When He Finally Lands Big One, It Looks Like a Wall of Famer

Floyd Talmadge’s idea of fun is sitting alone on his small boat for hours, sweltering under the summer sun, soaking a hunk of mackerel and hoping a monster catfish will come along and make his day.

Talmadge finally got that, and more, Sunday morning at Otay Reservoir in southeast San Diego County. His rod dipped and his reel screamed at about 8:45, and about 45 minutes later he had alongside his boat a behemoth of a blue catfish, measuring 53 inches and weighing 85.9 pounds, after which the 66-year-old retired Navy man from Chula Vista proudly proclaimed, “This is my moment of glory. I’ve had the agony of defeat so many times I can’t begin to tell you.”

The catch, on 50-pound test monofilament, could be a world record for Talmadge. His big blue eclipsed the state-record 82.1-pounder caught, weighed and released at Otay last summer by John Collins of San Diego. The 50-pound line class world record is a 69-pounder caught last year at Lake Texoma on the Texas-Oklahoma border.

“Since June 11, I’m not bragging--it’s just plain fact--I’ve caught one at 70 [pounds, on heavier line], three 60s and now this 80 thing,” Talmadge said.

This “80 thing” is being mounted and will be prominently displayed on the wall in Talmadge’s home. “I’m going to keep him in my house until I kick the bucket,” he said, “and then I’m going to give him to the local biologist, because I don’t have nobody else to give this catfish to.”

That would be Larry Bottroff, who oversees fisheries at all lakes operated by the City of San Diego.

Bottroff will gladly accept the mounted catfish, but he would have been happier if Talmadge had let it go.

It was Bottroff who, in a sense, gave the catfish its home. It was part of a batch of nearly 1,500 juvenile blue catfish purchased from an Imperial Valley fish farm and dumped into Otay in 1985.

The hatchery-born fish, which have not shown an ability to reproduce in the lake, weighed 1 1/2 pounds each at the time of the stocking, a testament to the health of the reservoir as a fishery.

“The primary forage base is shad, but there are also shiners and a lot of small bluegill for them to feed on,” Bottroff said. “But there is a lot of variation in growth. For example, we had one caught last week that weighed only 11.80 pounds. Some apparently are genetically stunted; with hatchery fish you usually have a lot of variation in growth, but I would say the average blue catfish in Otay right now is about 40 pounds.”

Bottroff said fishermen have probably taken fewer than 800 blues out of Otay since the fish were stocked, but he wouldn’t even guess how many have been lost to natural causes.

“The trouble is, we haven’t been able to find another source [of juvenile blue catfish],” he said. “If we could find another source, we’d buy them right now [to supplement the fisheries].”

Said Talmadge, who released most of his previous big fish, including the 70-pounder: “I’ve spent thousands of hours out there in the rain, sun and snow, and lots of money on permits and equipment trying to catch one that big, and now that I have, I’ll be darned if I’m going to let him go.”

THEY’RE BACK

Just when it appeared the Southland albacore season might finally be coming to an end, the fish have stormed back within range of the San Diego overnight fleet.

Tommy Rothery of the Polaris Supreme stumbled onto the fish about 140 miles west of San Diego on Wednesday morning, sacking more than 200 by 10 a.m. and ending up with nearly 500, one of the season’s top hauls.

Art Taylor on the Searcher moved in, and his 32 passengers had bagged 474 albacore by 1:40 p.m. and went on to catch more than 500 before their arms became so tired they decided to call it quits.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” Taylor said during one of the jig stops in a marine radio interview with a reporter for 976-TUNA. “It’s our best haul of the season.”

Since then, the fish have moved even closer and are being caught in U.S. waters within 100 miles of the coast. Landing operators from L.A. Harbor to Newport Beach, unable to reach the popular tuna for two weeks, are sending boats out in search of the popular tuna this weekend.

WAYWARD SAILOR

It has been two weeks since Steve Fisher climbed aboard his custom, oversized sailboard and set a course for Maui, hoping to become the first person to windsurf from the West Coast to Hawaii.

How far along is he?

Nobody knows.

Fisher, 37, was spotted by the Coast Guard sailing in light winds west of San Clemente Island on July 23 and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Fisher, who has a narrow, hollowed-out berth for sleeping and is not accompanied by a support craft, has an avionics radio and was hoping to communicate with crews of westward-bound jets, who could relay his position to friends in Hawaii.

“He was supposed to try to get word to us last Sunday, but we haven’t heard from him,” said Jaiom Berger, a friend who hopes to track Fisher’s progress.

Berger said he isn’t overly concerned, thinking Fisher to be merely having problems with his communications. And since there has been no signal for help from Fisher, who also has a VHF radio and two emergency position radio beacons aboard his 18-foot sailboard, the Coast Guard has no plans to go looking for Fisher.

FIGHT TO FINISH

Amado Leiva, 58, of Huntington Park had quite a battle on his hands after hooking into a 950-pound blue marlin last week out of Hotel Playa del Sol in southern Baja California’s East Cape region. But it was nothing compared to the struggle he and his friends had after the fish died.

“He fought the marlin for 2 1/2 hours, and then it went under and dove 600 feet and died,” Miriam Leiva said on behalf of her husband, who speaks little English. “And then it took him and his two friends-- Daniel Capobueno and Albert Cook Sr.--4 1/2 hours to pull him up to the boat by hand. My husband has caught big marlin before so he knew what to expect. But when the fish came up, Mr. Cook thought it looked like a submarine.”

HALIBUT QUEEN

Adorning the wall of Kingfisher Lodge in Sitka, Alaska, is a picture of Bill Poole, legendary long-range fisherman and trophy hunter, proudly posing with a 341-pound halibut he caught a few years ago.

The monstrous flatfish was reportedly the biggest sport-caught halibut recorded in Sitka.

Well, Poole may be interested to know that he has been outdone by a 5-foot-2, 98-pound angler from Canyon Country whose previous big fish was, according to her father, “probably six or eight inches long.”

Renae Zimmer, 25, who reluctantly accompanied Bill Zimmer on a trip that ended last week, caught a 368-pound halibut after struggling with the beast for about an hour.

“We weren’t so much worried about getting the fish in as we were keeping her on the boat,” Bill Zimmer said.

Renae might want to consider making another trip to Alaska, however, because her catch, though a Sitka record, is well shy of the all-tackle world-record 459-pounder caught last year off Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island.

TO THE HUNT

Opening day of dove season--always Sept. 1--is to bird hunters what opening day of trout season is to fishermen.

And as is the case with trout fishermen, dove hunters have their favorite places to be at dawn on opening day.

But this year there are added opportunities made possible through the Game Bird Heritage Program, which raises funds through the sale of Upland Game Bird Stamps, which are required of all upland game hunters 16 or older.

The Department of Fish and Game is offering special hunts in five locations covering 2,800 acres in the San Joaquin Valley.

The hunts are labeled: Arroyo Passajero Hunt, near Huron; Donohoe Hunt, near Tranquility; Bakersfield Hunt, 15 miles west of Bakersfield; Pilibos Wildlife Area Hunt, near Mendota; and Success Lake Wildlife Area Hunt, near Porterville.

On opening day, a permit will be required for all but the Success Lake hunt. After opening day, all but the Bakersfield hunt will be available without a permit. (The Bakersfield Hunt is being offered on opening day only.)

Hunters will be selected via random drawing and may apply once for each hunt (morning and afternoon) and area. Applications, for one hunter and a guest, must be received by 5 p.m. Aug. 13 and include the name of the desired hunt, the hunters’ names, addresses and phone numbers, and hunting license numbers.

Applications should be mailed to Game Bird Heritage Dove Hunts, Department of Fish and Game, 1234 East Shaw Ave., Fresno, CA, 93710. Details: (209) 243-4005, ext. 132.