When Squid Delay, Anglers Will Play

What a way to spend the first day of summer, sweltering under the sun aboard a boat at Santa Catalina Island--reeling in one big fish after another.

Some of the best fishing of the year was happening Tuesday at the island, where yellowtail, barracuda and school-size white seabass were attacking with such abandon that fishermen aboard boats from Long Beach Sportfishing and L.A. Harbor Sportfishing reached three-fish limits of white seabass from 15 to 30 pounds and 10-fish limits of barracuda by noon. Yellowtail were less cooperative, but some of the fish landed pushed 40 pounds.

“There are fish all along the backside of the island,” Top Gun skipper Bobby Taft said upon his return to L.A. Harbor. “We were throwing back barracuda from 9 o’clock on. We must have caught a bazillion barracuda.”

Toronado skipper Ray Lagmay radioed Long Beach Sportfishing at noon Tuesday and said his customers had taken their limit of seabass after fighting seabass and barracuda for two hours.

The reason for the unseasonably good seabass bite is the unseasonable presence of squid off the back of Catalina. Squid, irresistible to white seabass, usually disappear by April.

“Normally, when the water warms up the squid are gone,” said Don Ashley, owner of Long Beach Sportfishing. “So any time we have squid after March, it’s an aberration.”

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Exploratory trips out of San Diego have yet to turn up any albacore at the outer banks. But anglers on some medium-range boats have been battling large bluefin tuna 200 miles southwest of the landings.

Fishermen aboard the Qualifier 105 caught 22 bluefin between 70 and 100 pounds Monday and skipper Jack Webster radioed to port Tuesday morning that there was a school under the boat and six fish hooked.

The American Angler returned Sunday with six bluefin of more than 100 pounds and six more between 60-90 pounds.

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Hot off the wire: A Russian poacher was electrocuted last week when he tried to catch fish by putting a live electric cable into a pond, Itar-Tass news agency said. The 25-year-old from Tula, south of Moscow, forgot to disconnect the wire before getting into the water to collect his catch.

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Problem bears seem to be turning up everywhere. The latest, in Arizona, was shot and killed by wildlife officials June 13, but only after becoming a nuisance.

On June 11, the 100-pound bear climbed into a large ice chest on a picnic table. The bear didn’t flinch when a man tried to scare it away with a yell. When he poked it with a broom handle, the bear grabbed the handle with its teeth and took the broom.

Later that evening, the bear showed up in someone’s yard and ran off after a shot was fired in the air. The next morning, the Arizona Game and Fish Department received a call from a man complaining that the bear was only four feet away when he emerged from an outdoor shower. The man was chased into his trailer.

The bear then followed an adult and child as they walked down the street. Then some residents began following the bear as it rummaged through town. Wildlife officials finally encountered the bear as it was trying to get into a house. When attempts to tree the animal--so it could be shot with a tranquilizing dart--proved unsuccessful, it was shot and killed.

That ending might have been averted had not well-meaning residents been so careless. Interviews revealed that they had been feeding the bear. One family told an officer they had put meat and fish outside to feed wildlife. AF&G; field supervisor Ray Parent said that only causes the animals to expect such treatment.

“You’re not doing bears or other wildlife a favor by feeding them,” Parent said. “In fact, sometimes you are condemning them to death.”