Fishing : Diving for Coins as an Eight-Year-Old Led to More Than a Nickel-and-Dime Career

Diving for coins as an 8-year-old in Honolulu started Tommy Wright of Wilmington on a career of sportfishing, spearfishing and commercial diving.

Wright arrived on the Wilmington scene 26 years ago and met diver Jim Smith of Palos Verdes, and he credits Smith with turning his hobby into a profitable career.

Fifteen years ago, Wright purchased a boat, the Iwalanii, and during the season he dives for abalone at San Nicholas Island.

On a recent trip there he jumped into a shallow rock crack, retrieved his take and discovered hundreds of small lobsters.

He said they could be large enough by next lobster season to be brought up from traps.

On a sportfishing trip last year, Wright worked Cortez Bank and, with deckhand Henry Church, brought aboard a 201-pound big-eye tuna after a 33-minute fight.

Returning from Cortez on a slow troll, he landed a stray albacore that weighed 33 1/2 pounds.

When diving in his native Hawaii, Wright would spear the ulua, a fish that resembles the local pompano but is larger and can weigh up to 95 pounds. But unlike the pompano caught off South Bay rocks and piers, the ulua feeds best at night.

Now 50, Wright said he no longer spearfishes with heavy tanks on his back and just dives shallow to check out reefs.

News note:

The Annie B barge inside the L.A. Harbor breakwater will play host Saturday to 75 wheelchair anglers, some of whom have never had the opportunity to fish the ocean.