The Return of the King

February 10, 2020 ~ John Darling - Author ~ Leave a comment

In an unusual occurrence, my part of SoCal experienced King Tides in back-to-back months.

Last month I went out to the Ventura Pier to see if the fishing picked up despite the cold Pacific Ocean water and for the most part the catch was better although still below what it is like when the water heats up. So, this month, I thought I would try fishing on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara, CA to gauge the King Tide’s effect in that part of the ocean. It didn’t take long to find out the answer.

As I headed north, the weather began to degrade as a heavy wet fog moved in. By the time I reached the wharf, everything was soaking wet and with the temperature was hovering around 40 degrees with a slight wind blowing that made it feel colder, I almost stayed in my warm car. Even though I was prepared for the weather, it was still a challenge to stay out in it. After an hour and half of no fish–or even nibbles–I decided to pack it in and head to the Ventura Pier. By the time I got there, the temperature was around 55 degrees and the sun was shining. For the next 2 and half hours, the fishing was slow, but better than it was up north and I ended up with several big Smelt which I gave to another fisherman. I have given him a number of Smelt in the past so this time, I asked him how he prepared this type of fish. He said he scaled them, filleted them, then marinated them in a mixture of vinegar and garlic powder. I may just try that the next time I get a bag full.

The ocean temperature should start rising in March and continue to warm up through September. I will still being going out to see how they are biting but I won’t be posting about these trips unless something unusual occurs.

“Are you a professional fisherman?”

November 21, 2019 ~ John Darling - Author ~ Leave a comment

Even before I started wearing my shirt, hat, and hoodie which advertise my blog, I have been asked this question. In response I always say, “More or less, I guess.” This non-response usually ends the inquiry, but if someone asks me to explain, I tell them that after 52 years of working, I have managed to set up a livable income stream which allows me to fish all that I want. I don’t mention the spare change I glean from the toe-nail fungus ads on this WordPress site.

Two days ago shortly after I started fishing on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara, CA, a very pretty young lady asked me the question again. She had a severe accent and her English was broken but I knew what she wanted. This time, though, instead of giving her my pat response, I asked what prompted her to ask the question? This confused her at first, but through gestures, and what I could understand, she said her fiancee wanted to know but he didn’t speak any English since they were tourists from Israel. When she pointed him out, standing a few feet away, I waved him over.

Through more gestures, and between what little English they both spoke, she informed me that they had watched me get my gear ready. Both had been impressed how I went through each step in a fast, yet organised, manner; they pointed out how I had laid out all of my bait and tackle as well before starting to rig my gear. I told them that I had gone through this ritual so often that I didn’t have to think about it anymore but that didn’t seem to matter since they had watched a man, who clearly knew what he was doing set up and start doing his “job” with little wasted effort. They enjoyed seeing this. The man seemed to be unhappy about how people don’t do what they get paid for anymore and was more impressed when he realized that I am “retired”. After they watched me catch a few fish, they said their good-byes and went away happy.

It would have been too difficult to tell them that I fish in the same way I worked before being turned out by society because I am supposedly “too old” to work; I was always very organised at my job and I always worked quickly and efficiently.

For what it is worth society, I can still do this…

Fishing with my kid

November 3, 2019November 3, 2019 ~ John Darling - Author ~ Leave a comment

Anyone who has grown children knows that no matter how old you all get to be, they will always be your kid(s). I my case, my kid is James who is 35 years old and a budding singer, actor, and musician who lives in California’s San Fernando Valley. Here is his performance website: http://jamesdarling.net/

Anyway, I went fishing with him on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara today for the first time in at least 25 years. During that time, he has not gone fishing, so he made up for the lost time by catching 13 Mackerel and 1 Smelt in about 3 1/2 hours. I caught 12 Mackerel and 2 Smelt in the same time frame so we had a lot of fun even though the wind came up and pretty much put a damper on the fishing halfway through. Pictured is his second Mackerel , a nice sized one that went back in the Pacific along with all of the rest we caught.

He enjoyed his experience so much, that we are going again the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) since he will be staying with me a few days during the long holiday weekend.

So take your kids fishing no matter what their ages, you won’t regret it.

Touching Home

October 4, 2019 ~ John Darling - Author ~ Leave a comment

Prior commitments, some delays in work being done on the homestead, and an appointment to a city advisory group has kept me away from fishing most of the last few weeks but when a day opened up yesterday, I decided to go over to the Ventura Pier, my home base, for a few hours because I know I have another delay coming up.

Since Labor Day, when the pier was rail to rail fishermen for three days, the fishing has dropped off dramatically at the pier. I can only speculate that the area has been temporarily fished out. Unlike Stearns Wharf up Highway 101 in Santa Barbara, CA which extends it full length straight out into the channel between the shore and the Channel Islands (see left photo above), the Ventura Pier is in a very large bay-like area (see right photo above) and I just feel like this keeps the “restocking” of the area slow whereas there never seems to a shortage of fish around Stearns Wharf. I have no scientific data to base this on so just call it a fisherman’s hunch, which is often more accurate than science.

For this trip, I decided to go to the end of the pier and see if anything was happening out there. It was a quiet day with only five fishermen (or groups of fishermen) when I arrived but the weather was perfect. For a drift liner like me it could not have been better. At 7:30 AM, it was already 68 degrees and did not get much warmer by the time I left 3 ½ hours later. The wind was non-existent, and the ocean was flat and calm.

So, I had high hopes—which did not totally pan out. After a few hours, I had caught 5 Mackerel. Two went into my bait bag, one went to another fisherman, and the other two went back in to grow up. My ocean bottom line was getting a lot of attention but nothing hooked on to it. I suspect that the fish who were stealing my bait were too small but it could also have been crabs doing the job.

Either way, after two hours, I move half way down the pier where I caught the biggest Mackerel of the day, which I kept, and a very fat Perch, which I gave to another fisherman. And that was it.

But, I can’t complain, the weather was perfect.

Stearn’s Wharf I: What a MORNING!

September 3, 2019September 10, 2019 ~ John Darling - Author ~ Leave a comment

When I moved from Phoenix, AZ to Santa Barbara, CA in 1979, Stearn’s Wharf was not open to the public. It was closed due to a huge fire that roared through it in 1973. It finally reopened in 1981 but by that time, the Goleta Pier was my fishing spot of choice so I never fished off the wharf before I moved to Ventura, CA in 1984.

Over the decades since then, the wharf has been open and closed due to another fire, storms, etc. and I heard mixed reviews about the fishing prospects. Some said it was fantastic and others said it was pathetic so today I decided to try it and see which side was telling the truth while knowing that BOTH sides could be right, depending on the weather, the skill of the fisherman, having the right outfit, and other factors.

Despite having been to the wharf’s website, I was still a little fuzzy about what it would cost me to park on it though that didn’t really matter since I was going to fish off of it for whatever it would cost me. I knew that the wharf opened at 7 AM and that the first 1 ½ of parking was free and that after that is was $2.50 an hour. So, I figured I’d just go in, fish for $5.00 worth of time just to see what was what. However, when I arrived at 7:15 AM, the gate was up and the ticket machine was not functioning, so I drove in while deciding to deal with any questions when I left.

My line was in the water for, at the most, 15 minutes when I caught my first Calico Bass. This is fish that you do not find around my home base, the Ventura Pier, and even though it was 4 inches short of the legal limit, I was thrilled since I figured that where there was one, there would be more and I was right. I caught 6 more Calicos in 4 hours but all were under the legal limit so ALL of them went back into the ocean.. After I caught the 5^th one, I had the feeling that the same fish kept biting over and over again. Especially since this one winked at me…

When I was not catching Calico Bass, I was catching Mackerel as fast as I could bait up and put my line in the water. I actually lost count of how many I reeled in, but I know that I caught at least 27 of them with more after that, how many, I don’t know but I know it had to be at least 6 more, so let’s call it 33 Mackerel for the MORNING since I only fished for 4 hours. When I first started catching them, I kept a few for bait then began to give them to other fishermen for bait but it wasn’t long before everyone had plenty of bait so I started throwing them back in while telling them to send me a halibut. Not one of the ungrateful little buggers did as I asked them and I wound up getting no bites on my ocean bottom line. The closest I got to a big fish was gaffing up a Shovel Nose shark for a fellow fisherman. He’d caught it on the Mackerel I gave him.

I visited the Stearn’s Wharf Bait & Tackle to buy some salted Anchovies and was disappointed that they didn’t have a “Shut Up & Fish” t-shirt in a medium but I will check to see if they have any in stock the next time I visit the wharf because after today, I will definitely be back.

As I was leaving, fully expecting to have to argue my way into a smaller parking fee, I was surprised that my visit would not cost me anything since the city realized that the ticket machine had been malfunctioning that morning.

The nice lady attendant, just waved me out.