If Yellowtail Is the Objective, Santa Monica Bay Is the Place

It’s the same scene that plays itself out almost daily each winter in the Sea of Cortez. . . .

The anglers awake before dawn, take a short cruise to the fishing grounds, drop their lines in the water and watch a beautiful sunrise while reeling in one yellowtail after another.

But there are a few major differences: The sunrise isn’t nearly as spectacular, the fish aren’t quite as big and there is no sleepy Baja village such as Loreto to return to after a few hours at sea.

There is only Marina del Rey.

Yes, one of the most consistent yellowtail bites around is taking place smack in the middle of the Santa Monica Bay.

That in itself is strange enough. Yellowtail usually don’t show locally until spring, and when they do it’s usually in a more exotic or pristine setting, such as Santa Catalina Island, or perhaps the Horseshoe Kelp a few miles out of L.A. Harbor.

Not this year. The yellowtail arrived off the Santa Monica-Malibu area just after Christmas and that’s where they’ve chosen to stay, spending their mornings gorging on sardines and doing whatever else it is yellowtail do by day and night.

“Rain or shine, we’ve been getting them every day,” says Rick Oefinger, owner of the New Del Mar out of Marina del Rey Sportfishing, the only L.A.-area landing whose half-day boats are within range of the hard-fighting jacks. “This is usually halibut time for us, but there aren’t many halibut around yet and it’s probably because of El Nino.”

El Nino might also have something to do with the fact that the water in Santa Monica Bay, normally in the mid- to upper 50s in January, is a springlike 60-63 degrees and the same deep-blue color it was during the summer, when yellowfin tuna breezed through the bay for the first time in recent history.

Granted, the bay may not be the cleanest place around, but for the time being, it’s good enough for one of the more popular game fish known to Southland anglers.

And good enough for hundreds of fishermen enjoying the convenience of having these fish so close at hand, and creating a good measure of chaos trying to catch them.

Come first light, the yellowtail begin to feed, causing the sardines to employ the only defense they know: to ball tightly up near the surface to make themselves appear as one. This works to some extent, keeping the game fish at bay, darting only after those unfortunate sardines straying far enough from the mass.

But gulls and the pelicans don’t buy it for an instant. They can easily spot the bait balls and dive right in, emerging with an easy breakfast.

Fishermen merely have to spot an area with diving birds, motor up alongside the bait ball, drop an iron lure to the bottom and reel in. A strike usually comes within a few seconds.

On busy weekends, this creates a circus atmosphere as private boaters scramble from one bait ball to the next, hoping to be the first on the scene.

Philip Friedman of the fishing information hotline 976-TUNA went out Super Bowl Sunday on a small boat owned by his friend, Bob Alvarez. The duo--with some help from Friedman’s sons, Philip and Patrick--boated 18 yellowtail from 5-15 pounds, along with limits of rockfish caught between bites.

Friedman, who for the last 10 years has made a living monitoring recreational fishing off the California coast, offers this advice for others with small boats who might want to get in on the action:

* The bite gets going about 7:30 and dies by about 10:30.

* Look for bird activity but don’t become obsessed with chasing down the birds. “We had some of our best fishing a half-mile away from the really wild bird schools.” Also, if you see everyone chasing down one group of diving birds, look around for another, because too many boats on one bait ball tend to drive the game fish down.

* The fish seem to begin feeding just beyond the Santa Monica Pier, after which they slowly work their way north, so if you get out a little late, you might want to try working north a little. The bite has been ending about 10:30 off Malibu near Pepperdine.

* Drop your iron all the way to the bottom and wind the iron at a steady pace all the way to the surface. The fish have been biting as deep as 200 feet. “Most of our fish were caught yo-yoing off the bottom, [but] Alvarez caught four of his yellows in less than 10 feet of water.”

Look for the bite to continue a while. The yellow streak runs long and wide, as evidenced by similar counts of Oxnard-based boats, most of which are venturing into the northern reaches of the bay.

Says Oefinger, who has logged counts of up to 100 fish on several occasions this winter: The sardines are solid from Hermosa Beach all the way to Malibu and probably beyond, because they’re even catching yellowtail every day off Oxnard. I don’t see any end to this soon.”

Of course if catching yellowtail in the bay doesn’t appeal to you, you can always book a trip to Loreto.

BAJA’S BADLANDS

The investigation continues into the apparent murder late last year of two Nevada tourists on a fishing trip to Baja California.

Meanwhile, shock waves are still being felt north of the border, where longtime Baja aficionados have expressed everything from sadness to concern to outrage.

They feel for the families of Herb Dohr and Alan Swan, whose bodies were discovered with bashed-in heads Dec. 9 in El Rosario, near the popular tourist destination of San Quintin, about 200 miles south of the border.

They wonder whether this area, long popular among fishermen and surfers on weekend trips, will ever be safe again.

And they’re angry that the thugs believed to have killed Dohr and Swan, and who have preyed violently on other tourists in the region for the past year or so, have not yet been brought to justice.

Among the tourists attacked were Donna and Charlie Whitman. They were camping on the beach last August just south of San Quintin, as they had done twice a year for 15 years, when they heard banging on their door about 9:30 p.m.

“They said, ‘Come out and give us your money,’ ” Donna said. “Charlie opens the door and a guy grabs him and I hear a gunshot. I told the kids to get down and thought, ‘the only way to get out of this is with the car.’ ”

She drove off in a panic, then realized she was leaving her husband, whom she believed had been shot. She returned, opened the window and started yelling her husband’s name.

“I stopped and yelled, ‘Charlie!’ and he was covered in blood and they’re shooting. . . . He jumped in and one guy grabs him,” she said. “I’m holding Charlie and stepping on the gas pedal.”

Whitman said her husband, who was badly beaten but not shot, managed to get inside but the bandits stole a car at the next campsite and gave chase, shooting and ramming the camper until it hit a berm at Highway 1, causing the camper shell to fall off the truck, with the children inside.

At this point, the robbers fled.

“We stopped and our 7-year-old came running out of the camper screaming, and we heard the [3-year-old] crying. He lost all his front teeth, but otherwise he was OK,” Donna said. “Two of our tires were flat--shot out. But the guys split. We didn’t expect that to happen.”

The Whitmans, who tracked down police and spent the rest of the night resting in a San Quintin jail and much of the next day giving statements and trying to communicate with local officials, finally made it home, minus her purse, their surfboards, several CDs and the camper shell, which was totaled.

“We’re never going back,” Donna Whitman said, adding that her family has not been kept up-to-date with any investigation into the incident. “We’ve lost our love for Mexico.”

This type of sentiment seems to have spread as similar stories have been told by other victims, particularly after the discovery of the bodies of Dohr and Swan.

Mexico’s tourism department claims that officials are working diligently to solve the Dohr-Swan case and alleviate the crime problem in the area, but hotel owners say not enough is being done.

“The locals are working hard to force the hand of local officials to get something done,” said Earle Robitaille, former chief of the Huntington Beach Police Department and an avid Baja traveler who has been reporting on the situation in and around San Quintin for several months on the Amigos de Baja web site, www.bajanet.com.

In a fax to Robitaille, the owner of one of the larger hotels in the region called the current crime wave “horrifying” and said police are being pressured to perform a series of sting operations to catch what is believed to be a small band of criminals responsible for most, if not all of the robberies and, possibly, the murders.

“I have been here 23 years and and it’s the worst crime I have ever seen,” the hotel owner said.

THE CHUM LINE

The annual swap meet at Fishermen’s Spot in Van Nuys will be held Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the store’s parking lot. Those with unwanted tackle or gear--antique lures and cane rods have been popular items in recent years--can secure a space on a first-come, first-served basis. Details: (818) 785-7306. . . . The 42nd Southern California Boat Show, featuring more than 800 boats and more than 80 new models, will run Feb. 7-15 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Free seminars will include such subjects as trailering, navigation, fishing, skiing and wakeboarding. Cost is $8 for adults and free for children 12 and under. Hours are 1-9 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays. . . . Fishing tackle manufacturer Dennis Braid, who has traveled the world fishing for big game, specializing in giant tuna, will be the guest speaker at the Feb. 11 meeting of the Marina del Rey Anglers. The public is invited and there is no charge for the 7 p.m. presentation at the Burton Chace Park Meeting Room. Details: (310) 821-7262.