You have no idea how much I’d like to bring you good news right now – really, I would. I’d love to tell you the long-delayed offshore season finally kicked off with a bang, and marlin and tuna are being caught a-plenty.

But I can’t. What I can do, however, is give it to you straight, honest and complete – the hallmarks of this happy train wreck we like to call the Fishing News, so let’s go!

If you’ve been following along with us so far, then you know this season sucks – when it’s all over, there’s every possibility it’ll go done as one of the worst SoCal offshore seasons on record. Only three striped marlin have been released so far, and no swordfish or tuna have been caught north of the border. At SCMO, we’re doing all we can to help – the spotter jet is airborne daily, landing only when needing to fuel or wanting to terrorize the tourists – but so far, it’s all for naught. Whether it’s the failing El Nino or global warming or overfishing … or BAD COMPANY not being here to find the fish for us … the terrible conditions will be debated long into the winter … but for now, we have tournaments to, um … “fish” …

The Tuna Club ran a pair of events back-to-back – the Linen One, in which antique tackle is used, and the Avalon Benefit tournament. To say that there was very little action is an understatement. As we reported on Thursday, JERAMAR provided the only real excitement for the Linen One, hooking a swordfish in the lee on San Clemente Island that was unfortunately lost after several hours when the fish tailwrapped itself. The Benefit wasn’t much better, as much of the 22-boat tourney fleet found itself targeting the secondary species that traditionally take a backseat to billfish. CAZADOR took a chance on the developing yellowfin tuna bite and made a very long run far below the border, a risk that was rewarded with a handful of small tuna. They were enough to take high boat honors, with JEWEL LURE being the only other boat to score points with a nice yellowtail. If you read the Trip Reports, you can practically smell the desperation.

Today is the first day of the Church Mouse tournament, and the fishing is unfortunately just as slow. One swordfish was hooked for about a minute several miles off Church Rock at 18/13. One of the tournament anglers told me this evening that over half the fleet was still in the harbor at 7AM, and a large number of boats opted to not fish the event, letting their entry fees go to the charities supported by the tournament and saving the money on fuel. Tomorrow is the second and final fishing day, and we’ll wrap it up in the Thursday report.

As I’m writing the Fishing News, I’m watching the start of the Dodgers-Phillies game, and all the talk is of the departure earlier today by Manny Ramirez, who was claimed on waivers by the Chicago White Sox. All weekend the talking heads wondered if the Dodgers would actually send Manny packing, and I think that for a while, there was a real possibility they might keep him in Los Angeles. We’ll never know for sure, but after watching Manny’s one-pitch-ejection last night, I can’t help but believe it was his way of nudging the team in a certain direction. All I can say is that it worked. The Manny Experiment is done, and there are those who will declare it a failure, but no one can take away the magic of 2008 when Manny single-handedly dragged the Dodgers deep into the playoffs. All we can do is wish him the best …

If there is any good news to share, it’s that next weekend being the Labor Day holiday, giving the fish one more week of northerly movement before the tournament schedule resumes. For the last 10 days or so, charter boats have been running south and picking small yellowfin tuna, and there is a sense that they are continuing northward. If the tuna are coming, it’s reasonable to assume that the marlin aren’t far behind – the only real question is whether they will make it this far north before meeting the retreating cold water from the north. The way this season is going, I could see them getting stopped at the border and turned back for lack of paperwork. At the same time, we’re hearing reports of dorado being seen as far north as the 181 – again, a warm water species. The warm water fish are definitely coming – it’s just a case whether they get here before the winter storms force them to turn tail.

I’ve always said that had the sport of billfishing not originated in Avalon with the Tuna Club, no one in their right mind would target marlin in the Catalina Bight. Because we’re used to low numbers in our tournaments, they’ve developed as social events that insure the participants have a good time whether fish are caught or not. That’s certainly the case for the Church Mouse underway now, and definitely the case for the Pesky. If you’ve never fished in the Pesky, you owe it to yourself to try it at least once. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been a part of every one of them, including our upcoming 21st edition, and the list of stories I could tell you could keep me going all winter long. All you really need to do is check out the gallery of winners on the tournament website to understand the ways the Pesky differs from some of the more straight-laced events you’ll find elsewhere.

Some events might be panicked right now, fearing a revolt from the participants because there’s likely not going to be any real concentration of marlin to catch. But for the Pesky, while we love catching fish as much as anyone else, a lack of fish just leaves more time for planting fake tailers, water balloon attacks and all the other unique elements that make the Pesky, well … the Pesky. I encourage you all to give it a shot – with the way this season is going, you’ll really appreciate an opportunity to blow off a little steam, and nothing fits the bill quite like the Watermelon Bank …

That’s the latest from here. We’ll be back Thursday with a recap of the Church Mouse, but if we hear anything important before then, look for it in the War Room or the Twitter feed. Until then, pray for fish …

It’s blowing here at the Home Office, which means it’s blowing offshore as well – but that won’t stop the tournament fleet. The fishing blows as well, but that won’t stop the Fishing News!

(cue theme music)

Here I go again, gathering up my scraps of sow’s ear and stitching them into something that resembles an edition of the Fishing News. Before we get started, I’ll warn you – if you were hoping the marlin bite had blown wide open this week, well, you’re gonna be disappointed. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have some useful tidbits to pass along.

Normally, a Thursday in tournament season would be a dry socket when it comes to information. Fortunately, the Tuna Club was contesting their Linen One event today, where vintage pre-WWII tackle is used to try and subdue billfish the old-fashioned way. Most boats were running tourney-silent, but there was some interesting information that we could glean from the fleet.

It sounded as though the boats were scattered across a large area of water, with several fleets working different high spots. PESCADOR was part of a fleet that started down at the 209, which makes sense when you see the spiral of warm water in the today’s SST chart at left. They didn’t find any action there, however, and paid a steep price on the run uphill – at one point, they reported burying their pulpit in the oncoming waves near the 152.

As you might imagine considering the lousy sea conditions, a lot of boats opted for the safety of the lee of Catalina, although the conditions there weren’t that great – 70 degrees, but dirty green water. Several boats took the advice we gave on Monday, and were working inshore using deep drop tactics for swordfish. They weren’t successful, but you have to respect the courage … even if borne of desperation.

The most intriguing reports we received here at the Home Office were the hardest to confirm – action off to the west. We know that DOUBLE HOOKUP reported seeing a tailer this morning off the west end of Catalina, and several other tourney boats were hard to hear on the radio – a dead giveaway for being somewhere further west. Something is going on up west on the backside of Catalina – I just can’t confirm it. In the lee of San Clemente, Marv Garrett and Dave Denholm on JERAMAR were fighting a swordfish hooked on 24-thread linen this afternoon, and as of press time I hadn’t received an update on the battle. The key takeaway for me is that they, too, were moving out further in search of marlin – the broadbill was just a wonderful bonus.

The Tuna Club fleet will be out again tomorrow fishing their Friday-Saturday Avalon Charity tourney, and will likely be joined this weekend by boats pre-fishing the Church Mouse. There’s currentlya long period south swell colliding with a shorter wave pattern out of the west, turning the Catalina Bight into one big washing machine. Expect to hear a lot more on the radio this weekend about the weather than the fishing …

One tidbit for those of you looking to restock the freezer – and after the season we’ve had, it’s probably getting pretty empty – there were several reports of yellowfin tuna on the Twin 220′s. That’s the first warm-water tuna report I’ve heard this season, and a good sign that the pelagics might finally be approaching.

Here at SCMO, we try to stay abreast of the latest tourney happenings, and maintain a comprehensive schedule of events for anyone looking to step and challenge the best. It was a surprise, therefore, to get a note in the mail today about an event that I hadn’t heard of – and is going down in just a few weeks! The Just For The Anglers Marlin Tournament will be run out of Avalon from September 10 through 12, and has a couple of items that ought to make it stand out. First, it’s got a charity angle, as the proceeds are going to the fight against breast cancer – certainly something we can all support. What’s more, Rosie Cadman – a fixture on the Catalina marlin scene for many decades – is coming out of retirement to serve as their official weigh master. Now, they have a release division, so I certainly hope she doesn’t get a lot of business, but it’ll be great to see her at her post on the Green Pier once again.

For our weekly blast-from-the-past, I’m not looking too far astern – just back to last year. From this report, you can take either hope or despair, depending on whether you’re a reel-half-full or reel-half-empty kind of person. The good news is that the season kicked into high gear as almost the exact same time last year, and turned out to be a decent, if not awesome, season. The bad news? In the “suicide-inducing” season that had come to pass by this time last year, there were seventy marlin on the SCMO Release Board. This year? One.

Have a nice day.

1 Year Ago … August 24, 2009 You can cancel the suicide watch for SoCal billfish anglers – it looks like there’s gonna be a marlin season after all, and we’ve got all the details. After all, this is the SoCal billfish site, so this must be the Fishing News! (cue theme music) For the last few weeks, it was pretty hard to talk with most of the local marlin anglers – you couldn’t understand what they were saying because they kept tripping over their lower lips as they pouted about the lack of fish. I’ll add right here that I was among the group. After an early-season, close-in blast of fish had everyone dreaming of epic fishing, conditions changed and the fish disappeared. Last week brought a glimmer of hope, as reports continued to be received of some marlin caught and even more hooked out by San Clemente Island. The challenge for the weekend was deciding whether the signs were worth the long run, or perhaps it made more sense to continue to search locally. Adding to the dilemma was the presence of a blast of tropical moisture in the Catalina Bight, making for humid, unpredictable weather – and you know how sailors hate unpredictable weather! Click to enlarge Bob Hoose on the loose As they say, “he who dares, wins,” and this time the facts bear out the saying. The San Clemente bite exploded over the weekend, and nearly every boat that made the run got at least one fish. Leading the way was WILD BILL, crewed for the weekend by Jim and Bill Kingmill. They found tailers in a small area about 7 miles NE of Pyramid Head on Friday, and were able to release a pair. POCO LOCO and BANDIT had been working the same area earlier in the day and each released a fish as well. One challenge for the boats heading out early was the weather, as the anchorages at both Catalina and Clemente were battered by swirling warm breezes that spun the boats and kept everyone on their toes. Saturday saw the expected increase in boats, and the additional eyes helped better define the location. HOOKER, xJEWEL LURE and KNOCK DOWN each released one Saturday, HOOKER between the 289 and Mackerel Bank and while xJL and KD found their fish closer to the 289 proper. Not to be outdone, WILD BILL backed up their Friday numbers by releasing three more on Saturday, one jig fish and a pair of tailers. Jim said that while there was a lot of fish, they weren’t always interested in the presentation and seemed to be on the move in a northwesterly direction. He said that they chased the fish nearly 13 miles before the day was over, breaking off the pursuit inside of the Mackerel. The conditions were better Sunday, but there were fewer fish for the Clemente fleet. Word got out that a second batch of fish had been found off Church Rock at Catalina, and several boats relocated to join the growing fleet there. Among those making the shift was PROSPECTOR, and it paid off well with a pair of releases, a dropback at 14/19 and a jigfish at 15/19. Several others were caught in the same area, including one for Reed Miller on SHOWDOWN. Frankly, I can’t think of anything better than hearing Reed is out on the water catching marlin! It sounds like this pack may be moving up the backside of the island towards Cat Harbor, mirroring the movement of the Clemente school. Hopefully, they’re going to slow down, but with a tournament fleet on the water today and tomorrow, we’ll soon know for certain. I heard discussion of a group of marlin being seen south off La Jolla, but I haven’t received any hard reports … yet. Let me take a moment to thank everyone who helps make this Fishing News happen by providing tips, information, and reports. I like to complain about the lack of participation at the site, but every week during the offshore season my email inbox piles up on Sunday night and Monday morning with items passed along. Often, those items include a line at the end that goes something like this: “Use this however you want, but keep my name out of it.” I’ll be honest – I’ve never understood all the secrecy associated with SoCal billfishing. The same anglers can be catching tuna, and you’ll hear it all over the radio and read it all over dead fish websites – with pictures. But once they shift to marlin, you’d think they were guarding the crown jewels. I used to think maybe it was just me, but as I’ve met marlineers from other parts of the world they all get the same chuckle at all the cloak and dagger silliness. To them, the honorable method is to share knowledge with your fellow angler and then beat them with your skill, rather than allow deception and luck to try and decide the matter. Toot – toot! I guess the issue is trying to keep information away from the other fishermen that you consider your competition. But what your actions really say is that if you have to go up against those guys mano a mano you’ll get beat, so you’d better not let them know where the fish are. Well, I’ve got news for you: they already know. In all likelihood, they’re the ones that found the fish to create the bite in the first place, but even if they didn’t know where the fish were they will long before you reach the beach and spread the word. The only ones you hurt with your silence are the other guys, probably not so different from yourself, who are trying to learn and establish themselves as billfish anglers. They read these reports and absorb the knowledge in an attempt to better themselves as fishermen. They’re guys just trying to find their way forward in our sport, and maybe get a shot at a marlin, but you won’t share with them. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Today was Day One of the two-day Church Mouse Invitational, and don’t you think those folks are happy the marlin made a timely appearance! What only a few days ago looked to be a quiet event suddenly is action packed, as the fleet spread out over several areas and found fish in all of them. From the frequent radio reports – each punctuated by the traditional train whistle – we know that there are boats working in the established spots near the Mackerel Bank and Church Rock, as well as another fleet on the 277. At lines out this afternoon, CLUB TED was leading with two releases (the first and last of the day), and REEL NICE N EASY, FULL CIRCLE, KNOT WISE, REELY HOOKED 3, BROADBILL and SABBATICAL all released one. We’ll have a full wrapup in the Thursday edition. That’s a wrap for now. If you were successful this weekend and we left you out of the FN, all I can say is that if you tell us about it, you greatly increase your chances of seeing your name in lights. File those Trip Reports … submit those Billfish Releases … lather … rinse … repeat! Join us Thursday for a recap of the Church Mouse and a look forward to a very busy September tournament calendar.

“If I could meet ‘em I could get ‘em
But as yet I haven’t met ‘em
Thats how I’m in the state I’m in.”

Cat Stevens, “Another Saturday Night”

You know, I’m famous for saying that when the action is hot and heavy, the Fishing News could pretty much write itself – all I have to do is edit the reports. These days, the Fishing News could pretty much write itself, too …

“Ain’t sh!t out there now … thank you, and have a pleasant tomorrow … “

Normally, I’d try and put some kind of positive spin on things, talk about how this isn’t that unusual and how we could still have a great marlin season. But I’m not one of those fish wraps trying to sell you something, so I don’t have to lie – this flat-out sucks. If you paw through the Trip Reports,you’ll see a lot of good information about what’s going out there right now, but you’ll feel a lot of frustration, as well. People have put a lot of time and money into preparing for this season – and I’m not just talking about me … although, we did have to replace a server here in the Home Office last month (not that I expect that to influence your decision to support SCMO – but I won’t mind if it does). No, I’m talking about every marlin fisherman in the region whose dreams of a big season drove them to take the time and spend the money needed to be ready for battle. All those boats that were upgraded over the winter, all the new reels spooled and lures rigged … and for what? Tournament season usually marks the beginning of the second half of the season, and we’ve got a total of three marlin caught for all of Southern California. Pathetic.

But we do what we must, as tournament season is here and kicked off this weekend with the Cabo / Hatteras Challenge. The 17 boats fishing the tourney didn’t get any marlin, of course, and all you really need to know about the event – and the state of the current offshore situation – is that the winning boat, TRANQUILITY, took the top prize with a pair of white sea bass and a yellowtail. But there was one moment of excitement for the crew of HATTABOY, who hooked a swordfish Saturday afternoon on the 312. Unfortunately, it was on 30# class gear, and the inevitable unhappy ending came later that evening. It’s a classic story if you’re fighting a sword on that kind of tackle – they almost always give you a shot or two early in the fight if you’re brave and decisive, but once they realize they’re hooked and dive you’re screwed. That was the case here, unfortunately.

You know, it’s possible that the dearth of marlin could have an interesting positive side effect. For several years now, the folks who’ve had a chance to fish swordfish in Florida have returned talking about deep drop methods and other ideas that they think could translate to our fishery – but seldom does anyone have the time or commitment to really give it a fair shot. With no other billfish out there to catch, and a lot of us having never caught a swordfish, this might be the time the ideas get a real test. There are several threads going over in the Marlin Club on this very topic – check it out and see what you think!

One last thought on the pathetic marlin bite. One of our competitors is running a “See and Release” contest – spot a marlin, send in a picture and get a free t-shirt. I guess the idea is that the season is so bad that no one can catch one, so this is considered the next best thing. I have my own deal for you – send that same picture to me and I’ll give you a swift kick in the ass. The problem isn’t that no one can catch the marlin, it’s that no one can find the marlin. I have every expectation that if we saw ‘em, we’d catch ‘em, and if you waste your shot at a marlin taking a picture for a damn t-shirt, well, you get exactly what you deserve – and your crew needs to don their “I’m with Stupid” tees …

In a season that thus-far has been limited to a bunch of whiny grumbling, I bring you a little good news. When I was in high school, my brother and I and a couple of friends would pile into an inflatable Avon dinghy and paddle out into King Harbor, looking for anything that might bite. By the end of the day, we were tired and wet, and probably hadn’t caught anything bigger than a bonito – but we were happy. Times change but dreams don’t, and thus it was that Randall Hause and two friends found themselves fishing just outside the kelp line off Laguna Beach Friday morning. Like me many years earlier, they were looking for whatever might find their squid, and would have been thrilled with anything – but they got a whole lot more than they bargained for. On this day, the squid bait the boys thought might get wolfed down by a hungry calico bass instead was taken by something really, really big. It took all three of the boys to fight the fish, but their efforts were rewarded with a 143-lb opah. Opah are periodically found off the SoCal coast – usually in the warmer marlin seasons, ironically – but are always caught by accident, usually while fishing far offshore. What this one was doing playing in the Laguna kelp is beyond me, but makes for a tale those boys will tell for a lifetime.

That’s about it for now. We’re entering into what is sure to be a perfect storm of silence, as boats go tourney quiet as they seek what they hope will be an event-winning patch of fish. But rest assured, we’ll ferret out what information is out there to be found, and bring it to you faster than anyone else. That’s just what we do here at the Fishing News.

“Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

– Terrence Mann, “Field of Dreams”

It’s a breezy evening at the Home Office, and there is a change in the air. Can you feel it? Can you FEEL IT! Much like that fictional Iowa corn farmer, we have built it – we’ve spooled the reels and tied the knots and sharpened the hooks and filled the tanks. Now all we can do is wait, and hope that they will come …

We’ve had a high pressure dome keeping the temperatures up this week in SoCal, but that’s scheduled to break down just in time for the weekend. That means a return to the prevaling westerlies, and maybe – just maybe – some marlin. There’s reason to be hopeful, for reasons I’ll share in a moment.

Frankly, I’m tired of people whining about how this season sucks. I’ve got news for you, people – there are no guarantees in our sport, and the fishing gods owe you nothing. Every time I get the chance to be out on the water, I consider it a gift whether there is fish or not, and I’m one grateful son of a bitch to have the opportunity. All you can do is your best to be prepared when the time is right, and hope that time actually comes. It may … it may not. We have no control over that. But we have absolute control over how we react to it – so enough with the whining!

There weren’t a lot of boats out midweek, but the ones that were out were willing to share what they found. The news was good – the surface temperatures on the inner banks are rising, and most are showing signs of life. Unfortunately, marlin and the other pelagic species don’t seem to be among them – yet.

The spot most often mentioned as looking good was the 279, where the water temps were over 68 degrees and food was plentiful. It was a similar story on the Avalon Bank and down the ridge off the east end of Catalina, and out to the 209 as well, where much of the swordfish fleet was working. You can certainly extrapolate that the other inshore banks are under similar conditons. Further out, the water is clearer and cooler, and I didn’t hear much from boats that opted to head far from shore.

To the south, we’re getting more reports of yellowtail out away from the islands and under free drifting kelp. That’s a key signal of the arrival of pelagic species, and bodes well for the marlin if the water temps and weather holds. It will be from the southern boats that we’ll first hear about the arrival of any great number of marlin, so stay tuned.

I, like most of you, subscribe to a whole stack of magazines. I enjoy the features and drool at the photography and learn from the tutorials. But I live for the editorials. I’m nothing if not opinionated, and I’m always interested in hearing what others think, even if I disagree.

Recently, the staff at MARLIN Magazine received some heat over a picture they posted on their Facebook page. The shot, taken at the recent Blue Marlin World Cup, showed the winning fish, a 1,097-lb blue marlin, being moved with a forklift. There was no commentary about where and why the fish was being moved, leaving the viewer to make their own guesses at to the meaning of the photo. Some of the comments were rather pointed in their criticism of the magazine, and MARLIN editor Charlie Levine published an editorial addressing the concerns.

While I agree with much of his statement, I felt he missed the mark on a couple of key points and penned my own reply. An excerpt:

It’s a fact that longliners slaughter thousands of billfish, and magazines like yours and websites like mine need to throw our full weight behind the effort to stop them. But you can’t use those needless deaths to justify killing billfish in a tournament any more than I can use the high murder rate in the inner city as justification to shoot my neighbor’s dog – wrong is wrong, and the relative size of the acts is immaterial. As for the event themselves, technology has rendered obsolete the need to kill a fish to determine a winner, and the only reason those marlin continue to hang today is the publicity they create – publicity you help facilitate when you publish the photos. That’s not to say the events don’t raise money for charities, or bring economic benefit to the regions they serve – they do, and they deserve credit for that. But there are ways to give that credit, to report on the results, and even acknowledge the angling accomplishment without providing the continued incentive to kill more fish next year.

Over the years, I’ve been accused of many things, from being overly hard core to being a marlin hugger to being a PETA supporter. Truth is, I’ve been incredibly consistent in my belief that there’s no reasonable justification for killing a marlin, and certainly none of the excuses in the editorial in my mind qualify. We’ll see if my words make it into print next month …

So far this season, we’ve talked a lot about signs and hunches and expectations – you’d think that we were using tea leaves to predict the future of the season. So I’m happy to provide at least one tangible piece of evidence to support the idea that change may be afoot – the latest sea surface temperature chart. Now, you’ve heard my rant about how unreliable SST charts are, and how they can’t see through clouds, and how they’re just the output of an algorhythm based on the reflectivity of the sea surface and have nothing to do at all with the reality of the water temperature. That said, they can at least be used to determine trends, and if you compare the new chart to the same shot from July 28th, you’ll see a hell of a difference.

The two charts are identical in terms of size and scale – the only difference is that the water would seem to be a lot warmer in the new chart. Even more important, the cold water bolus that had been sitting off Ensenada, effectively blocking the pathway for the fish to come north, looks to have finally broken down. That’s a key occurrence, and will hopefully lead to a forthcoming arrival of the marlin. We’ll see …

I’ve been promising to talk about the tournaments, but I just keep running out of time. No more excuses – next week, all the details on the events I’m fishing, and maybe even a little about the others as well. Until then, get out there this weekend, then get back here and tell us about it!

In life, there’s expectation and there’s reality – and seldom do the two coincide. We saw that again this weekend on several different levels, and we’ll look at what happens when the two collide. All that and a couple of marlin (gasp!) – it’s the Fishing News!

(cue theme music)

Expectations … mine were high going into this weekend. Sure, there wasn’t much in terms of real data to go on, but there were signs. A high pressure system was moving into SoCal, raising temperatures and creating dry lightning storms – and while thunderheads over the mountains give the Forest Service reason to fear, they give marlin fishermen reason to drool. Beyond that, I saw my own personal never-fail, sure-fire sign that it’s marlin season – dew on my car. As soon as I start to see dew on the car, it tells me that fall is here – and so should be the marlin.

Reality … bites. Maybe there are signs, but there certainly aren’t fish – at least not in any quantity. The only two confirmed striped marlin I know of being released this weekend are the same two everyone heard about – one on Thursday by ONEFOURTHREE south of the 209 (04/51) and another Saturday by FAIR GAME between the Avalon Bank and the Shipping Lanes. There were a couple of swordfish seen around the Avalon Bank, and at least one person proudly reported releasing a mako shark. Other than that – nothing … or so I’m told. More on that in a minute.

There were definitely boats working this weekend, and a couple of fleets were formed. Boats from both the northern and southern ports converged on the 209 – nothing causes more wasted fuel than a radio fish. The water was warm (66.5) and bait was plentiful, but I didn’t hear of any other fish taken there.

A second, larger group pounded the familiar grounds off the East End of Catalina, and there were several sightings, but again, I heard of no confirmed releases or even hookups.

The group I’m hearing the least about – and, therefore, have my attention – ran over and worked San Clemente Island. We know they were close enough to be run off the island by the Navy, but that doesn’t tell you much. I also heard of several boats planning on running to the 499, which is off the north end of the island, but never did hear if they did. It just goes to show how mouths close during tough fishing – making my job a lot harder!

As a semi-professional journalist, I believe in deadlines. They help keep me on schedule, frame expectations and generally make life a lot easier – save the occasional writer’s block. But since I’m more “semi” than “professional”, I don’t live and die by deadlines – which is why I’m writing the Monday evening edition of the Fishing News on Tuesday morning.

There’s more to the delay than simple laziness, however. The goal is always to bring you the best possible report, with the latest news from the largest number of sources. Some of those sources, though, require a little time – much like waiting for a spooked marlin to resurface, you have to give the process a little time to work.

One of my key tools is something you are all probably familiar with – the Info Ping. An email that goes out Sunday nights, it’s a little poke to the local anglers, reminding them to file a Trip Report if they were on the water and giving them an easy way out (by replying to the email) if they don’t want to be quite so public. There’s usually a little tease about the weekend’s action and maybe a notification or two, but it’s basically a request for information.

Sunday, the first IP of the season went out to 187 folks we have tagged in our mailing list as “local”. Based on seasons’ past, my “expectation” was that I’d get a half-dozen reports, a couple of irritated non-locals accidentally on the wrong list, one request to be removed from the list and several people asking how to renew their MNAC membership. I hit the “send” button and sat back, waiting for the magic to happen.

I’m still waiting – I got zero … zip … nada. Not even a cancellation request. Talk about reality kicking expectation squarely in the nuts.

OK, since it’s early in the season, and we’re getting an influx of new eyes on this page, let me explain how this whole things works. Think of SCMO as a commune, with less pot smoke and casual sex, but just as much excitement. We all crave the adrenalin rush of the billfish strike and the scream of the big game reel, and that’s why we come here looking for information. But like a commune, it’s a collaborative effort, one where we all play a part in the grand scheme of things. I like to think of this as the modern-day equivalent of the old “Take a penny, give a penny” dishes of a different time. Sometimes you come here looking for information, and you’re welcome to get all you can and do with it what you will. But after you use that information to help plan your trip, come back and tell us what you saw – even if you saw nothing at all. That’s how the game is played – and you can think of the Info Ping as that empty dish, begging for you to drop in a penny.

A lot of boats are adding computers and broadband cards to the electronics suites on their bridge so they can get the latest sea surface temperature charts, check out their favorite fishing websites – and stream their Netflix. But while I hear a lot of people talking about how great it will be to have all that information at their fingertips, I don’t hear a lot about how they’re going to use that same technology to give back – to have an even faster way to report back what they’re seeing.

If that’s you, fine – that’s your call. But if enough people follow your example, one of these days when you call us up on the flybridge computer, you’ll find the place shuttered and wonder why. And when you do, make sure you take a look in the mirror, because that’s where you’ll find the answer.

I’m just sayin’ …

I can say this – we’ll be back on Thursday with a look at what we all hope will be the first big weekend of 2010. I’ll leave you with one piece of good news – I talked with someone who fished out of Ensenada last weekend, and he tells me the big cold water plug down there is breaking up – that means more warm water … and warm water fish … for us. We’ll have more to say about that on Thursday, but until then, file those Trip Reports, make those Marlin Club posts, and post those MarlinBlog comments …

This edition of the Fishing News is brought to you by a cold Red Stripe Beer – I’m fighting a pair of ear infections, and I’m counting on its medicinal properties …

I think the hardest reports for me to write are at times like this, when there’s absolutely nothing going on and everyone is desperate for something to happen. If there’s a ton of action, the challenge is finding a way to squeeze it all in. But when the fishing is dead, I still feel an obligation to try and give you your money’s worth and make your visit an entertaining and informative experience – and that’s pretty hard when I can’t talk about fishing. But we’re gonna give it a shot …

Let’s start on an upbeat note – here’s a shot of Dave Elm and his RASTA FISH proudly displaying their Balboa Angling Club First Release Flag. Let’s face it … if they didn’t release that marlin – a fish found in a place it had no right whatsoever being found – we’d all be on suicide watch right now. But Dave’s little surprise is a cautionary tale as well, as that kind of a surprise could happen to any of us this weekend – provided we’re on the water.

The problem so far is that there are still very few people actually on the water, and those out there don’t really have any of the usual tools that might help them decide where to go. Marlin season usually tends to be cloudy, particularly late in the season, so not having decent sea surface tempearature charts is nothing new. But combine that with an absolute lack of credible reports of anyone seeing anything, and you can understand why many captains are reticent about burning their $5-a-gallon fuel. The closest thing I’ve heard all week to a real sighting came from earlier today when what I believe was a San Diego boat working south of the 209 claimed to have hooked and lost two marlin on bait. Now this could have been a true marlin guy having a tough day, or someone targeting something else who stumbled upon a fish and wasn’t prepared – at this point, I don’t know. But any sighting beats no sightings, I suppose …

We mentioned in an earlier report about just how historically strange this season is starting out. I’ve heard some people compare this year to 1973, when there effectively wasn’t a marlin season (more swordfish were landed than marlin). I don’t think it’s that bad quite yet, but I think we all know something was wrong, even if we didn’t really know what. Now the good folks at the National Weather Service have posted a commentary that would seem to confirm our suspicions ….

…WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO SUMMER IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA?…

FOR THE BETTER PART OF THE PAST TWO AND A HALF MONTHS…AN UPPER LEVEL TROUGH HAS BEEN LOCATED ALONG OR JUST OFF THE WEST COAST. THIS HAS MAINTAINED A SIGNIFICANT MARINE INFLUENCE ACROSS COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS OF SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA. TYPICAL NIGHT THROUGH MORNING LOW CLOUDS AND FOG…WHICH TEND TO BE ABUNDANT IN MAY AND JUNE…USUALLY BECOME MUCH LESS WIDESPREAD IN JULY AND AUGUST. THE PRESENCE OF THE PERSISTENT TROUGH HAS BEEN A FACTOR IN PREVENTING THE TYPICAL DECREASE IN LOW CLOUDS AND FOG THIS SUMMER. IN ADDITION…OCEAN WATER TEMPERATURES ARE BELOW NORMAL… SO DAILY SEA BREEZES HAVE BEEN EXTRA CHILLY…ESPECIALLY NEAR THE IMMEDIATE COAST.

AFTER A JUNE IN WHICH TEMPERATURES WERE BELOW NORMAL ACROSS MOST OF SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA…JULY CONTINUED TO BE VERY COOL. IN FACT…IT WAS AMONG THE COOLEST JULYS EVER RECORDED ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE SOUTHLAND.

And just in case you thought maybe things were going to quickly turn around …

SO FAR THE MONTH OF AUGUST HAS CONTINUED THE VERY COOL THEME. THROUGH THE FIRST 10 DAYS OF THE MONTH…THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE AT LOS ANGELES AIRPORT WAS 63.8 DEGREES…6.3 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL. IN ADDITION…THE AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE WAS 68.8…NEARLY 8 DEGREES BELOW THE NORMAL OF 76.4 DEGREES. RECORD LOW MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES WERE SET OR TIED ON EACH OF THE FIRST 9 DAYS OF THE MONTH AT LOS ANGELES AIRPORT.

As someone who works on the southern perimeter of LAX, I can conform that last paragraph. Not terribly encouraging …

Of course, this silly-assed weather is impacting everyone who chases pelagic species, and that includes those who chase tuna. The few albacore that have been caught are far below the border, and seem to have stalled out. What’s worse, albacore are being caught on the Rodriquez Seamount east of the Channel Islands – always a sign that whatever albacore season we’re having is pretty much over … in our case, before it started.

People tend to vent their frustration in different ways, and one tuna fisherman has taken his skills to the internet. This video, which features a dramatized Adolph Hitler with a surprising agenda, is making the rounds and is hilarious. Substitute the word “marlin” for “albacore” and you sum up most of our feelings right now.

Chin up, people. If nothing else, it keeps you from walking into a lamppost. For those of you who do head out this weekend, I give you my thanks in advance for the Trip Report you’ll file when you return. We’ll be sending out our first Info Ping on Sunday night, so if the Trip Report is too much work, just reply to the email with anything you see or hear. Each of you is like one element of our own billfish Distant Early Warning network – and any of you could be the next one to proudly fly the flag!

Yes, Virginia, there will be a marlin season in SoCal – well, at least a marlin … the first one went Saturday, and we’re all hoping he brought lots of friends. We’ll have all the details, talk a little tourney action and take a look at our place in the cosmos – ’cause it’s time for the Fishing News!

(cue theme music)

By know you’ve surely heard that the first striped marlin of the season was released Saturday morning by Dave Elm on RASTA FISH just a couple of miles out of Newport Beach. Of course, if you’re on our mailing list, you heard about it about an hour after it happened – which is a pretty good reason to join the list. Dave wasn’t even out for marlin, but it’s a good demonstration of being prepared when the time comes. Actually, there were very few boats out this weekend looking for marlin, since the water is still as cold as 64° in a lot of places. HOOKER and BLUE CHIP were among the few targeting marlin for the entire weekend; BC baited what was believed to be a marlin at 20/10, which would put them about six miles off the Slide.

The news of the RASTA FISH success caused several to change their plans, particularly among the fleet fishing the BAC tournament over at San Clemente. Unfortunately, while a lot of fuel was spent, no fish were found. You can bet that the rest of the fleet will be out this weekend, though, and we’ll have a full preview of the conditions and information on Thursday.

One down side to the relatively late starting offshore season is that the marlin tournament season will be here damned soon. Normally, we get 6 to 8 weeks of good fishing under our belts before the first event arrives, giving boats time to hone skills and practice the teamwork so critical to tournament success. That’s not gonna happen this year, though – the Cabo Hatteras Challenge is two weeks off, the Church Mouse the weekend after that, and then they start stacking up like cord wood.

Every season, I tell myself I’m going to find more time to fish when marlin season arrives, and inevitably whatever work project I’m on goes critical every fall – it just never fails. This year is no different, as I’m committed to delivering my current system on December 7th (yes, Pearl Harbor day …). In spite of that, I’m making a full-court press when it comes to tourney time. I’ll be doing the King Harbor Marlin Club and Los Pescadores club tourneys as usual, and there’s an outside chance I’ll be fishing the Church Mouse as well. But I’m happiest to be able to say that I and Team HOOKER will be fishing in the all-release Avalon Billfish Classic. This will be the first time any of our crew has experienced big-time tournament fishing and all the hoopla that goes with it, and I’m thrilled for the crew. We’ll probably get our cans handed to us on the water, but we’ll give it all we have.

My point in mentioning the tournaments should be obvious – it’s time to make those commitments and get those forms and checks in the mail. The Pesky has gotten bigger every year we’ve had it, and I know that Rod has high expectations for the ABC and his other events as well. You’d feel pretty bad if you missed out just because you were a little lazy, and I’d feel bad that you didn’t get to buy me a drink. So swing by the Tourney Calendar, pick your events, and get going!!

One of the questions I’m often asked is just where I think SCMO and the Fishing News in particular fits in the swirling maelstrom that is the fishing information available out there. Frankly, there are those who think our time has come and gone, and they’re welcome to that opinion – but they’re wrong, and this weekend’s first marlin demonstrates why.

Dave released his marlin just before noon, and it wasn’t long before the jungle drums were sounding the news. Of course, that news was received in a lot of different places, and each reacted to it in its own way.

On one end of the spectrum you have the stream-of-consciousness website where they transcribe the VHF radio stream – or at least try. While there was a mention of the catch shortly after it hit the airwaves, all you had was one person’s attempt to squeeze it in among the sand bass reports and whale sightings – all while ringing up customers. While we value the timeliness, you have to take it with the same grain of salt you apply to any radio fish.

At the other end is the weekly newspaper we all read. There’ll probably be some mention of Dave’s catch there, and possibly even some details, but you won’t get it until Wednesday at the earliest and even then will have to wade through a lot of self-serving product plugs to get to any real information. It’s their business model and it works for them, but do you really want to wait until then? Of course, there’s always that other site where the meat fishermen hang out, but they’re so busy swapping high-fives and gory stories to even notice that the first marlin was caught.

And then there’s us. We put out an eBlast to our mailing list, tweeted to our followers, and updated both the Marlin Club and our Facebook page at about the same time as that other site, so we were every bit as timely and immediate – and with a variety of platforms with which to broadcast the information, we could bring the information to you, rather than you having to visit a website to find out. What’s more, we received the same information independantly from a second source, increasing the validity of the news – but even with that confirmation, we made it clear that we would get more information … something you won’t find elsewhere. Now it’s Monday night, and while the other sites have forgotten about the weekend and the newspaper hasn’t even got the presses running yet, we’re back with the full story, from Dave Elm himself:

I went out to test a new bait system and bow bait tank, and figured putting a few hours rock cod fishing just east of the Newport jetty since the boat was in the water anyway. We caught a lingcod and a few nice reds, and with 10 minutes left in our day saw a fish tipping off in the distance. We decided to check it out, figuring it was a swordfish, but while I was on the bow trying to get close enough to cast 2 jet skiers ran the fish over. After a few minutes of hatching it like a sword, moving uphill in the same direction it was heading before it went down, we saw it about 100 yards ahead of the boat. I had my 80lb sword rod with 200lb leader and a 10/0 offset hook and made my best cast. The fish blows up and the reel starts rolling; I let it run a long way thinking swordfish and see him up swimming on the surface and decide to set the hook. The fish started jumping but low and away from the boat so all you see was he back. Finally after several minutes, he’s coming to the boat and jumps where you can see his stomach out and we knew it was a mahlin! On 80lb he came to bow quickly, and I grabbed the leader and Terry grabs the bill. I reached down his mouth and got the hook out. We both let go and he tail walked away from the boat. Still in shock.

If you’re a serious billfisherman, whether in SoCal or elsewhere, I don’t think you have any trouble knowing where you belong …

One more thing about Dave’s fish – he also caught the last fish from the 2009 season, and did it under very similar circumstances – and only two miles from Saturday’s catch! I think we need to rename that place the RastaBank …

The news from the Gulf of Mexico gets better each day, as it appears that BP has pretty much killed their well for good. They have concrete hardening at the top of the bore, and are a couple of days away from injecting more at the base. Then they can pull the blowout preventer to the surface, and the real recriminations begin – don’t you just know there are some BP and Haliburton manager sweating bullets right about now.

Once the oil is gone and with it the temporary jobs it has created, the people of the Gulf will be left pretty much on their own. The reports we receive here are that the fishing seems relatively untouched, and the beaches pretty clean, but the place is a ghost town due to the media frenzy. We’ll have to wait and see what the long-term ramifications are to both the environment and the business climate, but it’s pretty grim for both.

The politicians do their part – or at least work hard to be seen as doing their part – but you wonder just how much actual thought goes into their actions. They all love to get their money shot with Anderson Cooper walking barefoot on some Mississippi beach looking for tarballs, but when it comes to action all they manage to step on is their genitals. Take the President, for example. He’s made a lot of high-profile trips to the region, and made sure everyone knew that at his birthday BBQ over the weekend, gulf seafood was the main attraction. But then, knowing the tourist resorts in the Gulf are drying up like a fish in the sun, he sends the family to vacation on a beach … in Spain. The comic at right says it all … this guy does have advisors, right?

Well, that’s it for now. The gun has started and the marathon-turned-sprint has started – now all we need to know is which way to run. We’ll be back on Thursday with our best guess on that direction, along with a preview of the weekend and our usual snark. Until then, I’ll be the guy furiously prepping his gear – and I’ll be you won’t be far behind …

Here I am, lacing up my tap shoes again. We’re getting close to the weekend, and I have scant little to share. Better crank up the music for a little song and dance …

(cue theme music)

If you’re one of those Type A personalities who demands an executive summary for every element of their life, I’ll just cut to the chase – I got nuthin’. No new billfish sightings, still no tuna within US waters. Have a nice day.

For the rest of you, we’ll do our best to be charming, witty and entertaining – and maybe even throw in a nugget of information here and there.

To be honest, as an author I’m kind of worn out today, having written one of the longest entries I’ve ever done over at the MarlinBlog. But serious times deserve serious opinions, and I’ve tried to give it my best shot. I don’t know where you come out on the issue, but I guarantee you have an opinion, and that’s reason enough to take the time to read and comment on the blog entry.

Meanwhile, back on the water, it’s pretty dead. I haven’t even heard from anyone who’s even going out during the week prospecting – that’s how slow it is. The only species generating any interest at all are the large whales currently migrating through the area – blue, fin and minke – that seem to be in larger numbers than usual. I’ll be honest, if you have one of those big blue behemoths blow right alongside the boat the way we did last year, you can’t help but be amazed. Unfortunately, they haven’t developed tackle sized for those guys yet, so the only folks benefitting from their presence are the whale watching tours. But if you check out the blast from the distant past at the bottom of this entry, you’ll see that as frustrating as the lack of fish feels right now, it’s certainly not unprecedented.

We mentioned in our last report about the two tourneys underway in Kona and Ocean City – good thing they’re catching fish, so I’ll have something to talk about. The Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament fleet is currently fishing their fourth of five fishing days, and after yesterday’s fishing there had been a total of 7 blue marlin weighed in, with the largest being a 697-lber. Another 35 billfish – a mix of blue marlin, striped marlin and spearfish – had been released, including three that were tagged with satellite tags as part of the “Great Marlin Race” tagging effort. Several of the tagged marlin were caught by members of the Laguna Niguel Marlin Club teams, including Sally Kurz, shown at left.

Each tournament has its own flavor and rules, but one thing I particularly like about the HIBT is the requirement that in order to be counted as a release, the fish must actually be controlled and a tag implanted. Beyond the obvious benefit to research of a tagged fish, tagging requires you to leader the fish and control it sufficiently to implant a tag. Too often, particularly here in SoCal, a “release” means the mate took a turn on the leader somewhere near its far end and snapped it off – often leaving it trailing behind the fish. Forcing the angling team to tag the fish properly also equates the act to the effort and difficulty associated with gaffing and landing a fish, which make for better competition. It’s worth noting that the HIBT rules also encourage anglers to properly revive their fish, and allow the team to declare the release once the tag is implanted so the revival time doesn’t work against them or tempt them to cut it short.

For more coverage of the HIBT, check out SCMO regular Jon Schwartz’s HIBT blog. Be sure to read his account of having an angry marlin charge and ram the press boat … yikes!

Meanwhile, off the coast of Maryland, fishing in the White Marlin Open has completed for the day. This is also their fourth fishing day, although the rules dictate that each boat must choose three of the five available days to fish, thus adding an additional layer of intrigue to the event. It’s an interesting event in that while white marlin are obviously the primary species being caught, blue marlin are being hooked as well – including some pretty big ones.

There’s a whole lotta money involved in the WMO – well over $2 million in prize money – so it attracts a lot of entrants. 255 boats are entered in this years WMO, and so far the largest white marlin is a 97.5-lber landed on Tuesday. That might not sound like much to folks used to reading about granders, but it’s the second-largest white marlin in tourney history. What’s more, it’s in line to earn a prize of $800,000 for angler Brian Roberts should it hold up through the end of fishing tomorrow.

In the blue marlin division, the leading fish is a 1,010-lber taken by James Kontos, while Travis Boone leads the tuna division with a 76.5 lb tuna. Both stand to take home big pots if they’re still in the lead this time tomorrow.

We’ll bring you the final results of both events on Monday, along with some information about tournaments a little closer to home that are coming up quicker than you realize.

That’s it for now. I can’t tell you where to fish, because right now there’s no clear signs. But I know a lot of you will be out there this weekend, and you know what that means – time to file a Trip Report! You’ll hear me say this a lot in the next few months, but the best source of information we have will always be the reports from those of you lucky to spend time on the water. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or funny, or full of a lot of pictures (although you know we luuuuv pictures …), just where you went and what you saw. Put it out there for everyone to see and help all of us make our own game plan. That’s ultimately what a community is all about, and community is what keeps this the special place that it is.

You have no idea how much I’d like to tell you that the offshore season exploded this weekend. I’d like to, but that would a huge lie, and I’m just not going to Hell for you people. So we’ll all just have to accept the fact that the fish simply aren’t here yet, and learn to live with it.

That’s not to say there aren’t signs, or people out there looking for that first fish. At least a dozen marlin boats were out, most off the East End of Catalina, but there were no confirmed marlin sightings. Closest anyone had to excitement was the crew of OFFSHORE, who unsuccessfully baited a swordfish – at least it’s got a bill!

Because we know our fish come into the region from the south, we tend to look in that direction early in the season hoping to get an early warning of their arrival. So far, though, it’s been pretty quiet. I’ve heard nothing from the San Diego or northern Mexico fleets about marlin, save the occasional party boat that stumbles across one, as happened this weekend at the 425. Most of the action down south remains focused on tuna, although they’re still not close enough to do much for the private boaters. An albacore trip still means a hundred-mile run to the Dumping Grounds or the south end of the Mushroom Bank – a typical day’s run for an East Coast canyon runner, but still a little much for most of us soft West Coast guys. But the water is warming up, so it’s just a matter of time and patience …

I remember a conversation I had with Steve Lassley a couple of years back about trying to stay in condition during marlin season. As someone who tends to be pear-shaped, I was interested in how Steve manages to stay in such good condition during the season, considering his days consist of a dozen hours slumped in a chair glassing the horizon. “You work out like hell all year long,” he said, “and accept that you’ll look like a pear at the end of the season.” Depresssing, to be sure, but you do what you have to do. I’m not as good about working out as much as I should, and I have fewer excuses than most – I snapped this shot from my Blackberry as I walked along Redondo Beach this afternoon. Could be worse – I could be in Iowa …

It’s pretty slow here, but in other parts of the world it’s tournament season. Two of the biggest are underway as we speak, on opposite ends of the country – the White Marlin Open in Ocean City, Maryland and the grandaddy of them all, the Hawaiian Invitational Billfish Tournament in Kona on the Big Island.   Both events began today and run through Friday; we’ll have more details once the events end.

That’s it for now, but stay tuned … things could change in a  hurry!

Well, I’ve delayed the inevitable for as long as I could. Who cares if they forgot to invite the fish – it’s time to feed another quarter into the horsey ride of my creativity and fire up a new year of the SCMO Fishing News!

(cue theme music)

Every year, it’s a tricky dance as I try to determine when to begin publishing the Fishing News. I don’t want to get caught with my pants down when the first striped marlin of the season is caught, of course, but I also don’t want to spend three months telling the same bad jokes and talking about the latest unfounded rumors of fish sightings.

This year, I’ve been swamped with a pending system rollout for my real job as a software developer, so I haven’t paid as close attention to where exactly the fish were until the days got so long and warm that I just couldn’t help but check. Imagine my surprise when I found they were MIA!

You know, for the last few years we’ve seen Al Gore go on about global warming and the impact it could have on the oceans. We’ve watched the longliners net tuna and marlin by the thousand off Cabo San Lucas. We’ve read about – or perhaps participated in – the scoping process for the potential closures driven by marine scientists and politicians in the name of the MLPA. Through it all, we’ve thought – or hoped – that they were all wrong.

What if they were right?

It’s not just that it’s late for the first marlin – we’ve had later ones. It’s that the whole season is late. There’s a predictable rhythm to the offshore season in SoCal. There’s the cold-water tuna and the sharks, then the warmer tunas, yellowtail and swordfish, and finally the marlin arrive with the 68-degree water. Sure, the marlin are late – but so is everything else! Where’s the albacore? So far, they haven’t made it north of the border. There’s been a couple of swordfish stuck, but the commercial fishermen are crying. Marlin? By this time in the season we might not have the first flags gone, but we’d certainly be seeing them. Not this year. Why?

Before you start listing your trolling gear on eBay, step away from the edge – I don’t think it’s that bad. Yes, we’re screwing the environment as quickly as humanly possible, and it’s very likely that all those doomsday scenarios just might come true one day. But it’s not today, and it’s not why we aren’t seeing fish right now. It’s all about the conditions.

The offshore species we covet are all pelagic, meaning they travel with the seas staying in conditions they favor as those conditions move around. Striped marlin, for example, prefer a specific temperature range of water. The 68-degree isobar remains the most accurate predictor of where stripeys can be found – if it doesn’t make it to SoCal waters, neither do the marlin. So far, the conditions just don’t favor the pelagics – it’s still several degrees too cool for them, and there’s no consistency to the temperatures – more on why that matters in a minute.

Right now, I’d say it all comes down to two simple questions: “Should I be out there this weekend?” and “Where should I go?” If your goal is to catch the first marlin of the season, you have no choice – you gotta be out there. This season has been so unpredictable, with so few of the normal signs, that someone could catch that first one at any time and pretty much in any place. The fishing itself gives no clues where to expect that first one to be found. But that doesn’t mean that some spots aren’t better than others …

In my experience, there are two things that are guaranteed to generate clouds over water – land masses, and pockets of warm water. The satellite can’t see what’s under those clouds off La Jolla, but it sure as hell isn’t colder water. If it was me, I’d be right on the edge of those clouds, pounding the area between the 181 and 312. But that’s me … you’re welcome to burn your fuel wherever you like …

There’s a turd floating in that punchbowl, however, and it’s lurking off the coast of Ensenada. See all that purple? That’s a pool of 61-degree water, and it might as well be a Bearing Sea ice floe for all the damage it does. Every year, the warm water slides up the coastline until it is pushed offshore by land near San Diego. We liken it to a “warm water freeway,” bringing with it the pelagic species we all love. That bolus of cold water is the equivalent to a Sigalert – the freeway is shut down, and traffic is being diverted onto side streets. It doesn’t matter how warm the water becomes in the Catalina Bight – if you cut off the route for the fish to get from Mexico to here, you cut off the fishing.

The fish will arrive at some point, of course, and when they do we’ll be out there chasing them. But when we all head out for the first big day as a fleet, we’ll be down two good people and great anglers.

You know that “Degrees of Separation” game that says we’re all connected to each other by six or fewer people? Well, you may not have known Ross Stotesbury, but I’ll bet you were connected to him by two or less. You bought your fishing gear from his son Greg or fished against his son Mike. Maybe you sat in an audience and clapped as his daughter-in-law Dara or grandson Zane collected more hardware at a tournament banquet. Or maybe you just saw that little aluminum boat, far offshore and out of range of help and thought, “that guy must be crazy”. Perhaps, but it was crazy with a passion – and that passion was fishing. I’m convinced Ross could catch a trophy fish in the gutter, and the records he set prove it. Ross may be gone, but his legacy will live on in his family for generations.

A couple of years ago, I had to start the first Fishing News entry with the news of the passing of Jim Madden. At the time, I relayed the story of how I, as something of a social idiot, would seek out Jim at events and hang with him. The other person I sought out was Reed Miller, and now we’ve lost him, too. Reed was SCMO’s first rock star – a guy who went out and caught all those fish the rest of us dreamed of. How many of us have caught swordfish in SoCal? Reed had multiple swordies. Spearfish? You betcha – right off the coast. But he worked both ends of the spectrum and was just as happy casting a dry fly as a fat mackerel. Reed had been fighting his cancer for nearly a year when I saw him at the kickoff party for the Pesky last fall, and I was amazed at how good he looked. His hair had returned to its natural color, and he looked to be gaining weight. “Strong like bull,” I said as we bumped knuckles. But the hair color was from dye, and the weight gain a side effect of the drugs he was taking to try and stay alive. We didn’t know it then, but I’m sure he did – the end was near. Reed was too ill to fish the event, and soon was in the hospital for the last time.

We dedicate this season’s Fishing News to Ross Stotesbury and Reed Miller. As competitors they made us better fishermen, and as friends they made us better people.