There is a natural rhythm to offshore fishing in a small boat that resonates with something that’s deep in my Southern California soul. It begins with the slow departure from the launch ramp and but rapidly builds as I leave the basin where the bait barge is anchored and then purr down the right hand side of the channel at the entrance to Mission Bay in San Diego and take a line for the leeward kelp beds that are just visible beyond the waves crashing on the breakwater.
Going out of the harbor, I gently feed more power to the boat as I slowly push my throttle forward. But where the music really begins for me is when I pick up the incoming swells, kick my outboard up to about 2500 rpm and trim up as I leave the breakwater. Without any trouble, I find exactly the right combination of power and angle on my outboard and the magic suddenly happens; my boat is in perfect trim and I surge effortlessly along the edge of the kelp paddies under a perfect San Diego morning sun.
Kelp cruising requires attention to detail. I look for bait breaking the surface in clear parts of the beds or diving seabirds. Both of those things are signs that my favorite sport fish—yellowtail—are feeding below. Once I see evidence that the yellowtail are present, I unhook my trolling lure from the eye on my rod and stream the artificial bait about 100 yards behind my boat, as I chop the power to my outboard to about 1,000 rpm.
For reasons that are unclear to me, I haven’t developed a preference for using lures or bait. Each has advantages. If I see other boaters hooking up using lures I troll slowly up the kelp beds and keep one open for the sharp movement of my rod signaling a hit. The sound or sight of line spooling off my reel wakes me up faster than a cup of Yuban and is cause for me to walk quickly to the back of my boat to pickup my rod and reel to see if I have a fish on, or more often, have merely snagged a piece of kelp.
Over the years, I’ve caught a lot of kelp. But even a four-foot piece of kelp has its purpose in my world. It gets reeled aboard and dropped into a bucket that collects things I add to my compost heap.
Fishing is a past time of that rewards patient observation. Once I make the turn south of LaJolla and head back down the kelp beds towards San Diego, I keep my eye on the kelp for baitfish breaking the surface. That’s the cue for me to unlimber my seven-foot rod with it Ambassadeur 9000 bait casting reel and impale a lively green sardine or wiggly anchovy on a sharp hook and then gently lob it into the kelp to swim unencumbered by weight. With any luck I’ll get a hit with 15 minutes as I bob about the ocean letting the bait swim through the kelp.
The feel of a lightning quick hit on my bait and hearing the line spool off my reel is what keeps me out on the water. I don’t muscle fish to the side of my boat. I prefer to let them run and tire as I slowly keep pressure on the fish and recover line on my reel. If it’s meant to be, I soon glimpse color out beyond the point where my line enters the green gray Pacific inshore waters.
If I’m fishing alone, I’ll take a moment to identify the species of fish and then reach down with my short handled gaff if I want to take it. Yellowtail are keepers, so are barracudas and big sand bass.
But the one thing that can ruin an otherwise perfect experience is to sense something large cutting through the water, then hear a big exhale and witness the slashing attack of a seal ripping a 20 pound yellowtail off your line and then swimming happily away to enjoy its fresh hamachi.
There are days when I really hate seals! But at the end of my time on the water I can’t help but smile at an animal that’s figured out how to enjoy the benefits of someone else’s luck in catching fish in the morning sunlight of a perfect day on the Pacific.—Jim Forbes m06/02/2008/
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