8/7/03

Noyo Harbor Confidential
by Jim Martin

I've been overwhelmed with the response to this column. All kinds of people walk up to me and tell me how much they enjoy it.

Okay, what's going on out there in the briny deep this week, huh? I'll tell you what: we were almost run over by a blue whale. How many people can say that?

The Dirty Rat was skippering us down the coastline and we saw whales spouting in the distance. He slowed down when suddenly a whale the size of a $100,000 mobile home erupted directly in front of us. The Rat has quick reflexes and he jammed the engine into reverse. Somehow he stopped on a dime before the engine shut down. The whale's blow-hole glided behind the very prow of the boat and disappeared underneath it; we stood stock still in the water as the leviathan sunk back down to suck more krill.

I still haven't unpuckered.

If we had hit that beast perpendicular and broadside at 15 knots, my wife would be auctioning off the Collected Works as we speak. It would have flipped its tail and sent us and the whole boat ass over teacups into the drink. The only visual I can give you is that opening scene in the movie "Casino" when Robert DeNiro is blown up in his car and he is seen floating and flying through the air and flames in slow motion, with classical music playing in the background. It would have been like that. Only much more personal.

A fitting end, I suppose. Chisel my tombstone: "Dumbkopf."

The whale didn't kill us and we went rockfishing. We saw Tom Johnson on the Rumblefish outside of us working that bait ball for a full load of salmon fishermen, but we were headed for a spot where we could catch some "snappers".

The fish were boiling on the surface, feeding on needlefish, juvenile rockfish, and krill. We caught a nice mix of yellowtail rockfish, large blue rockfish, and a medium-sized vermilion which went five pounds. With something like six fish apiece we headed home.

Albacore are biting as close as 16 miles off the Noyo whistle buoy. Sunday I got tuna fever and decided to tempt the Fates once again. I loaded up the boat with an extra can of gas, Mike the Rookie and Mr. Lucky, and headed out under greasy flat conditions to the latitude-longitude numbers given unto me by a fellow RFA member, and they don't get any better than that. Dead center of the Noyo Canyon, an offshore structure 22 miles out: 36 degrees, 35 minutes North and 124 degrees, 14 minutes West. This is consistently a albacore hotspot every year for skiff anglers, who can make it if the wind's at your back all day and you carry spare gas.

The payoff after an hour's drive offshore is many more hours of trolling, and active hunting of the albacore. These tuna are visible at times, jumping, leaping, and lazily feeding on the surface. Every once in a while you get a strike and these things pull off line like anything I've seen. It takes serious physical effort to bring them to the boat. You need to be alert for any signs of fish, birds working, bait jumping. You need to be aware of other boats travelling erratically at high speed, loaded with people waving bottles of beer around. This all happens in the shipping tanker traffic lanes, which is great fun in the fog. Mile-long ships take time to stop and they aren't nimble enough to play dodge ball, so don't let your engine die in front of one. Tuna boat captains chatter on the VHF band radio in a staccato frenzy. Numbers are given to locate where the fish are biting but everyone's so spread out the signal breaks up or you can't hear it over the high-pitched whine of the boat motor.

In the boat, when you get a hookup, all hell breaks loose. In a skiff like mine, you've got limited space and everyone needs to coordinate quickly. It's the "Dance of the Buffalos."

Usually you get more than one hookup: a double, a triple or a quad. That's when things get completely spun. Try to keep three hot fish away from each other so you don't get tangled. Keep the fish out of the propeller as it wants to circle the boat. Try to keep your balance on the open ocean as three six-foot guys stand up and play out 30-pound fish on on a small deck littered with sharp stuff and things to trip over. It's a lot like playing Twister, really fast, with monofilament hazards.

Accomplish this once, and you will know what I mean by "tuna fever." Even if you try but don't catch a fish, the whole thing is enjoyable because it's risky - not to mention you see an ecosystem that is completely invisible to landlubbers. There are different kinds of birds out there, different bait. There are obstacles: porpoises, leviathans, floating logs and fish are jumping all over the place. I like it.

Don't forget the Pt. Arena Harbor & Seafood Festival down that the Pt. Arena pier this Saturday, August 9th, from 12-6pm.

The rest of the story: I mentioned the big chinook salmon landed on the Telstar last week. I found out it was landed by Giselle Besecker and it weighed 53 pounds, 12 oz. The big fish attracted a lot of attention as it hung at the Telstar dock for photo opportunities. A 15 year old kid comes by and asks what kind of fish it is, how you catch fish like that, and the helpful crew explained how to rig the Rotary Ralmon Killer (clear, with an orange fin) without a flasher. The kid drank it all in even though older hands were chuckling to themselves about he actually thought he could just go out there and catch a 50 pounder. On Wednesday, the kid comes into the Telstar with a 54 pound salmon. It's all downhill from here, kid. If you would like to learn how to catch 50 pounders call Randy Thornton, Captain of the Telstar at 964-8770. He seems to have it pretty much locked down.

Just got off the phone with Randy Fry, who went down to Long Beach for the Fish & Game Commission meeting. His presentation on the cabezon allocation was successful and the Commission voted unanimously to give the lion's share of the cabezon allocation back to the sportfishing sector.

Three years ago, Bob Humphrey, Ron Gaul, Brandi Easter, and a number of Nearshore Chapter members went up to Eureka in December, and got the Commission to use the historical landing data for cabezon going back to the early eighties, instead of basing the allocation on recent years when the live fish industry was unregulated and completely out of control. They voted on a 64% sport, 36% commercial allocation. This was a big victory at the time because cabezon was a indication of how all the other "nearshore" species would be allocated in the future. The Department wanted to use only 1990s data when live fishing cabezon landings were sky-high, much greater than the rec catch. The Commission sided with us and voted to include the landing data from the 80s too, when cabezon was primarily a recreational fishery.

Later, the Department decided that the sport sector would not catch the Optimal Yield (OY) for cabbies, and re-allocated the "unused" portion to the commercial sector for 2001, rather than leave them in the water for conservation. They got the Commission to approve it over the phone. What was a 64% allocation for us became less than 50%; they flipped it in reverse. Not only that, but this allocation became the formula for succeeding years. That is why we have had cabezon and greenling "emergency closures" the past couple of years. The commercial sector was allocated over half of the available cabbies and greenling in the state. These are the fish our kids are most likely to catch from shore.

This is a major victory, something RFA-NorCal has been working on ever since we became aware of what we have called the "Great Cabezon Swindle." The Commission did the right thing and despite a big turnout by the commercial live fishermen, they stuck with the original decision they made several years ago.

Also, Randy formally proposed to abolish the July abalone closure (north of the Golden Gate) because it is an antiquated law, and now with the 24 annual ab limit, there is no reason for it. This will come up in a future Commission meeting. The next Commission meeting is on August 28th and 29th in Santa Rosa.

Got a fishing report, story, recipe, or a comment? Email me at jim@flatlandbooks.com or call 707-964-8326.