Anglers Taking the Bait in Big Numbers at Show

If you think the phrase “March madness” pertains only to basketball, take a stroll through the halls of the Long Beach Convention Center and Sports Arena this weekend.

You might be interested in bigger game, but you’ll feel like a sardine.

More than 25,000 people packed the two buildings on Wednesday, opening day of the 54th annual Fred Hall Fishing Tackle and Boat Show.

And by Sunday evening, about 250,000 will have bumped shoulders, eager to restock their tackle boxes, sharpen their skills and see what new the angling world has to offer.

The most popular fishing show on the West Coast is basically a celebration of the end of winter and the beginning of a new season--and the timing is usually perfect.

In fact, as wide-eyed fishermen began walking the aisles of saltwater gear at about 2 p.m. Wednesday, half a dozen or so sportfishing boats were returning from the offshore isles with an assortment of game fish.

At Santa Catalina Island, anglers aboard the Top Gun, Thunderbird, Dreamer and a few other vessels spent the morning hours littering their decks with white seabass weighing between 15-40 pounds.

The bite started when the Thunderbird posted a decent score Monday and the Top Gun hit a bonanza on Tuesday, getting 51 seabass, or three-fish limits for all 17 anglers. Since then, the fishing has remained fairly steady, subsiding some on Thursday because of wind and a big swell.

The Top Gun, out of L.A. Harbor Sportfishing, posted a count of 130 yellowtail--the biggest score of the year--two weeks ago at Catalina.

To the north, at Santa Cruz Island, yellowtail have been showing in small numbers all week. Tim Sheridan of Westlake Village called in a report of three yellowtail from 12 to 15 pounds caught by him and a friend near Chinese Harbor. Sheridan, however, was more excited about the 18-pound halibut that devoured a large sardine and “crushed” his treble hook with its powerful jaws.

Those in the Santa Barbara-Ventura area, however, are mostly passing time while anticipating the March 13 opening of salmon season, which figures to be a productive one based on the unusually cold water and several incidental catches of king salmon in the last week.

To the south, calico bass have been cooperating with light-tackle anglers throwing plastics in the kelp, and where there are calicoes, there are occasionally a few surprises.

Bob Fletcher, president of the Sportfishing Assn. of California, was fishing near Del Mar earlier this week with Barry Brightenburg of Fish Trap lures, and had one of his calicoes gobbled up by an 85-pound giant black seabass.

He fought the monster for about an hour before getting it to the boat, then carefully reviving and releasing it. He also hooked a slightly smaller black seabass that inhaled one of the lures before a calico could get to it.

“Two black seabass in one day, on bass gear--that’s pretty exciting,” Fletcher said.

Not far inland, at San Diego’s Lake Murray, Bobby Swartwood of Chula Vista, started his week by catching and releasing a lake-record 18-pound 10-ounce largemouth bass that sucked in a Castaic Soft Trout lure.

For bass fishermen throughout the Southland, real March madness takes place on the water at such “hawg holes” as Murray, Hodges, Perris and Casitas.

But the madness has spilled into the halls of “Bass World” at the Long Beach Sports Arena, where the latest in gear and boats is on display, and where big-name experts such as Jimmy Houston, Don Iovino, Rich Tauber and Pete Haynes are sharing their secrets.

If you’re planning a trip south of the border, you might want to check out the Baja Fishing & Resorts booth. Hotel Playa Del Sol, one of three East Cape resorts represented by the Calabasas company, can now boast of catching one of the largest marlin ever caught in southern Baja.

Three Wyoming anglers took turns battling the enormous blue marlin for about three hours Tuesday aboard the Maria II. It took two four-wheel-drive vehicles to tow it up the beach to the scale. It broke the scale’s support beam twice and when it was finally cut in half and weighed on an electronic scale, it was officially listed at 1,085 pounds.

“It was 16 feet 4 inches long and 78 inches around,” said Bobby Van Wormer, director of fishing at Playa del Sol and nearby Palmas de Cortez. “We think it was the biggest marlin ever caught in the Cabo area.”

There might be some argument there. A 1,170-pounder was reportedly caught on a Rancho Buena Vista hotel boat in the mid-1960s and a 1,110-pounder was caught off Cabo San Lucas in the ‘70s--but it was one of only half a dozen or so “granders” ever landed off southern Baja.

Van Wormer was quick to add, though, that although this is a nice trophy, the much smaller striped marlin are putting on the biggest show these days at the East Cape, with skippers reporting two to five hookups a day.

The East Cape and southern Baja are well represented at the Long Beach show, but then so are Alaska, British Columbia, Hawaii, Midway Island, Venezuela and Panama.

And with trout season just around the corner, the Eastern Sierra booths and the Fly Fishing Expo are among the most popular gathering places.

Admission to the show is $10 and parking is $7. Hours are 2-10 p.m. today, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday.

CATCH OF THE WEEK

It was no grander, but it was a nice catch.

Literally.

Cole McClure, 73, of San Carlos, Calif., didn’t need bait or a hook to land a 145-pound striper earlier this week aboard the Tracy Ann out of Pisces Sportfishing in Cabo San Lucas.

He needed only his hands.

McClure and his wife, Merele, were marveling at a school of free-jumping marlin near their boat when he decided to try to get a picture.

He dashed into the cabin and returned with a camera. Just then one of the billfish leaped into the boat--and into his arms--and the two went tumbling onto the deck.

“All I remember was that there was this terrible collision,” McClure said. “I got a heck of a rip across the seat of my pants and a real bruised cheek down there, not to mention all these abrasions.”

The scrappy billfish won the battle, also giving McClure a black eye, but lost the war. The captain and crew, fearing injury to their client, separated the combatants and killed the marlin.

SHORT CASTS

* Not all is grand at the East Cape. Poachers from mainland Mexico are also busy in the region, according to sources who say commercial fishermen are using gill-nets to devastate stocks of sierra mackerel, jack crevalle and roosterfish.

Poaching from makeshift camps on these remote beaches is common at this time of year as mainland fishermen try to satisfy a growing demand for fish during Lent.

Two years ago, some were caught with thousands of roosterfish. Their boats and most of their gear was confiscated. Apparently, it wasn’t enough of a deterrent.

* The Victory, out of Long Beach Sportfishing on Tuesday morning, was involved in a collision with the tugboat Eddie C.

The accident, under investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard, occurred in dense fog in a narrow channel in San Pedro Harbor where a dredging project is underway.

There were no reported injuries, a Coast Guard spokesman said. The Victory suffered substantial damage to its bow but is expected to be back on the water in a week or so.

* The annual Blake Jones Trout Derby, a blind-bogey event held every year in Bishop before the Eastern Sierra general trout season opener, is scheduled March 13 at Pleasant Valley Reservoir. Cost is $5 for adults, $2 for children. Details: (760) 873-8405, Ext. 27.

* The Flyfishers Club of Orange County is conducting a free casting clinic March 13-14 at William R. Mason Park in Irvine. Details: (714) 997-7935. . . . The Sierra Pacific Flyfishers in the San Fernando Valley has free clinics on four Saturdays beginning March 13 at Reseda Recreation Center, with the finale at Piru Creek. Details: (818) 888-1974.

SKIING/BOARDING

* The Jimmy Heuga Center’s Snow Express charity race series to fight muscular dystrophy is scheduled March 13-14 at Snow Summit in Big Bear Lake. A downhill marathon, all-mountain race and giant slalom are on tap. Details: (310) 379-0414.

* The $35,000 Cuervo Pipe extreme snowboarding competition, featuring a field of 32 riders, is scheduled for March 13 at Big Bear Mountain.