept biting like mad and David brought up another rod- bouncing double on vermillion to vault to the top of the leaderboard and notch his limit on these tasty victims in one drop.

Your narrator got busy too, as we all got bit on every drop.

These are quality reds on any trip and we kept getting a steady stream of Starry Rockfish that made up the majority of the redfish we hauled over the rail.  They are all delicious.

We kept moving to new spots, even as the places we were on kept producing.  I whispered in Tommy's ear that if one of us hooked up to another big ling that it was important to disable Skipper's rig so that he would be available to gaff this mostly highly prized of the bottom dwellers.

Your narrator felt the staccato tap of a mediocre rockfish and decided to leave it down in the hopes of a bigger bite.  I got slammed and my rod arced rather seriously.  I looked over my shoulder and told Tommy " I think it is another ling."   Skipper came over to evaluate what I was yanking on as Tommy snuck over to Skipper's rig and pulled it into a bird's nest so Skipper could not reel it in.  Skipper went back to his reel and noticed how bungled it was.  Tommy said "Hey, why don't you gaff my dad's fish and I will try and straighten out your line."

Skipper agreed and came over to monitor my progress as Tommy reeled in his line and then sabotaged his ganion.  Sure enough, I brought in another nice ling that displayed that cool blue color some of them have.  Skipper gaffed it right in the head and we were stoked about the two biggest lings we had ever caught in one trip.

Skipper kept moving us to one productive spot after another.  All of the fish were between 150 and 300, but we mostly fished around 200- 250.

Tommy got a nice red that David displayed for the camera.  While he was doing this, Tommy was screwing up the knot on Skipper's leader connection so that we knew who our gaffer would be.  I was using a rockfish skin and tail lure on one of my hooks and got another set of little bites.  I decided to leave it down again and my rig got slammed.  We just knew it was another ling we needed Skipper to gaff.

The ling had crushed the head of the smaller rockfish that was tugging helplessly on my line and then it turned it's attention to the baited rockfish tail section and chomped down on that instead.  I brought both the mangled rocker and this reef gator up for closer inspection.  This was the largest ling I have caught in southern 

california waters in 50 years (I cannot believe I am saying that)

I grow old, I grow old.

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Should I part my hair behind?

Dare I to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel pants and walk along the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each,

but they will not sing for me.

We got lots of whitefish, but did not keep any, because of all of the white power stuff that seems to be on the news as part of our current national identity, but here is one we detained before deporting. 

Tommy is always the hottest whitefish angler on any boat or river, but kept insisting on displaying them trout style, as become his custom while fly fishing in Utah.

Skipper at last hooked up a ling, but Tommy's handiwork with the pliers disabled his reel so we had to handline it in.  We made Skipper gaff his own fish as we piled his gathered line in the stern.

Your narrator wanted to be in every picture, so we asked Skipper to photograph me holding his fish after he gaffed it.

While Skipper was doing this, Tommy chewed on the knot that connected his leader to the main line and then reeled Skipper's line back on to pretend to get it ready for him.

At the next drop, Tommy rigged a slab of rockfish with the tail on to see if he could entice a ling to do what mine had done. After feeling a series of small but persistent bites, he got yanked downward with authority and hooked up what he thought was a ling. Skipper hung one too at almost the same instant as both rods bent toward the center of the earth.  Fortunately, Tommy's teeth-work on the leader connection worked perfectly and Skipper let out a curse as he arced upwards, only to have the line break above the leader.  Tommy looked over in relief.

"Oh darn. That is too bad. Can you gaff this ling I am bringing up?"

Skipper grabbed the gaff, but you could tell he was suspicious. When Tommy's ling came into gaff range, Skipper racked the gaff back in its holder and told Tommy "I am not going to gaff it, because it is not legal."  Tommy cried out "Hey man, you gotta get this for me whether it is legal or not.  Just pretend you are President and it's Fish Taco Tuesday!"

Skipper responded "I am just screwing with you. That fish is clearly legal. I will gaff your fish if you admit that you have been sabotaging my line so I would gaff all of your fish."

Tommy immediately said "Yes, of course that is what I have been doing" just as Skipper sank another perfect had shot.

Tommy displays pissed off ling and starry rockfish combo

before it calmed down for a better photo op.

We kept hauling in fish after fish, meeting our quota of reds, but still having much room on our dance cards for the starry's and bankies we continued to lift over the rail.  We ended up filling the fish hold and deciding that Skipper would have his work cut out for him butchering all the fish we had iced away in the hold.  We respect that Skipper needs to do all of the fish-cutting because he is also best at that.  We headed toward Catalina to process the fish at a convenient stopping point.

We laid out the fish for photos.

Thanks to Skipper's decisiveness in seizing this opportunity, Tommy and David each got their first-ever lings.

The dental equipment on these creatures makes handling them an occasion for care.

Skipper handled the wet-work with his usual degree of commercial skill and speed

while your narrator celebrated this cunning ling-slaying

All of this came to pass, strangely enough, because we could not get the live squid that would have kept us at Catalina trying to catch seabass and yellowtail that we would have found ourselves duty bound to pursue.  Instead, our failure to master the bait paved the way for the stupidest deep-water bottom fishing we have ever experienced together.

Back at home, the boys prepped for the family feast that invariably follows our carnage.

It will be hard to go back to Stanwyck and beat this score, but I sure hope we get to take another chance together while we can, as we must always keep in mind that

These are the days.