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.