Famous Fisherman Gets Final Farewell

The outdoor sports world will say goodby to Jack Ward this morning during services at Cisco Sportfishing in Oxnard.

And there figures to be standing-room only at the business he owned until a few years ago.

Ward, who died last week at 73 after a lengthy battle with cancer, was not only one of the pioneers of fishing in California, he was one of the most beloved.

“I met Jack in the ‘70s, and to me he was always one of the iron men of the ocean,” said Bob Fletcher, president of the Sportfishing Assn. of California. “Nothing ruffled his feathers. He was a complete ocean captain. And just a really nice guy.”

As a child in the late 1920s, Ward peddled the fish he had caught the night before to tourists below the Santa Monica bluffs.

A sailing champion and master boat handler, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard as a trainer of officers during World War II.

His exploits on the high seas over a span of 60 years were legendary. Many joked that he had saltwater in his veins, and it was difficult to believe otherwise. Captain Jack, as he was often called, spent nearly as much time in the ocean as out of it. If a customer’s fish got tangled in the rocks or kelp, Ward would dive in and free the line.

His skin was so thick that a doctor once broke three needles trying to stitch a shark bite on his arm. No telling how many teeth the shark lost.

“I loved to swim, and I used to do some crazy things,” Ward said in a 1991 interview.

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Ward started taking passengers from Malibu Pier in 1946.

He was there in the middle of things in 1950 when albacore made a rare showing about 12 miles offshore.

During the early ‘60s, he and a friend took turns hauling from the depths a black sea bass weighing 524 pounds. It was the largest caught until a 568-pounder was landed soon afterward--on the boat Ward was running.

Ward was at the helm of the Lenbrooke on Dec. 6, 1951, when Betty Jackson caught a 62-pound white sea bass off Malibu. That same day, Jackson brought in other sea bass of 37, 35 and 26 pounds.

“I became her hero,” Ward recalled during the interview. “She was married but she falls in love with me, and she wants to divorce her husband and marry me.”

Not surprising. Ward in the 1950s was dubbed “The Handsome Skipper” by one outdoor publication. Another labeled him as one of the most competent and friendly captains on the water.

Ward is survived by his wife, Donna, and his three sons, Jack Jr., Mike and John.

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It has been more than a week since the firing of three of five regional managers by the Department of Fish and Game, and those fired are still reeling and weighing their options.

Fred Worthley, 60, a 30-year veteran with the department and regional manager for the Eastern Sierra and Southern California areas for the last 15 years, said Tuesday that he isn’t sure what he’s going to do when his firing becomes effective Jan. 1.

“There were certain projects we were working on that I would have liked to see through,” he said, citing the restoration of the once-famed trout fishery in the Upper Owens River Gorge as one such project.

Also fired were George Nokes of Region 4, or the Fresno area; and Brian Hunter of Region 3, or the Bay Area. All three will be offered lesser positions in the DFG.

The dismissed managers are not without support in their respective divisions.

According to Curt Taucher, DFG environmental services supervisor, about 75% of the 150 employees working at the Long Beach regional headquarters have signed a petition asking that DFG Director Boyd Gibbons change his mind about Worthley.

“We feel it’s unjustified and we want him to remain,” Taucher said. “Any new person--and who knows who it will be?--will have to learn all the water and land issues. . . . This will be a huge setback.”

Gibbons backed his decision, saying recent manager changes in Regions 1 and 2 had resulted in no setbacks for department projects.

Gibbons, appointed director three years ago, added that he wants younger people with fresh ideas at the management level and hopes to start a rotation system to provide more upward mobility for mid-level personnel.

“Unfortunately there has been a sort of stagnation for some period of time now,” Gibbons said. “This is only one small aspect to help modernize the department. We want fresh perspectives, and this just brings more vitality into the system. My options were to do nothing or what I was brought here to do, and that’s make a difference.”