Outdoor Notes : Some Big Thresher Sharks Available--If You’re Game
Striped marlin have begun their migration south to warmer waters and the tuna bite off San Diego has all but disappeared, but there is still plenty of big-game fishing available in local waters.
Thresher sharks apparently are abundant in Santa Monica Bay, and although few anglers have been taking advantage of the big fish’s presence, some have done quite well with the powerful predators.
Don McPherson of Beverly Hills has caught 28 of the fish in the last four weeks. Two of them are being considered for world records and several have weighed well in excess of 100 pounds.
“The fish are averaging 150 pounds, but some have been over 200 and I’ve seen some at 300,” he said.
McPherson likes to use light tackle, which is why he has a couple of records pending. Two weeks ago, while fishing from his 17-foot Boston Whaler, he caught a 159-pounder using 12-pound tackle, which should net him one record. More recently, he boated a 216-pounder on 16-pound line, surpassing the current record of 134 1/2-pounds.
McPherson, who has been fishing the area for about 12 years, downplays his achievements, saying that practically anyone could go out and land a shark.
“There are tons of people who could have done the same thing,” he said. “You just have to be in the right place at the right time. A lot of people have never fished for thresher sharks, it’s that simple.”
Several factors are responsible for the recent presence of the sharks, ranging from a healthy population of bait such as mackerel, anchovies and bonito, to the absence of gill net fishermen, who have been busy elsewhere.
“The gill nets haven’t been in yet,” McPherson said. “They’ve been busy with the swordfish off Dana Point and the thresher sharks off Oxnard.”
That’s bound to change, however, but for now, says McPherson, “the bite is wide open.”
If you’re thinking of going to Cabo San Lucas, now is the time, according to John Doughty of Bisbee’s tackle shop in Newport Beach.
“The weather is excellent,” Doughty said. “The air temperature is about 95 degrees, the water from 84 to 87 degrees and clean and blue.”
In other words, fishing conditions are prime.
Doughty, who maintains radio contact with fishermen in the area, said that boats are taking blue marlin in the 500-pound class to go along with an abundance of smaller but highly sought gamefish.
State fish and game officials say they are doubling the sportfish population in Lake Kaweah with an additional 8,000 trout.
The restocking of the lake, east of Visalia in Tulare County, began earlier this week when the first batch of 8,000 year-old hatchery trout were release in the lake.
Eventually, 120,000 trout and other gamefish will be planted to replace the fish killed Oct. 9 when the lake was sterilized to kill thousands of predatory white bass at the start of a project to eradicate the fish from the Tulare Lake Basin.
Officials feared that the white bass, which eat the eggs and the young of other fish, would escape into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta where they would threaten salmon and striped bass fisheries.
Crews from the Department of Fish and Game are continuing to treat lakes, ponds, streams and canals in the basin below Lake Kaweah to finish the white bass eradication project.
Briefly
The California Waterfowl Assn. is conducting the 1988 duck stamp-art print competition on behalf of the Department of Fish and Game and invites interested artists to submit entries before Feb. 1. For additional information, call (800) 424-DUCK.
