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This is a collection of my stories related to fishing. It consists of an outline that is slowly being converted to an index as I get the stories written. I have set out to chronicle my fishing experiences for fun. I've found that when I try to put them on paper, I remember little things that help put my whole life in perspective. I hope I don't bore you too much in the process. Dates are subject to change if I remember more details that help to pinpoint the time of a certain event. The only one I'm absolutely sure of is the Beaver Creek Colorado trip. I have a historical reference point for that one.
Otay Lake
Lost Stringer
Sold Stringer
Lotsa Bluegill
Independence - Onion Valley
Owens River - Carp Hole - Telephone Guys Catching Bass
Mt Whitney Fish Hatchery
Twin Lakes, Snow in July
Lake Isabella
Kern River - The Lizard
Pt Magoo
Kangaroo Rats
The State Campground - No fish but
very relaxing.
La Jolla Indian Reservation
Shelter
Island Pier
*The Halibut
Barracuda - Bonito
Perch babies
The 6 Keeper Bass
North
Island Full moon
Velveeta
*The catfish
Pool
Poway
Lake
Hand caught trout
Night fishing
*5 & 12 lb. Catfish
The Hilton
Spot Fin Croaker
Bat Rays
Bonito from Seaforth Pier
San
Diego Bay
Randy's boat with Rick
Sportfishing
Boats
First Trip - SICK
La Jolla Tuna
Albacore
Yellowtail 1 day trip - Mahi Mahi
Rock
Creek
"No Fish Here"
The trout
Owens River
Trout hunting
My first fishing memories are from Otay Lake in southern San Diego County in the mid 1950's. Our family used to camp there in our umbrella tent. The campground consisted of "sites" that included a cement barbecue grill and a lamp post with an electrical outlet at its base. For 25 cents extra, the ranger would unlock the cover on the outlet box so you could have power. We always did this because we didn't have any Coleman lamps or stoves. We had an old light socket on a pigtail that we could hang on a tree or inside the tent. We cooked on the grill or with an electric hot plate. One of the things I remember most clearly was being awakened each morning before daylight by all of the chirping birds. I really don't know what kind of birds they were, just the local wild birds, but they always got real noisy before dawn.
The lake itself was Lower Otay Lake. Otay Lakes consists of two lakes, upper and lower. I've never seen Upper Otay and I don't think it's been open to the public for at least forty years. Lower Otay is a good sized lake by San Diego County standards. Back in the fifties, it was pretty low. I can remember standing on top of the dam looking down at the water and it seemed like a hundred feet on the lake side, lots more on the downstream side. Of course, I was about eight years old and things tended to seem a lot larger then than they do now. The water was always a blue green color and had that "fishy" smell to it. In the morning you could hear bullfrogs now and then in the cattails and there were always colorful dragonflies. Back then, the lake was surrounded by open country. Now I know there is an Olympic Training Center on the shores and it's probably surrounded by residential neighborhoods. I'll bet it still has that fishy smell though. I suppose I ought to drive down there some time to check it out.
I learned to row a boat on Otay. We never had enough money to rent a motorboat, but my dad was a bricklayer and had a strong back. He taught my sisters and me to row when we were still pretty young. He showed us that the trick to rowing straight was to always pick a point on shore behind you and keep that point behind at all times. I could row the full length of the lake when I was eleven or twelve and I still enjoy rowing when I get a chance.
On this particular trip to Otay, we had brought my sisters' Campfire Girl Group. We had been fishing all day with 7 or 8 teenage girls. Everyone had pretty good luck fishing off the float and the rented boat and we had a very large stringer of bluegill, catfish, and crappie. I remember standing on the dock and someone passing the stringer to me from the boat. I didn't realize how heavy it was and I dropped it into the water. The last thing I saw was about 30 attached fish trying to swim in 30 different directions. It just kind of drifted swiftly away.
I honestly don't remember much after that image. I do remember feeling terrible about it, and I don't think I was too popular for the rest of the camping trip.
One particular day at Otay with my Dad, we had been catching them pretty good. We were out on a boat and had a couple of large bluegill, a few crappie and about five fair sized catfish. This was the first time I remember catching catfish. I had a bite and was reeling in my line and couldn't feel anything on. About halfway up, something started to pull. My dad said that it must be a catfish. Sure enough, it was. That was my first experience with "sleeper" fish.
When we got back to the dock, I was carrying the stringer to the car when this old black guy approached me. He looked at the stringer and complemented me on the size of it. When he offered to buy it, I was taken completely off guard. I looked at my dad and he just shrugged his shoulders, so I asked how much. The guy said, "How much do you want." I didn't have a clue and have never liked to haggle. I told him six dollars and he agreed. I can still picture him peeling off that five and the one from a roll of bills. Six bucks was a lot of money for a nine year old in the late fifties. I don't remember how I spent it, but I did get to keep it all myself.
One Christmas my parents gave me and my sisters fishing poles. They weren't anything fancy, just a solid fiberglass pole with a cheap revolving spool reel. The reel had oillite bushings for spool bearings. It didn't have a clicker or ratchet lock, so after you casted, you had to tighten a thumbscrew to lock the spool.
One day my dad and I were fishing from a boat when we came across a huge hungry school of bluegill. The fish themselves weren't very big, about 3/4 pounders, but the action rivaled that of any I have experienced since. We were using meal worms on two hooks per line. We were hooking up as soon as we got our baits set. We were both reeling them in two at at time. One time I had two hooked before I could tighten my thumbscrew. They were on as soon as the bait hit the water. This went on for about twenty minutes and when it was done, we had forty two bluegill. They weren't monster gamefish, but for a ten year old, it was still some of the best fishing excitement that can be experienced. If you want to get a kid hooked on fishing, go bluegill fishing!
In the summer of 1970, a year after I graduated from High School, my Dad and I decided to take a fishing trip. We had two weeks and no real plan. A neighbor had told us of a place near Independence called Onion Valley so we went there first.
We headed north up highway 395. About 5 hours later we got to Independence, which is in the Owens Valley at the eastern foot of the Sierras. From there the map showed Onion Valley to be about 9 miles to the west. We started up the road. Up is an understatement. We went from about 1500 feet above sea level to about 9000 feet in those few miles.
When we got out of the car, I had my first taste of really high altitude. WOW, while unloading the camping equipment, we could go about nine or ten steps before we had to rest and catch our breath. I was really worried about my Dad because he had a bad heart condition. Apparently, he took it easy enough because he was OK.
Onion Valley was beautiful. It was a box canyon with a State campground and an outfitter station for pack trips to the higher altitude lakes in the Sierras. There were three steep sides, all with water running down them into Independence Creek. Being from Southern California, this was the first time I had seen a real creek. (Our rivers usually don't have much running water, mostly strings of ponds at best.) The water was ice cold and I was very impressed.
After a short rest, I decided to hike up the trail on the side right above our campsite. Not a good idea. I got half way up and thought I was gonna die. That altitude was really something. We decided to take it easy and eat dinner and rest till morning.
The next morning I was raring to go. I knew all that water had to have fish in it. It didn't take long to be proven right. We had brought the right tackle just by dumb luck. We had light spinning rods and reels and salmon eggs on treble hooks. I decided that the fish would take my bait best if I just let it flow downstream into the calm spots. I was right. The first time I dropped my line in above a little drop off and let it follow the water down into the hole under a rock, I had a rainbow trout. I repeated this several times in that spot with the same result. When that spot stopped producing, I found another, and got more fish. It was great. Now understand, these were California DFG planted trout, not monsters by any stretch of the imagination. A good one weighed half a pound, but they were fun to catch and good to eat. After spending a few days in the area, it seemed like the state planted them in every little puddle. That was some fun fishing.
It would have been good fishing even if we hadn't caught fish. My fishing philosophy was and still is, enjoy the surroundings and relaxation. Catching fish is just a bonus. That way I always have a good time fishing.
Owens River - Carp Hole - Telephone Guys Catching Bass
The Owens River runs through the Owens Valley and is fed by streams coming down the eastern slopes of the Sierras. Most, if not all, of it's water goes to Los Angeles for use there.
The parts of the river I have seen are generally slow and meandering. We stopped and fished a few spots that we could get to with our car. I don't think we caught much of anything at most of the spots. A lot of them looked like local party spots with the usual beer bottles and such. One thing I noticed almost everywhere were carp carcasses. I guess the locals catch them and just throw them on the bank.
One particular spot was a hole on the downstream side of a road. There were two huge pipes that ran the water under the road and the hole was created by the water dropping from them. We had been there about an hour and had caught nothing. A little after noon, a phone company truck pulled up and two phone guys got out with fishing poles. They came down and started fishing little Mepps spinners. They immediately started catching bass. They weren't big bass, 1-2 pounds apiece, but they were catching them and releasing them consistently. Every now and then they would catch a 6-8 pound carp and throw it up on the road to die. They fished through their whole lunch hour and must have caught and released 20 bass, and left 6 or 7 big carp on the road. Ever since then, I've wished I could have a job where I could stop for lunch, pull out a pole, and catch fish. Oh well...
Before we left the Independence area, we decided to check out the Mt. Whitney fish hatchery. We had seen a sign on the highway and it sounded interesting.
We drove up to the hatchery and took a little self guided tour around it. It was pretty interesting how they had diverted the creek water throughout the different areas of the hatchery. We saw the place where the eggs hatch and the ponds where the fingerlings are grown.
The part that I remember most vividly though, is the ponds where they kept the brood stock. They had little coin operated dispensers around the ponds that had food pellets in them. I put a coin in and got some. What happened next was amazing. I tossed a pellet into the calm waters of the pond and It erupted with five or six HUGE trout. All trying to get at that one pellet. These fish had to all be at least six to eight pounds each. These monsters were jumping clear out of the water for the pellets. I repeated this with the rest of the pellets and had the same response with each of them.
There was a sign saying that they had dogs trained to attack fishing poles. I can see why. Those were some huge hungry fish.
One thing I haven't mentioned about the Owens Valley is IT'S HOT!!! When we were there, it was about 114 during the day. After we left Independence, we went up to Crowley Lake. We fished a bit there and decided to go up to Twin lakes. As I recall, it took about an hour to get there from the Crowley area. We went from 114 degrees in the valley to about 30 degrees at the Twin Lakes in about an hour's time. To top it off, it started snowing! We weren't too sure what to expect next, so after we dipped our lines in one of the lakes, we went back down to the valley floor.
After we left the Owens Valley, we headed back down Hwy. 395 and took 178 over to Lake Isabella. Nothing really happened there except that I saw a California Fish and Game Officer for the first time in my life. I've only seen one since.
After we left Lake Isabella, we headed down 178 along the Kern River towards Bakersfield. Hwy. 178 follows the river and winds and twists as much as the river itself. Around one of those bends we found a spot to park and walk down to the river.
At the spot we fished, the river was about 30 feet across and pretty deep. The banks were mostly large boulders and the current was slow but steady. We stood on a small beach between boulders and casted out. We were fishing red worms and I was able to hold bottom with about 3/4 oz of lead. On my Dad's 2nd or 3rd cast, he threw his bait clear across the river. His sinker landed on a high boulder and the worm was dangling about 18 inches above the rock below it. As it landed, I saw a large alligator lizard jump up near the worm.
I 'll never forget this next picture. It took a while for my Dad realized his bait was on the other side, but when he did he gave his pole a big yank. It was perfect timing! Just as he yanked, the lizard decided to strike the worm. That poor lizard didn't know what hit it. The next thing it knew, it was underwater in a very cold river. My dad thought he had a fish! He said, "I got one!" All I could do was roll on the rocks and, between gasps, say "You got one all right!" I couldn't tell him what he had because I was laughing too hard watching him land his "fish". Well, when he got it reeled across, we both rolled around on the rocks a while.
When we finished laughing, I picked up the lizard and took the hook out of it's mouth. It was stiff and appeared to be dead. I set it on a rock in the sun and we resumed fishing. About 20 minutes later, it warmed up enough to move and when I reached out to it, it ran away. I'm sure it had a very sore mouth and not much of a taste for worms.
After the lizard, we continued down 178 to Bakersfield and had lunch at a Dairy Queen. The only thing I remember about Bakersfield is that it was hot.
We then made our way down to Hwy. 33 and through the Los Padres Nat'l Forest to the coast. We came out somewhere near Pt Magoo and camped on the beach. I remember being surprised that the tent stakes held in the sand. Camping on the beach was fun. I've only done it a couple of times since. Should do it more. We didn't fish at the beach because we really didn't have the gear for it. I remember talking to some guy who told us the "Stripers" were hitting from the beach. Too bad I didn't know what he was talking about or we probably would have gone and bought some surf poles. It's probably best we didn't, since we were on a low budget anyway.
After spending the night on the beach, we headed back home to San Diego.
A month or so after we got home from the fishing trip, we started finding dead Kangaroo Rats that our cats had caught. Apparently, we had a pregnant female or a busy couple stow away in our stuff, because they started turning up everywhere in our neighborhood, and the first time I had ever seen one was in the Owens valley.
This isn't really about fishing. It's just a fond memory of something that happened on a fishing trip. I think it illustrates a great side of fishing, good memories.
It's also pretty short. My Dad and I were on a weekend trip to Lake Henshaw in the San Diego County mountains. We had been fishing all day and it was one of those HOT July or August summer days. Basically, my Dad said that a quart of cold buttermilk would be the perfect thing to refresh us. I had never had buttermilk before, so I wasn't too sure. We were camped in a tent at the lake campground so we walked down to the lodge which was a restaurant and grocery/bait shop. We bought a couple quarts of ice cold buttermilk and took them back to the campsite. My Dad opened the carton and drank right out of the spout. I did the same. It was so cool and refreshing, I developed a lifetime taste for buttermilk right then and there. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it was one of those rare moments that my Dad and I shared and I will remember for the rest of my life. I can still taste that cool buttermilk going down my throat.
That fishing trip at Lake Henshaw was pretty slow for fishing, but I did catch a huge bluegill. I had been fishing most of the day and had caught a few small bluegill. I had my pole propped up on a forked stick and my mind and attention was wandering. I just happened to look at my pole when it jerked out of the prop and headed into the water. I managed to catch it just before it got out of reach. It was just a bluegill, but it was huge. The biggest one I have ever seen. I didn't have a way to weight it but it was bigger than my hand and I've got pretty big hands. Cleaned it and my dad ate it. He said it was good. I've never really cared for bluegill. Too many little bones to worry about, but my dad loved them.
San Luis Rey River - State Campground
One weekend my dad & I camped at the state campground on the San Luis Rey River, which isn't much more than a creek, and runs out of Lake Henshaw. We had driven by a few times on the way to Henshaw and were curious. We checked it out and discovered that you could camp for free and the campsites were right on the banks the river. We found a nice shady spot and set up camp. We had heard that the state was stocking trout. So, we tried salmon eggs, cheese and spinners. Never has so much as a nibble all weekend. It's one of the very few places in San Diego County that actually has running water. The sound was foreign to me but very relaxing. It was a good weekend. The state has designated it as a day use area now, so you can't camp there anymore.
Years later, we discovered the La Jolla Indian Reservation. It's a few miles downstream from the state day use area and offers camping alongside the river. We have camped there since the mid seventies and have only fished a couple of times. We have heard about a catfish hole just downstream of the campground, but have never gone down to try it out. I started to one time, but there was so much poison oak on the trail that I turned back.
One time that we did fish was a great one. We had a big family group, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. It was a group that had never all camped together and probably will never be able to again. For some reason, we took fishing gear and were rewarded with great fishing. The Indians had stocked the river with catfish right where we were camping. I think we caught twenty 1-2 pound channel cats that Saturday. Everyone that cared to fish caught at least one. We wrapped them in foil and cooked them over the campfire that night.
Another time, a few years later, we fished in another spot and caught good sized carp. They were six to eight pounders and were fun to catch in the running water with the light gear we were using.
After my Dad and I got back from our trip, I was out of High School, unemployed, and hot on fishing. It just so happened that my neighbor Roy was in the same situation, so we fished. Roy had an old Corvair and it got us around just fine till it ran out of oil. OOPS! We still had my Dad's '59 Impala. I would drop my Dad off at work and we could fish all day. We always managed to scrounge enough change for bait, even if we did have to sell our blood a couple of times.
Although Roy and I fished together a lot, we were not alone. We fished with our neighbors and family too. The crowd we hung out with mainly consisted of Myself, Roy, his brother Rene', his sister Blanca, my sisters Margie and Thea, and our neighbors Terry, Peggy and other assorted friends.
Our group fishing started out as morning trips to Shelter Island Pier, and gradually progressed to all night "bat ray fishing" at Fiesta Island, a pastime that continued for many years and with many other friends. We really did fish for bat rays, but it wasn't a real intense type of fishing for us. We would toss out our baited lines, light a bonfire and socialize, sometimes till the sun came up. We would catch a bat ray about every 2nd or 3rd time out.Roy passed away recently, Oct 5, 2018. Although we hadn't kept in touch very well, that doesn't change the fact that he was one of the best friends I've ever had. I will miss him. Sorry I never took him up on his offer to take me steelhead fishing. I understand he was quite good at it.
Shelter Island Pier - The Halibut
At one point, we were going to the pier early in the morning, about 2 or 3 am, and fishing till mid morning. We would go to the San Diego River flood control channel at low tide and collect mussels off the rocks for bait. The fresh mussels didn't stay on the hook very well, but they were excellent bait. Everything liked to eat them and you never knew what you were going to catch.
This particular morning, we had been there since about 3 am and had caught a few small bass and a few small sting rays. Just as the sky was starting to turn pink, something hit my big pole that I had way out. I set the hook and started to fight it. It was a heavy fish and we all assumed it was a bat ray by the way it glided through the water. Roy went down to the bait shack and got the pier's gaff. When I got the fish to the top we saw that it was a halibut. I don't think Roy had ever used a gaff before and he missed it on the first try. About that time the bait shop guy heard somebody yell it was a halibut. He jumped over the counter, ran to the end of the pier, grabbed the gaff from Roy and gaffed my fish in about 10 seconds flat.
It turned out to be an 11 1/4 lb, 36 inch halibut. Decent size for this area and great for that pier. At that time, the pier had a weekly big fish prize. I got my name in the newspaper and won the prize. That week it was a trip on a half day party boat to the Point Loma kelp beds. Roy went with me. It was our first time on the ocean and it was a rough January day. The only person on the boat who didn't get sick was the skipper. We did catch some nice bass before we succumbed though.
Daytime fishing at The Shelter Island pier during the early 70's could get quite exciting. Schools of bonito and barracuda would hang out for hours at a time. We mostly fished with medium fresh water spinning gear so the small fish put up a great fight. We would flyline a live anchovy (just hooked behind the gills to a hook tied to the end of the line with no weight). Your line would just hang limply in the water with the anchovy swimming calmly. The line would suddenly start peeling off your reel like a boat had caught it. A quick turn of the crank would snap the bail into position and all hell would break loose. Those little bonito were great fighters running all up and down the pier and tangling any lines that weren't closely attended. The barracuda were similar. They didn't fight quite as hard and we caught them mostly on anchovy sized Rapala lures. When the fish were running, the pier deck would get slick with bonito scales.
Sometimes when the bonito bite was slow, we would fillet a couple of anchovies and fish for the perch that were always hanging around the pilings. Sometimes we would cut up a perch and use it for bait. One particular day, I had cut up a tiny perch and was getting ready to bait my hook, when I noticed something moving on the cutting board. A close look revealed tiny (about 4mm long) transparent baby perch in the guts of the fish I had just cut up. I was amazed that that little perch was old enough to reproduce. I was so entranced with the little things that I wasn't paying attention to the pole I was flylining an anchovy on. A bonito had taken the bait and spooled the reel. I looked around just in time to catch the pole as it was flipping over the rail. We always had an ongoing joke that the way to get the fish to bite was to do something else that would occupy our attention, like eat a sandwich or pour a cup of coffee. This was a good example of that technique.
Back then, I was working construction and sometimes when it rained and we hadn't had a day off for a while, we would have to go fishing instead. It never rains too much to fish. This was one of those days. It actually had been raining pretty good. Terry and I went down to the pier and bought a bucket of anchovies. Instead of flylining them, we put a rubber core sinker about 3 feet up from the hook. We casted out about 30 feet and let the bait sink to the bottom. We were both using the same type of gear and fishing the same spot. We both hooked up at the same time and each landed a keeper calico bass. At that time, keeper bass were few and far between in that part of the bay. We baited up and recast to the same spot and both hooked up again within 5 minutes. We both landed keeper bass again. We did this one more time before they stopped biting. This really was phenomenal for those times and in that water. By this time, the rain had really started coming down, so we packed up and went home. We went to Terry's house and cleaned the fish. His dad suggested that we cook them right then and there, so we fired up his barbecue grill, put a slice of bacon in each stomach cavity, wrapped them in foil, and cooked them on the grill while we sat on the patio out of the rain. I think we may have had a beer or two, maybe not. It was a great day and so were the fish.
Aug,8-9 1974
This is one date that I can be sure of. The reason is, when we were on our way home, we turned the radio on just in time to hear Nixon resigning over the Watergate affair.
Ok, so now the story. I was back in Golden Colorado visiting relatives on my Mom's side of the family. By this time in my life I was really into fishing. Naturally, since I was in the Rockies, I was ready to go.
Along comes my cousin Bob. Bob is a dedicated family man and his job required his presence almost 24 hours a day seven days a week. He ran a small feed lot near the Rocky Mt. Arsenal. It was small by feedlot standards, but it kept one man busy all the time. Not only did he have to feed the cattle twice a day, but he also grew most of the food they ate (alfalfa I think).
Well, somehow he was able to get away for a few days and go fishing. He told me about this spot he knew way up in the Rockies in the middle of nowhere. It had a creek and beaver ponds and Native Brook Trout. I was in seventh heaven. The guy I had been working for the past few years was from Utah and he was an endless source of beaver pond and native trout stories. I was ready for an adventure, and way up in the Rockies no less!
The day of the trip, Bob got off work in the early afternoon. We loaded up he truck and took off on our adventure. We drove for a couple hours and were deep into the Rockies (That's what's nice about Golden. It's right up against the base of the mountains). On the way, Bob talked about the jeep trails we would take and the fact that we probably wouldn't see another person while we were up there. I was ecstatic. I had heard plenty of jeep trail stories too and the thought of being that far into the wilderness was just wonderful even though I was a little apprehensive about the jeep trails. We only had a two wheel drive pickup with a six cylinder engine. I soon found out that a pickup with a six cyl engine and a 4 speed tranny with a "granny" gear can get along just fine. You just have to use a little common sense. The trails we traveled were in pretty good shape; they were just steep.
We finally arrived at our destination. It was beautiful, a high mountain valley with a wide mountain meadow in the bottom. The slopes were covered with Quaking Aspen trees. When the wind blew through them the leaves rattled loudly and sparkled in the sun. This was what I was waiting for. After a quick look around it was time to unload our gear as it was starting to get dark. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't fish that first night, but this was still great adventure. We were in the Rockies in the middle of the wilderness!
We got the truck unloaded and set up camp. It was time to build a campfire. I cleared a spot and made a ring of rocks. I was in the WILDERNESS so I was gonna be a purist and start the fire with one match (I had ruled out rubbing 2 sticks together. Too much work, even for a purist). I started looking around for kindling and Bob said, "What are you doing? I got this here Boy Scout juice." He brings a can of gasoline over to the fire ring and starts sprinkling it on the wood. Oh well, so much for the purist.
After we got the fire going, it was time to cook dinner. We had brought hamburger, potatoes, canned stew and COORS the normal two guys camping trip stuff. "Hey Bob, where are the pans?" "I dunno they should be in the box." The adventure starts. It' a good thing we brought canned stew so we could heat it in the can. We ate dinner and drank beer and told fish stories. We talked about how we were gonna cook breakfast in the morning. Bob said he read somewhere that you could fry an egg in a paper sack, but he didn't read the whole article. RIGHT.
Bright and early the next morning, after our first beer, it was time to cook breakfast. Now I realize we could have fried or scrambled the eggs in the empty stew cans but, oh well, didn't think about it at the time. We gave up on the eggs and concentrated on the meat, bacon and link sausages. We were in the wilderness so we turned to the land. We looked around and decided willow branches would be good. We cut a few off and skinned the bark. The strips of bacon we hung from them mostly burned up instead of roasting, but the link sausages cooked just like hot dogs. We rolled each one in a piece of bread and they were pretty good. Now it was time for the adventurers to go fishing.
This had been a dry year so the creek was pretty small, even by my Southern California standards. It was only one or two feet across most places, and about a foot deep. We decided the Beaver ponds were the best bet. We hiked about about a hundred yards to the first one. Now, the main thing I remembered from stories I had heard about beaver ponds and native trout was that you had to be real quiet and sneak up on them as the fish are real wary. You shouldn't even cast a shadow on the water because that would spook the fish. That may have been true in Bountiful Utah, but this year in Beaver Creek these fish were HUNGRY. With the meager water flow, there wasn't much in the way of nutrients for the fish or their prey. It was a good thing for us because we weren't very woodsmanlike. They knew we were coming and probably would have tried to eat us if they could. Neither of us was a fly fisherman, that would have been the ideal way to fish the ponds. We had ultralight spinning rigs and used spinners. We hooked a fish almost every cast. It was GREAT. Now, I have to tell you, these weren't monsters, far from it. They were about 1/4 to 1/2 pound brookies, but true to their native traditions, they were fighters. There wasn't one fish that didn't tail-walk across that pond. They jumped, sometimes 3 or 4 times their own length, and quite a few managed to spit the hook. We had a ball. Later that day, I just had to try some Zeke's Floatin bait. It was the ultimate sacrilege after all the stories I had heard about the wary native trout, but I had some in my box and caught fish with it.
We fished all morning and kept a few, but it was time to go. Bob could only manage one full day away from the feed lot. By the way, we did NOT see another person while we were there. It really was a beautiful secluded spot. I always get to think about now when I see the Beaver Creek ski resort commercials on TV.
On the way home we found time to stop and fish the mountain stream along the road. We split up and hiked a few hundred feet down to the stream. I caught a few rainbows in the pools and released them. It was nice. When it was time to hike back to the truck, I acquired a healthy respect for the woods. I had never been in really thick timber and didn't realize how easy it is to get disoriented. Luckily, the road was up and the stream was down so I couldn't actually get lost, but it was sobering.
After that, we turned the radio on and got back into the real? world and Mr. Nixon.
At one point, we found out that we could fish from NAS North Island which is across San Diego Bay from downtown San Diego. There was almost no fishing pressure so it was much better than the more popular spots on the bay. At that time, early to mid seventies, base security wasn't quite as tight as it is now. If you told the gate guards you were going fishing, they would let you on base and tell you where fishing wasn't allowed and where the best spots were. One particular day we were fishing from one of the piers. My fishing routine usually consisted of casting one or two "big" poles to varying distances and using a smaller handheld pole to fish close in with jigs or bait. This day I had my surf pole cast as far as I could get it toward the middle of the bay with a whole squid on a 2/0 hook with 40lb line and was jigging around the pilings with one of my freshwater poles. Something hit the squid on the big pole and started taking line like crazy. I grabbed it and set the hook. I really don't know how long I fought it. Sometimes it seems longer that it really is and sometimes it seems shorter. All I know is that I was almost spooled twice. The second time I got it close, it was almost visible and there was a big swirl where the line entered the water and another one about six or seven feet away. The pole gave a good jerk and the line went slack. I have always assumed that it was a large shark. The line was cleanly broken with no visible abrasion. I figure that the long shank on the big hook kept the line away from it's teeth. I don't know if the line snapped from the weight or was cut by it's teeth. Doesn't matter. It was gone and we didn't get to see the fish. Had to be a big shark. I'd like to think it was. It most likely was.
Another good spot on the base was the jetty at the entrance to San Diego Bay. It's made with rock and has a concrete cap for about fifty yards. After that, the top is barely above the surface at high tide. The bay channel is on the North side and Coronado Beach is on the south. One day we had dug ghost shrimp for bait and were fishing the beach side from the surf line to the end of the capped section. We were using our freshwater gear with a hook on the end of the line and a rubber core sinker a few feet up from the end. We would cast out and gently pull the line in with one hand and then reeling up the slack. This kept the bait moving slowly along the sandy bottom and covered a lot of water. This particular day we got a hit on just about every cast and when we were done had caught about ten different kinds of fish. Roy was fishing at the end of the capped part casting into the partially submerged rocks. Something kept stealing his bait and giving some really good pulls in the process. He kept at it and finally landed a large opaleye. We weighed it with our cheapie scale and it was about six pounds. A few days later, after it was cleaned and the fillets were in the freezer, we found out that the state record was about six and a half pounds. Roy's fish could have been seven or it could have been five. Our scale wasn't that accurate, so it could have been a state record. I'd like to think it was seven.
Miramar Lake is a San Diego city reservoir a few miles north of MCAS Miramar. It has the hybrid Florida largemouth bass that inhabit our local lakes and feed on the regularly stocked rainbow trout. One of those trout fed bass held the state record of 20.94 pounds for thirty years. We fished the lake for the trout in the early to mid 70's. We would park in line at the gate so we could get when it first opened at sunrise. We would fish Mepps spinners in the the fingers of the lake for 20 or 30 minutes, then switch to bait to fill out our limits. We usually had good luck and it was only about 15 minutes from home.
Roy was in the National Guard and sometimes on guard weekends he would wear his uniform to go fishing and leave early to go to his meeting. One particular morning it was just Roy in his uniform and me. They opened the gates while it was still dark for some reason. We started fishing like normal and we both hooked big fish right away. We both had our five fish limits in less than twenty minutes. We would usually just go home, but this time our fish were big enough that we thought we'd get them weighed at the boat dock. Our combined stringers weighed 20 pounds. Mine was 10.5 and Roy's was 9.5. They had to wait for the sun to come up some more for enough light to take our picture. I got my name in the paper and Roy didn't. Damn the luck. At least he had a limit before he had to leave for his guard meeting.
We fished Cuyamaca at least every other weekend for quite a while.
Full Moon - One weekend, Terry, Roy and I went fishing and camped on the north shore of the lake. We were sleeping in the tent when somebody, Terry or Roy, got up and said it was morning. It was a lot lighter than when we had gone to bed, so we got up. Once we got up and out of the tent, it was obvoius that the sun wasn't coming up yet. We didn't have a watch, and this was way before cell phones, so we decided to drive over to the lake store. We tried to look in the door for a clock but couldn't see anything. That was when we noticed the phone booth and decided to just call "time". I know I said this was before cell phones, but it wasn't exactly prehistoric times either. We had touch tone phones. You wouldn't have known that by the phone booth. Not only did it not have pushbuttons or a dial, it had a CRANK! There was a handwritten chart with notes like "3 short rings for operator", "Cuyamaca Tavern - 2 rings". The idea was to turn the crank and all of the phones in the circuit would ring while it was turning and generating a current. Apparently Ma Bell didn't think the Cuyamaca area was worth the capital outlay for a switch. We decided not to mess with it and went back to bed. The next day we learned that there had been a total lunar eclipse that night. We hypothesized that it had gone dark, and when the eclipse was over, one of us sensed the lighter sky, (not me, I was sure we had barely slept but just went along with the others) and thought the sun was coming up.
Velveeta - This story is about a cat, Velveeta. There was a cat that hung around the lake office and nearby shore. She was called Velveeta because everyone would feed her pieces of Velveeta cheese that was a popular trout bait at the time. She lived in the wild, but was tame enough. One morning while we were fishing I looked down just in time to see here "inhale" a cheese ball with a hook in it. I picked her up so she wouldn't try to leave and "set" the hook in her stomach. We decided that all we could really do was clip the line near her mouth and let her stomach acid take care of the hook. She had an extra whisker for a few weeks 'till it digested and was no worse for the wear. Another thing about Velveeta was that she LOVED bluegill. She could tell when someone had a bluegill hooked just by the way it fought and would go crazy 'till it was landed and awarded to her. She'd take it in her mouth and one crunch would kill it so she could eat it at her leisure. One day it became apparent that Velveeta was pregnant. We watched her go to term and one Friday she wasn't hanging around so everyone was sure she'd gone off and had her kittens. The locals said they'd looked around a bit but couldn't find them, so we went on a search. We finally found them under the floor of an abandoned cabin across the road from the store.
I first started fishing Mission Bay soon after My Dad and I got back from our 1970 trip. I lived in Linda Vista at the time and Mission Bay was real close for me and my neighbors. I didn't have a car yet, and I could ride a bike there in about 20 minutes. I got real creative carrying a pole, a tackle box, and lawn chair on a 10 speed bike.
My favorite spot at that time was a section of beach just north of the Hilton hotel. At first I would get bait at a little shop on Morena Blvd and ride on down to the Hilton. Later on we found out how to dig our own ghost shrimp and pencil clams. Anyway, the Hilton was nice. The beach was a strip of sand with grass and picnic areas. We would set out our lawn chairs put our poles on a sand spike and relax. If we wanted to be more aggressive, we could walk the beach and cast around. We would catch bass, small halibut, queenfish, small croaker, small rays, and small sand sharks. We especially enjoyed catching a shark near where people were swimming, because someone would always come over to see what we caught. The sharks always got a good reaction.
It was nice there because there were always tourists around to be entertained. Actually, there are tourists just about anywhere in the San Diego area, and they are always nice to meet.
Roy and I would spend a lot of time fishing and hanging out around Fiesta Island and the Mission Bay area. We discovered that spotfin croaker would make "runs" in different areas of the bay. We had seen forests of fishing poles on the shore at times, but hadn't really become involved and didn't know what to expect.
Roy talked to a few people and found out that the best bait was pencil clams. The pencil clams are similar to razor clams, but are round, about the diameter of a pencil and two to four inches long. At that time, the only way to get them was dig them yourself a day or two before. You had to wait for a minus tide, wade out into the eel grass in the bay and dig them with a good strong shovel. Sometimes the shovel would come up empty and sometimes there would be clams sticking out like birthday candles.
The regulars and the bay would scout the bay, fishing different areas, until someone got into fish. The fish would usually appear in the same area two or three days at a time, usually on an incoming tide. That's where the forest of poles comes in. The word would get out where they were running and people would stake out a section of beach hours before the run. The winning technique was to have three or four surf poles cast at different distances, until you found out what was best for that day. On a good run, you could watch the poles start to bend at one end of the beach and everyone would go crazy as they followed the length of the forest.
The first time we got into fish was one morning along the shore just east of Sea World. Normally, most fish caught from the shore in Mission Bay, other than bat rays, were short or barely keepable bass, small queenfish, small halibut and small sting rays. The fishing generally consisted of beer and BS with an occasional fish to make things interesting. When we got into our first run of spotfin, we found out what all the excitement was about. The fish were five to eight pounds and put a good bend into an eleven foot surf pole. When a school would come through, you might lose a fish or two, because all of your poles would get hit at once, not a normal situation for our bay fishing.
Bat ray fishing was always a lot of fun. Our basic technique consisted of casting a surf pole with 25-30 lb line and a whole squid as far as we could, putting the pole in a sand spike and drinking beer. Variations usually consisted of drinking wine or rum. Bat ray fishing was casting your pole out, partying, and checking your bait every few hours or so. It was usually at night with a huge campfire. Any shore area on Mission or San Diego bays would work. Our favorite was Fiesta Island. It was close to home, and at that time, fairly uncrowded and we could stay all night if we wanted to. We could go two or three trips without catching anything, but every now and then, between Roy yelling "HEEEERE BAT RAY" and our music, we would hear a reel start to sing. That sound would get our attention, no matter how loud the music was, or what we were doing at the time. We would grab the pole, set the drag, and hold on. The average bat ray would be around forty pounds. They aren't high energy fish, but they are heavy, and those wings give them a lot of leverage. It wasn't uncommon to follow one up and down the beach for 30 or 40 minutes, getting them close and then nearly getting spooled two or three times. I remember one that I caught at South Cove during a party with a bunch of people from work. It was the typical party thing. I was talking and drinking beer, having fun and putting off that trip to the bathroom 'till I was about to burst. I finally started towards the bathroom and had taken two steps before I heard that singing reel. What followed was forty minutes of walking up and down the shore with the butt of a surf rod pressing against my bladder. It was a big party and there were about 30 people watching. I could hear someone asking, "Why doesn't he just reel it in?" Ha! When I finally landed it, it took two of us to lift it. We didn't have anything to weight it, but we estimated it at about 60 pounds, one of the biggest I have ever caught. We always threw them back and they would always turn around and seem to glare at us for a few minutes before going on about their business. I didn't wait to see this one glare though. I had extremely urgent business to take care of instead.
Although the largest ones we ever caught were about 60 pounds, we heard of two to three hundred pounders being caught regularly off Quivira Point right where the main bay channel comes in from the ocean. We talked about trying it a few times, but we didn't really have the tackle for it and it really didn't fit our "cast and party" bat ray fishing style.
Writing about Roy calling the bat rays reminded me of the first time I took my kids to the Hilton. I told my daughter Shauna, 3 or 4 years old at the time, that you had to call the fish before they would bite. I'll NEVER forget her standing there yelling "HEEERE FISHY FISHY". Damned if she didn't catch a fish right after that though. She's 28 now and we still kid about it. I've been know to try it myself once or twice since then.
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5/13/23
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