Holy Mackerel! Lost King Salmon Found

Fishermen can never be certain what they’re going to catch when they start the day. Dan Gefis had planned to get in on the recent run of thresher sharks off Dana Point. That’s why he was fishing for mackerel--to use as shark bait--when he caught a king salmon.

The Laguna Hills angler motored his 33-foot sportfisher Kat Dan Du out of Dana Point Harbor early Saturday with his wife and four friends aboard. They started drift-fishing for baitfish near the “barber pole” race marks on a 10-foot-deep shelf about a mile out, throwing anchovies.

When his spinning rod bent double, Gefis suspected it wasn’t a mackerel, and when he boated it 20 minutes later, it looked like something that had lost its way. Could it be . . . a salmon?

Chris Hayes was on duty at the fuel dock when Gefis returned. He weighed the fish at 16 pounds.

“I knew it was a salmon,” Hayes said. “I just wasn’t sure what kind. It’s the first one I’ve seen come in here in two years, but years ago, they used to run up the San Juan River right here.”

Said Gefis: “I was told that if it had dark lips, it’s a king.”

No reason to believe it wasn’t, said Steve Crooke, a senior sportfish marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game in Long Beach. Although catching one is rare, the presence of king salmon off the local coast is “not unusual for this time of year,” Crooke said.

“The San Joaquin run of king salmon in California are the ones that go out the (San Francisco) Bay and turn left. Some of them just keep on going south.”

Crooke recalled that during the winter of 1981-82, salmon were so thick off San Martin Island 160 miles south of the border that Mexican fishermen were collecting them in gill-nets. A few are also caught off Newport Beach each year.

About once a year, a salmon is reported taken at Cabo San Lucas, but that’s a running hoax perpetuated by an American who smuggles in a dead salmon, sneaks it onto his boat and then produces it at the dock as a catch. If he ever really catches one, nobody will believe him.

Even Gefis’ story has a mixed ending. He has been competing in Dana West Yacht Club’s Rodbusters fishing tournament, but the thresher bite turned off this month, and there is no salmon category.

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Larry Edwards’ mission is to see every marlin caught at Cabo San Lucas returned to the sea alive. Edwards is president of Cortez Yacht Charters and thus has a stake in preserving the resource, as well as an aversion to wasting it.

“There’s no reason for a guy to take a billfish, but they do,” Edwards said.

Edwards said his Gaviota Fleet has a release rate of 79.8% for 1,054 striped marlin caught this year, and now he is offering charter masters for commercial sportfishing cruisers a year’s membership in the Billfish Foundation, which promotes the ethic worldwide. The Baja Mar and Ixtapa fleets have signed up. An angler releasing a marlin gets an attractive piece of parchment certifying what a conservationist he is.

Unless an angler wants a live mount, as against an ecologically correct fiberglass mount, a kept fish is usually given to the crew, anyway. Because Mexican sportfish crews work for poor wages and can’t eat or sell a fish that’s been released, to make up for the loss, Edwards said, “We encourage the anglers to tip generously.”

Briefly

SALTWATER FISHING--A two-part seminar, “A Day on the Marlin Grounds,” is scheduled next Wednesday and June 22 at the Balboa Bay Club, featuring prominent Southland anglers Randy Wood, Mark Wisch, Ed Martin, Fred Archer and Jim Kingsmill. Donation: $50. Details: Willie Greely at (714) 645-5000, ext. 177.

FRESHWATER FISHING--Mammoth Lakes’ Summer Trout Derby is scheduled Saturday, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., with awards at 4:30 at Grumpy’s Park. Eligible waters include Crowley Lake, Convict Lake and the Mammoth Lakes basin. Entry is free. . . . With a boost from the Fly Fishers of Orange County, 100 students from Hermosa Elementary in Fullerton and a special education class from El Modena High in Orange have spent the last several weeks raising trout in their classrooms. Tuesday, they released 200 fry into the North Fork of the San Gabriel River. Another release by Serra High School of San Juan Capistrano is scheduled Friday.

MEXICAN FISHING--Cabo San Lucas: Striped marlin picked up dramatically, with boats averaging four a day. But the week’s highlight was a 186-pound swordfish taken by Al Andred of Concord aboard the Mucho Loco. Pargo also were plentiful--the largest 60 pounds. San Jose del Cabo: A good supply of sardines is producing a variety of smaller gamefish, including pargo, palometa, amberjack, grouper, roosterfish, yellowfin tuna, jack crevelle, skipjack, chopo and dorado. Conditions are rated “perfect.” East Cape: Melvin Gonzalez’s party from Rancho Mirage, two days at Palmas de Cortez, took two striped marlin and a sailfish and broke off a blue marlin estimated at 250 pounds. A 130-pound wahoo catch also was reported in the area. Loreto: Bottom fishing excellent. Yellowtail and dorado ranging farther out.

HUNTING--The San Gabriel Valley Chapter of Quail Unlimited will meet tonight at 7:30 in the conference room of Crowell, Weedon & Co., 140 S. Lake Ave., Pasadena. Details: (818) 351-0381.