NOTES : Want a Different Challenge? Try Some Great White Sharks
They aren’t your typical game fish, but great white sharks are becoming quite an attraction for fishermen in Santa Monica Bay.
Bill Barlow caught the first one a week ago--a 297-pounder he took in just 15 feet of water off the Malibu coast, after missing other fish when his line was severed. He insisted there were more out there and apparently he was right.
Former Dodger pitcher Tim Leary, now with the New York Yankees, was among three anglers who caught great whites over the weekend, at the same depth in the same area near Will Rogers State Beach.
“It was so close to home, I really wanted to go out,” Leary, of Pacific Palisades, said after learning of Barlow’s catch.
Using a borrowed fishing pole, 80-pound monofilament and a steel leader, Leary went out Saturday on a 20-foot boat with his friend Gary Rozsa and Tracy Wilson, Rozsa’s fiance. He returned with a great white estimated at 240 pounds.
“I had a blast,” he said of the 25-minute fight. “A great white shark--it’s a novelty.”
Said Rozsa: “It’s jaws were chomping and everything. It bit a hole clean through my bait-pump hose.”
Rozsa, of West Los Angeles, said there were two other hookups Saturday, but both sharks got away, one gnawing through a 500-pound test steel leader. “There’s still a big sucker out there,” he said. “It’s over 400 pounds easily.”
He explained how he caught his shark the next day: “I left all the blood in my boat from (Leary’s) shark, by not turning the bilge (pump) on. So on Sunday I pulled the plug and did a couple circles and let all the blood out--and a half-hour later I was hooked up and got myself a great white shark.”
A few hours after that, Reuben Villa Senor caught one Rozsa said topped the 300-pound mark.
Jeff Siegel, a biologist and shark expert with the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, said such catches aren’t exactly rare.
“Uncommon is probably a better word,” he said. “All the information we have seems to indicate that white sharks do, in fact, migrate to a point. It seems that the larger animals, as they mature, go offshore and move up north of Point Conception.
“The younger ones tend to be down here and there’s some thought that the females are migrating back down, maybe using the inshore Southern California waters as a nursery ground.”
Siegel added that the younger white sharks have a different diet from the adults, and instead of feeding on mammals they tend to eat more small fishes, such as those found in Santa Monica Bay. All four white sharks--which will be stuffed and mounted--were caught on mackerel.
Asked about the possible danger to swimmers posed by juvenile great whites in the area, Siegel said: “There’s always the potential, but I don’t think it’s greater now than it ever was. These sharks are hardly big enough to call great whites. You could call them mediocre whites or something like that.”
For the last eight years, Sean McWhinney has spent New Year’s Day trying to catch the first marlin of the year--a feat that generally is accomplished in the early summer months.
But McWhinney, of Huntington Harbour, and his brother Troy can finally say their time spent fishing for striped marlin when the species should be well south of Southern California was not in vain.
On a cold and overcast New Year’s Day, trolling a pink lure about 35 miles south of Point Loma, Troy, 15, hooked up and landed a 110-pound striper. Sean skippered the 50-foot boat throughout the eight-minute battle.
“We found a big area with lots of bait and crisscrossed 10 or 15 times before we got bit,” Sean, 25, said, adding that he backed down on the fish with his boat to shorten the fight and help ensure a successful catch.
The striper was taken to the Balboa Angling Club, where it was officially weighed and declared the year’s first.
“We spoiled it for everybody else,” Sean said, referring to those who would have been trying for that distinction when the species migrates into Southern California waters next summer.
Miss that shower when you’re out hunting in the backwoods for days on end? Like to pop a frozen dinner in the microwave after a long day on a pristine stream miles from the pavement? Watch an old movie on the VCR?
Luxury RVs have offered complete comforts for years, but their off-road performance is limited. Some owners adapt by towing small, four-wheel-drive vehicles, but now a company has combined off-road capability with a luxury unit. The Revcon 4 x 4 will be introduced at the Anaheim Sports, Vacation and RV Show starting Saturday.
The Carson company, builder of expensive Revcon and Apollo motor homes for 20 years, plans to produce the 4 x 4 in lengths from 25 to 31 feet. It may be too soon to call it a breakthrough in the industry, since the market will be limited by the price of $110,000 and up. But the unit apparently does what it’s designed to do: take people anywhere any off-road vehicle will go without sacrificing comfort.
It has been tested in the Baja desert and the mountains around Wrightwood, where, company President Mike Mooney said, “We went off on a fire trail with the rangers telling us, ‘You can’t take that up there.’ Then they were following us and talking on the radio to each other: ‘You’ve gotta see this.’ ”
Dick Krieger, the company’s general manager of manufacturing, had it at “Competition Hill” west of El Centro, where off-roaders like to test their vehicles. Geared down, the Revcon made it from a standing start.
“There are dune buggies that can’t make it,” Krieger said.
Revcon figures it will have the market to itself for awhile.
“Most (RV) manufacturers don’t want to get involved in four-wheel-drive,” Mooney said.
That would require their chassis suppliers, such as General Motors, to retool for a questionable market. But Revcon makes its own chassis and has been making RVs with front-wheel-drive for 20 years. Thus, conversion to four-wheel-drive is easier.
The Revcon 4 x 4 has a 19-inch ground clearance and runs on four 44 x 16.5 balloon tires. It can be ordered with a satellite dish or cellular phone, along with any other RV accessory.
Briefly
Alaskan outfitter Tony Sarp and outdoor writer-photographer Rex Gerlach will show slides on salmon fishing in the Alagnak River Thursday, 7 p.m., at Greg Lilly’s fly fishing store in Tustin. No charge. . . . Charlene Hanson will teach fly tying each Wednesday in January, 7 p.m., at Bob Marriott’s fly fishing store in Fullerton. Maggie Merriman will conduct her 1 1/2-day fly fishing classes each weekend. Details: (714) 525-1827.
