No Twilight on Season : Nighttime Fishing Off to Great Start as Sand Bass Caught By the Hundreds

The sun sets slowly over the Palos Verdes Peninsula, coloring the sky crimson-orange. A fading Long Beach skyline is to the east, a shimmering sea with boats rolling over gentle swells to the west.

“You couldn’t paint a picture like that,” says a large man in jeans and a blue jacket, gazing over the bow of the Matt Walsh.

Others on the boat have to agree, but on this night their idea of a really good view is one of an angry fish being gaffed by the deckhand, plucked from the sea and stuffed into a gunny sack.

They shelled out $20 apiece to create such a scene, over and over.

Sand bass, the primary target of nighttime fishermen, have been plopping over the rails of Southland party boats by the hundreds almost every night since the twilight fishing season began Memorial Day weekend. Barracuda have even gotten into the act, slashing baits, bending rods and--when they run out of fight--hitting the decks like silver torpedoes in the night.

“We’ve only missed (good fishing) one night,” says Todd Phillips, 23, a 2 1/2-year veteran skipper of the 65-foot Matt Walsh, which has carried 51 anglers from L.A. Harbor Sportfishing to an area off Seal Beach. “We’ve had counts of up to 400 sand bass almost every night. Last year I don’t think we caught 100 sand bass in the first three weeks.”

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With sand bass congregating off the Southland coast, as they usually do in the spring, and with the twilight fishing season off to its best start in years, primarily for landings south of Santa Monica Bay, fishermen have been quick to respond.

Business has been as brisk as the westerly wind that blows over the nighttime sea.

Many boats are carrying as many as 70 anglers--in the middle of the week. And some landings have had to use backup boats to handle the weekend demand. At an average cost of $20 for a four- to six-hour trip that generally begins at 5:30 or 6, and with the less competitive atmosphere associated with twilight trips, many find it an ideal way to spend an evening.

“It’s a relaxing trip,” says James Tani, manager of Long Beach Sportfishing. “It gives people a chance to get out of the hot weather, especially people who live inland. And we are catching a lot of fish now, so that and the comfort make for a nice time.”

Wen Li, 27, a Torrance resident who works in El Monte as an engineer, says he took the trip aboard the Matt Walsh merely “because it’s a good break away from the pressure of work.”

Dominic Chemello, 50, a Temecula resident making his fourth such excursion this spring, says he prefers the twilight trips because he doesn’t have to miss any work.

“That sometimes only gives me about four hours’ sleep, but that’s OK,” says Chemello, a Federal Aviation Administration employee. “Plus, the fishing is better than it is during the day. We get here (at the landing), see the people coming off the (day) boat with their long faces, and we go out and just kill them. We’ve done it three nights in a row now.”

Daytime fishermen will argue that fishing is not always better at night, that nighttime fishermen don’t usually catch the larger game fish. But there is no arguing that when a good sand bass bite gets going, there’s no easier way to fill a sack with something that not only puts up a decent fight on light tackle, but tastes good breaded or basted with butter and garlic.

“It’s something anybody can catch,” says Bob Alvarez, who spent the night aboard the Matt Walsh filming for an episode on twilight fishing for a local cable television station. “You don’t need $100 or even much experience. There’s a guy over there fishing with a broken rod and he’s catching them.”

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Darkness has long since fallen and the faraway lights on the coast are aglitter. Those on the nearby boats and offshore oil rigs are blinding. One angler insists that one of the rigs is a cruise ship, moving closer. Then, having downed a red plastic cup full of soda, and whatever else he might have added, he forgets about any oncoming ships, baits his hook and drops it to the bottom.

He gets a hit almost immediately, and a minute or so later heaves a large barracuda over the rail. The hook pops loose from the fish and sinks into his finger. Showing no pain, he cuts off the barb, removes the hook and resumes fishing.

The action has picked up considerably, though few of the sand bass are much over the legal size of 12 inches--well below the three- to five-pound average of previous nights and nowhere near the state record of nearly 12 pounds. Even fewer of the barracuda are the mandatory 28 inches.

Phillips, tired of watching tiny barracuda being bounced over the rail and concerned about their ability to survive the ordeal once thrown back into the ocean, takes care of that by making a quick move north to an area off Long Beach, where there had been an excellent late-night bite on previous trips.

The move proves successful. The anchovies, sacrificial lambs through all of this, what with the hooks in their sides and lead sinkers putting them smack in the middle of schools of hungry game fish, don’t stand a chance. They are inhaled within seconds after hitting bottom.

Merrill McCauley, 16, of Lomita, has put several legal-size sand bass aboard within minutes while fishing from the bow. Larry Fukuhara, an avid fisherman and a marine biologist with the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, has done the same at the port stern. Dan Stanton, a former skipper and now a part-time employee at L.A. Harbor Sportfishing, is showing his expertise in the middle of the boat by reeling in a barracuda and a sand bass--on one hook.

“How about that,” Stanton says, laughing.

Li, his rod bent at the starboard bow, the large man in jeans and blue jacket looking on, eventually heaves a four-pound bass onto the deck. Li is nearing his 10-fish limit of sand bass and is about halfway there with barracuda.

“I don’t even like fish,” he says. “But I have a friend at work who will take it, no problem.”

A huge barracuda is bounced over the port rail, a sand bass at least as big as Li’s is landed by a woman at the stern, Fukuhara pulls up a six- or seven-pounder that will soon earn him jackpot honors. A few hundred fish have been landed, a few hundred more released.

Phillips, realizing he is overdoing it a bit in his quest for success, finally says it’s time to quit and go home. He fires up the Matt Walsh and gives the estimated time of arrival as 1:20 a.m.

The passengers, many of whom have to work in a few hours, can’t believe it’s so late. But then, they have been busy enjoying the view.