Fish Stories : There are...

PORT HUENEME MUNICIPAL PIER

A Way of Life

Fishing at the Port Hueneme Municipal Pier is a multicultural experience. In the mornings, the gathering of fishers is made up mostly of elderly native Filipinos. Beginning in early afternoon, there’s a Latino contingent. At any time of day, there may be a combination of both groups--as well as representatives of others.

One recent overcast day, about 7:30 a.m., the end of the T-shaped pier looked like a marketplace, the activity of the Filipino fishers highlighted by the glow of pier lights breaking through thick fog. There was a sense of hustle and bustle accompanied by friendly conversation, even though the fish weren’t exactly flying out of the water.

For the male and female Filipino fishers, fresh fish is a way of life. For many of those at this daily morning scene, it is a way to prolong life.

Seventy-one-year-old Andy Boral has been coming to the pier for 13 years. Fishing for perch, mackerel, smelt and bonito is for Boral a daily routine that begins about 6 a.m. A triple bypass didn’t slow him down; it just made the desire for fish more urgent.

“I do the cooking myself. . . . I’m not supposed to eat red meat or fatty foods,” he said. “And fresh fish is more appealing. It tastes better than frozen fish.”

Teofila Baylen has found the pier invigorating. She’s 75 and refers to herself as “very young.” She said that when she first visited the quarter-mile-long pier, on the advice of her doctor, she could only make it halfway. These days, she and her 77-year-old husband, Delfin, are regulars at the far end. “Now, fish or no fish, rain or shine, we come here,” she said.

Regulars said there is only one drawback to fishing at the pier. It’s not as easy as it used to be to find fish.

“In 1982, ‘83, ‘84, ‘85, ‘86, ‘87, we’d catch a lot here,” said Romulo G. Catabona Sr., 67, who fishes at the pier with his wife, Juanita, 60. “There were a lot of bonito before, but now no more, because the water is shallow.”

Although Baylen seems to catch plenty of fish-- she supplies the main course for many of the parties at her senior citizen apartment complex--she too remembers more abundant days. “When we came here in 1987,” she said, “I caught six mackerel at one time.”

LAKE CASITAS

Old-Timers and Bass

It’s unlikely anyone who was around the Lake Casitas Snack Bar in March will ever forget the bitter dispute there. Day after day, for two weeks, the debate roared on.

“There was a gopher in the front yard,” said Audrey Klassen, snack bar manager. “Leonard said it was a mole. Someone else said it was a gopher.”

Mole, gopher, gopher, mole. The conflict finally was resolved amicably.

“They were saying, ‘You can’t trap a mole with a gopher trap,’ ” said Dossy Mauthe, a longtime lake employee. “Well, they put out a gopher trap and after two weeks, they caught a mole. Everyone was half right.

“This is the stuff that causes stress.”

The “they” in this debate are members of the official Lake Casitas Old-Timers group, a collection of six to 12 guys (depending on who feels like showing up on a given day), the youngest in their 60s. There’s Leonard Gibson, Tom Stallings, Jim Jenkins, Kit Mungo, O. B. Rawlins, Woody Edwards, Jim Hollis, Ron Adams and others.

They gather at the picnic tables more or less daily at more or less 7:30 a.m.--an informal, outdoorsy kaffeeklatsch. They discuss current events, tell jokes and maybe--and just as likely maybe not--do a little fishing.

“After the lake (meeting), they all go their own way,” Mauthe said. “Nobody goes to each other’s house unless they’re sick. It’s not a clan. They just come here for coffee and get rock ‘n’ rolling. They just show up on a regular basis in their irregular way.”

What do they discuss? Just about anything. “You listen to these guys, it’s all bull,” said Jenkins, a former Shell Oil employee who’s now a regular at the picnic tables.

Of course, there is plenty of talk about fish when they get around to it. And on that subject, there’s no group member more knowledgeable than Gibson, 84. Since his retirement from commercial fishing, Gibson has spent just about every day at his favorite hobby--fishing. After all these years, Gibson has learned to take in stride the ups and downs of the sport.

“If they bit every day, there’d be nothing left,” he said. “I’ve caught the biggest (bass) here in the last two years--32 pounds. Last year I caught a 30-pounder. The record up here is 41 pounds back in ‘69, but they ain’t that big anymore.”

Rumor has it, however, that there is a world-record bass somewhere in the lake. It’s been seen but never touched. Maybe someone ought to go out there with a gopher trap.

LAKE PIRU

A Legendary Catfish

Regulars at Lake Piru are so friendly, even the ducks go by their first names.

“We had one duck out here named Carl,” said Eddie Kouzian, the most regular visitor to the lake. “Art (Caldera, lake manager) would yell, ‘Carl, I’m going to wring your neck,’ and Carl would start screaming. He definitely knew his name.”

Carl has since disappeared from the lake, presumably birdnaped. Kouzian, on the other hand, may never leave the lake. He has driven up from Encino weekly for the past 10 years. And he visited off and on for the decade before that.

He’s there when the lake opens at 6:30 a.m. and he’s still around when it closes at 7:30 p.m. Sometimes he brings along his friend Josephine Hill and, when school is out, her grandson, Da’Ron Darden, joins them. Kouzian said he’s tried every lake in the state and hasn’t found any that are more pleasant, or more peaceful.

“A lot of people don’t even know where Piru is . . . they don’t have any road signs or nothing,” he said. “I like it like this. The workers are friendly. It’s like a family.”

They’re friendly, as long as you’re not a poacher. A sign in the bait shop reads: “SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE MERRILY BEATEN TO A BLOODY PULP.”

In all the time Kouzian has spent on the lake--much of it just sitting at the dock in a rented catamaran-- his most satisfying day was when he caught 60 crappy. The 15-pound catfish he once landed ranks a close second. “It took 20-25 minutes. I kept bringing it in and he kept turning until he tired out. Either he’s going to tire out or you’re going to tire out.” But Kouzian won’t accept the label of best fisherman on the lake. He passes that honor over to Peter Cervantes, who in turn passes it over to anyone who will take it. Cervantes is very reluctant to discuss his prowess.

“When we were little, my dad would bring us here. I would fish for trout by the shore. I’ve been fishing since I was 5,” said Cervantes, 27. “I guess I consistently come up with the better fish. You put in your time, you get them.”

At one time or another, Cervantes has had pictures of himself and his sizable catches posted on the bait shop wall of honor but, being an employee there, he’s taken the opportunity to remove them all. “I didn’t want anybody asking me about them anymore. They’d say, ‘You didn’t catch that here. You caught that somewhere else.’ ”

There are a lot of doubters out there, but Cervantes said folks still believe that a huge catfish resides at the dam end of the lake. If and when the fish is caught, excitement will reign. Until then, each week will be highlighted by the Thursday morning visit of the Fritos man. Those not-so-daffy ducks recognize the sound of his truck and, with Huey and Daisy leading the way, make a dash toward the deliveryman who supplies them with crumbs.

LAKE SHERWOOD

Fisher to the Stars

For part of the time that Lake Sherwood was open to the public, Jack Speirs was the lake manager and the self-proclaimed “legend” of the lake. But times have changed. Since the 1960s, use of the lake has been restricted to those, such as Speirs, who live in the pricey area. He no longer fishes up a storm.

“I look out there and the lake is there and I think, well hell, I’ll go tomorrow,” he said. “When I was a manager, the heat was on. I had to be a hotshot fisherman and I was.”

It was his reputation as a fisherman, Speirs said, that led to his job as manager, which ultimately led to a job as a writer for Walt Disney Studios.

Hollywood types used to fish at the lake and Speirs introduced himself to them. One thing led to another and in 1953, he began writing narration for the wilderness documentary series “True Life Adventure.”

Speirs has been fishing regularly at the lake for 50 years, has met a lot of folks there and can drop some pretty big names--Roy Rogers, Joan Fontaine, Robert Mitchum, Jayne Mansfield, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland, Gary Cooper and, of course, Smiley Burnett and Kurt Lewin.

Smiley Burnett and Kurt Lewin? Just some fellow legends of the lake.

“Smiley Burnett was an actor and country-Western singer,” Speirs said. “He came up and wanted to get catfish, so he wrote a song while he was on the boat called ‘Catfish Take a Look at That Worm.’ ”

Did it help? “I don’t know whether the fish gave a damn.”

And Kurt Lewin? “When he was a 13- or 15-year-old kid, he was a good fisherman. I used to say the worst thing to happen to a bass was to have Kurt Lewin out there.” Lewin has since gone on to catch bigger fish as a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.

Oh, there is one other legend--Hazel Speirs, Jack’s wife and the former operator of what used to be the lake restaurant.

“Hazel had a bass under the restaurant dock. It was crippled. She’d sit and feed it fishing worms,” Speirs said. “One day a writer came up and caught it. She could see him from the restaurant and came out and yelled, ‘Now you put that down. It’s my fish!’ ”

He did--pronto.

THE OCEAN

Live Bait, Few Bites

All signs pointed toward a wonderful day aboard the Sea Watch, a boat run by CISCO Sportfishing of Oxnard. The weather was warm. The water was calm. Live squid were being used as bait.

What would eventually turn into an 11-hour trip began just before 6 a.m. as 38 piscators filed onto the boat.

The more experienced, and less drowsy, of the group secured spots at the vessel’s stern. As Capt. David Valney steered the boat toward the islands, most of the passengers tried to settle in. One man sang in gleeful anticipation of events to come.

The Sea Watch anchored for the first time near the islands about two hours later. There wasn’t much. The fishers were excited to be using live, whole squid, but the fish seemed to find squid bits more appealing.

Several more stops and still the action was slow. Frustration was setting in for some. For others, the joy of being out on a boat on a sunny day, in the shadow of the islands, was enough.

Passengers ate hot sandwiches cooked up by crew member Steve Grodin.

“Guy talk” and fish talk ensued, also cooked up in large part by Grodin.

He told a story of the fisherman who came back from an expedition and said to a fellow angler: “I caught a fish this big” (spreading his arms wide).

Angler No. 2 said: “That’s nothing. I dropped a lantern in the water earlier. Then I caught a fish and the lantern was inside the fish . . . and the light was still on.”

No. 1’s response, as he moved his arms closer together: “OK, you turn off the light on the lantern and I’ll make my fish this big.”

A good fish story to be sure, but the regular sportfishermen weren’t buying any of it. “For the best fish stories,” they said, “talk to Marty.”

That’s Martin Block, the 65-year-old man who was singing earlier in the day while everyone else was trying to wake up. The former commercial fisherman loves to tell stories and, he insists, they are all true.

He spoke of the 90-m.p.h. winds he encountered off Santa Barbara in 1946. How he fell overboard once and had to stay in the water for 20 to 25 minutes because the captain of the vessel was asleep and hadn’t noticed. How in World War II, aboard the USS Braxton, he was credited with spotting distant enemy periscopes when in fact all he had seen was a mop handle.

And Block tells the story of the big one that didn’t get away.

“I caught a 2,500-pound great white shark in 1971 south of the Edison plant at Mandalay Bay,” he says proudly. “I’ve got pictures of it.”