From Famine to Ocean Feast : After One of Their Worst Years Ever, Owners of Charter Sportfishing Boats Are Cashing In as Anglers Reap Harvest

It is a lazy afternoon on the waterfront, gulls soaring and masts clattering in the breeze. Then comes the Pacific Dawn, gliding into port with its precious cargo.

The passengers can’t wait to show off their catch, mostly tuna, which cover the deck three feet thick. A small crowd accommodates the fishermen, gathering to watch as the crew members grab the fish by their bony tails and heave them into large wooden carts on the docks.

The fish are hauled up the ramp, dumped on the sidewalk and hosed off, ready to be divided among those who caught them. A man in tattered clothing circles nearby, hoping for spare fish and/or money.

Skipper John Shull is boasting: “It was wild out there. We’d find one (kelp) paddy and it would be full-bore for four hours. Everybody was hooked up.”

Says charter master John Lawton, 49, of Los Angeles: “If we didn’t pick the right time to go fishing, I don’t know what the right time is. The bite would start at about 10 and we wouldn’t get off the fish until 3. They were hitting everything, even cigarette butts (thrown over the rail).”

Ernesto Rivera, 12, also from Los Angeles, steps off the boat a proud young man. He has outdone his elders, taking the jackpot with a 35-pound yellowfin.

Ernesto’s uncle, Charlie, explains that at one point he had to quit fishing: “We had to stop and rest. Everybody got tired.”

Deckhand Dave Valenzuela, scrubbing down the 56-foot vessel, tells of a school of giant bluefin tuna that paid the group a brief visit the previous evening, creating huge swirling boils on the surface as they chased the smaller bait fish.

“I hooked one that had to weigh 150 pounds,” Valenzuela says. “But I pulled the hook out of its mouth.”

Shull, 34, nods. He is still beaming, and with good reason.

This is the fifth season he has brought the Pacific Dawn from Oxnard, where it is based during the winter. And for the first time, it is really paying off.

“It’s been a gamble, a toss of the dice, and I’ve been losing,” he says.

No longer.

The fleet has struck a bonanza south of the border, in the form of tuna that have been pulling on almost every line cast for the past four weeks.

Nearly every kelp paddy floating in the open sea--from 40 to at least 100 miles south of Pt. Loma--is cover for hundreds, perhaps thousands of the pelagic game fish so sought after by the fleet each summer, and so elusive in previous years.

Fishing is better than it has been in the past 10 years, mainly because of El Nino and a series of tropical storms and hurricanes off the Baja California coast, which have created fishing conditions not seen since the El Nino of 1982-83.

And during those memorable seasons, the bites lasted well into November.

Already this season, the fleet has accounted for 23,516 yellowfin tuna, 15,384 yellowtail, 4,733 bluefin tuna and 7,770 dorado.

In the same period last year--from Jan. 1 to Aug. 10--the 70 boats managed to catch only 1,490 yellowtail, 206 bluefin tuna, 134 albacore tuna, 82 bigeye and 13 yellowfin.

It was one of the worst seasons on record.

“Everybody in the fleet . . . there’s not a boat in the fleet that doesn’t need a boost like this,” Shull says.

“Last year, if we didn’t get a deposit on a charter, the charter just didn’t show. We would stock up, fuel up, and then the charter wouldn’t show. Sometimes one or two people weren’t told (by the charter master) that the trip was canceled and they would show, and say, ‘Hey, where is everybody?’ And we’d tell them the charter didn’t show and we’re not going fishing.”

Shull and many others are still paying for last season’s fuel, credit for which was extended in hopes that the boats would get out and find something to stimulate business, but for the most part it was burned on an open and seemingly empty sea.

This season, the cost of fuel has been well worth it and there are few cancellations. In fact, the telephones have not stopped ringing since the fish counts first climbed into the thousands in mid-July.

At Fisherman’s Landing, Manager Paul Morris explains from his office that a telephone system keeps track of the number of calls coming in. On that day in July, there were 1,053 calls from customers. Of those, 400 were put on hold and only 16 hung up.

Next door, at H&M; Landing, owner Phil Lobred is waiting on customers behind the counter. He steps away for a minute and falls back wearily into his chair. “I’ve been working every day from 8 a.m. to midnight,” he says, running a hand through his graying hair. “We’re getting between 1,000 and 1,200 calls a day.”

Ross Hecht, 43, manager of Pt. Loma Sportfishing, sitting behind his desk in his second-story office, gazes out over the harbor and all of its empty slips. “Everybody’s working,” he says, adding that last season at this time it would have been difficult to find an empty slip. Business was down 70% compared to the previous season.

“I don’t know how some of the boat owners survived last season,” Hecht says. “Those guys deserve what they’re getting now. This is making up for last year.”

Hecht has 25 employees working at the landing, and they have their hands full. Last summer, he was forced to trim his staff to 12.

“It was like our winter crew,” he says. “There was nothing happening.”

Mike Keating, skipper of the Spirit of Adventure, which runs trips lasting two days or longer, is taking a break while the vessel is being prepared for another journey south, one that will be shorter than usual. Keating says fishing is so good slightly below the border that the long-range boats are fishing with the overnight boats.

“We actually wish the fish were a little farther,” he says, acknowledging that anglers are realizing a long-range trip isn’t necessary to get to the productive fishing grounds.

One bonus for the long-range skippers is that they are saving nearly $2,000 in fuel costs by not having to travel 300-plus miles down the Baja coast. Few have ventured farther than 100 miles southwest of Pt. Loma.

Back on the waterfront, the Prowler is pulling in next to the Pacific Dawn, in front of Fisherman’s Landing. Other vessels are not far behind. The Prowler’s deck is covered with 57 plump bluefin tuna along with 29 skipjack, eight yellowtail and seven dorado.

Owner Buzz Brizendine’s wife and son are there to greet him. Brizendine takes a moment to explain that he has been working nonstop since the bite began.

“We’ve been out 25 days in a row,” he says. “In the same month last year, we probably made it out 12 times.”

The rest of the fleet continues to filter into the harbor, while fishermen stream in from the parking lot. The landings, well lit in the late-night darkness, are doing a vigorous business.

The crowd on the waterfront watches as tuna are dumped by the cartload on the sidewalk, the weary fishermen who caught them keeping a watchful eye. One tries to sell a bluefin for $200, but is quickly reminded that to do so is illegal.

Shull, meanwhile, is taking on passengers for another trip.

“I have not had a day off since I’ve been here,” he says. “But I love it. That’s what I come down here for.”