Squid-Fishing Flap Allegedly Leads to Gunfire

A clash between two rival squid fishermen off Anacapa Island the other night ended in gunfire when they allegedly decided that a patch of the Pacific Ocean wasn’t big enough for the both of them.

In what could be called the Battle of Frenchy’s Cove, 46-year-old John L. Birgel of Ventura, skipper of the Aspiration, and Frank S. Flores, 32, pilot of the Monterey-based Obsession, were allegedly vying for the same waters just before 8 p.m. Wednesday when things got out of hand.

Tempers flared, words were exchanged--it is unclear who started it--when suddenly the two men pulled out guns and started shooting at each other, according to Ventura County sheriff’s officials.

Joe Randolph, who was aboard another vessel fishing off Santa Cruz Island that night, heard the altercation on his radio.

“The first thing I heard is these guys just yelling at each other. . . . One guy thought the other got too close, so they started shooting. Next thing you know, the Coast Guard is on the way,” Randolph said.

The two men weren’t hurt, but they were arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, according to sheriff’s officials. They were released from jail Thursday after each posted $50,000 bail. They are scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 23.

Birgel and Flores could not be reached for comment.

Although the incident is still under investigation, fishermen say that either Birgel or Flores apparently violated an unwritten rule that “light boats,” which use arrays of stadium-caliber bulbs to lure squid from the deep so other boats can net the mollusks, keep at least 220 yards apart.

“If one guy gets in closer than the eighth-of-a-mile limit, then his lights can draw away the squid like a magnet. Sometimes tempers get heated,” said Neil Guglielmo, vice president of Commerce-based Southern California Seafood Co.

Clashes between fishermen have become more common in recent years as fleets from San Pedro to Seattle converge on the Channel Islands to hunt squid during winter nights. Among the ingredients for conflict: hard-charging diesel engines, shipboard weapons, money and cover of darkness.

A few times each year, Coast Guard cutters are dispatched from Oxnard to break up disputes among fishermen, although the incidents rarely erupt in violence, said Andy Jones, operations petty officer for the Coast Guard. Typically, passions chill after a volley of curses or angry exchanges over two-way radios. Sometimes, Jones said, disputes are resolved in a maritime game of chicken, in which boats vying for a fishing spot charge each other until one skipper backs down.

“Nobody likes each other much out there. It’s kind of like the Wild West,” Randolph said. “There’s a lot of boats and a lot of money to be made.”

Squid fishing is one of California’s fastest-growing and most lucrative fishing industries. A typical purse-seiner boat can net 50 tons of squid in a single night, a catch worth $10,000 in today’s market, Guglielmo said. Most of it is sold as calamari in restaurants or bait for sportfishing fleets.

For now, however, Aspiration and Obsession are impounded at Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard. “It looks like the squid are safe for another day,” said Ventura County sheriff’s spokesman Eric Nishimoto.