There is a story I told at the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council, where I serve my community by representing recreational anglers. It is a story of a wild moment when the natural order went ballistic all around me.
On my charterboat WaveWalker, decades ago, I had a group of anglers out at the 12-Mile, which is a seamount in the channel roughly halfway between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz islands.
We were fishing deep for tasty rockfish like red snapper, copper rockfish, bocaccio and lingcod. We had some nice fish onboard, and it was feeling like a successful adventure.
Standing on deck and watching the action and scanning the surrounding area, my captain’s sixth sense kicked in and I felt a change.
As I looked around, I saw seagulls, pelicans and cormorants racing in. The cormorants hit the water and dove down. The gulls and pelicans wheeled and began diving like the predators they are.
Baitfish like anchovies and sardines began skittering across the surface of the sea looking like they had finned monsters below and winged monsters above. Bad time to be a baitfish.
Watching all of this froth and fury of nature, my eyes went wide and the hairs on my neck were standing on end. There was life and death happening all around us.
Then tuna began jumping after the skittering baitfish and boiling on the surface as they ravaged the panicked balls of baitfish. It was like all hell broke loose. Between the screaming birds and the sounds of water splashing all around, it was an earful as well as an eyeful.
Everyone stopped fishing, in the middle of reeling up rockfish or dropping down baited rigs, to watch the spectacle of nature. I hollered loudly above the din, “Want to reel up and take advantage of this rare opportunity to catch some tuna right here in the Santa Barbara Channel?”
The busy anglers all glanced at each other and their chartermaster replied, “No, we’re rockfishing today.”
I was stunned by his answer, considering what a truly rare and wonderful opportunity had developed around us. If he had said yes, we would have had a dozen tuna onboard in the next half hour.
I couldn’t believe his answer and every fiber of me wanted to command them to catch tuna instead of rockfish that we can target anytime. But this was their trip they had paid for, and so I just said, “Rockfish, yes of course we are.”
And without the fishing and chumming activity to keep the tuna around the boat, the wild feeding melee wandered away and the opportunity of a decade along with it.
I was muttering and shaking my head for the rest of the day. Come to think of it, I still am.
This is a year like that one, when tuna are coming close to shore, from Baja to NorCal. I’m hearing stories of tuna being spotted on half-day boats well within 10 miles of the beach.
If you haven’t experienced tuna fishing, or if you want to get out there again, this is the time (right now) to call some fishing landings and get on a boat bound for tuna, tails and dorado. That recent tropical storm brought warmer water loaded with fish closer to us.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
