Humpback Feeding Frenzy Was Feast for the Eyes

To call it a fluke would be an understatement. A trip last Saturday aboard the Condor was about flukes, but also about flippers and fins. It was furious, and it was so fantastic that future trips are likely to pale in comparison.

Surrounding the 88-foot vessel, as it sat beneath an overcast sky off the west end of Santa Cruz Island, were at least 45 and as many as 80 humpback whales engaged in a feeding frenzy unlike any that even veteran whale watchers had witnessed.

“People said it was like a dream; they said that what they were seeing did not feel real,” said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a researcher from San Pedro and one of 80 passengers aboard the Condor. “They were getting whiplash from turning their heads so fast and so often because so much was happening around them.”

Indeed, the only thing wrong with the American Cetacean Society’s inaugural “Summer Adventure 2001” was that it took place in spring.

The whales had corralled massive schools of anchovies into a series of enormous “meatballs” and spent much of the day lunge-feeding through the swirling masses, emerging with silvery bait fish spilling out of their gullets.

They were breaching, or propelling their bodies skyward. They were interacting with dolphins. They were flipper-slapping, fluke-thrashing and generally exhibiting every type of behavior known to humpback whales, which reach lengths of about 48 feet and can weigh as much as 50 tons.

To see any of this makes for an exciting trip. To see it all at once, especially in Southland waters, is almost unheard of.

With the whales were hundreds, if not thousands, of sea lions, so many that passengers wondered aloud whether they could have walked across the pinnipeds’ backs. At one point a long “chorus line” of sea lions, their heads out of the water, approached the Condor en masse, branching off in two directions around the vessel before sinking out of sight.

“It was like we were under attack,” Schulman-Janiger said.

The anchovies had no chance. The whales and sea lions feasted from below, while seabirds, swarming like locusts, plucked fish from the surface or dived straight into the meatballs.

While this was going on, Capt. Fred Benko used his boat phone to call a reporter and say, “Wish you could have be out here with us,” as if rubbing it in. “It’s as good as it gets. It’s better than Alaska and Hawaii combined.”

As Benko spoke, cheers filled the air as a whale breached, turning slightly before splashing down and sending large wakes in either direction.

“Everybody was begging for film,” said Bernardo Alps, president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Cetacean Society. “I shot 22 rolls and I was spacing myself because I knew that was all I had.”

After returning home, he drafted a newsletter that reported to ACS members who were not aboard: “We saw humpbacks, we heard humpbacks, we smelled humpbacks, and we felt the mist of their blows on our skin.”

First-year ACS member Connie Smith added, “This trip ranks as the best I’ve ever been on in my short ‘career’ as a whale watcher, but from the comments I heard on board it ranked tops with everyone else as well.”

Smith likes to think her late father had something to do with the magical day. A retired Navy officer, he died of cancer in 1990. He was cremated, his ashes spread at sea.

“I feel closer to him when I’m out on the boats and sometimes talk to him,” Smith said. “On the way across the channel I said, ‘Dad, if you have anything to do with it, could you make this a memorable day?’

“To me, memorable would have been seeing a few whales and catching a breach or two on film. Well, if he had anything to do with it, he must have pulled in all his markers--memorable was an understatement of what this day was.”

So incredible was Saturday’s trip that Benko, aboard his smaller 35-foot Bertram, went back for more Sunday.

He traveled farther, to an area off Santa Rosa Island, and found the activities even more spectacular. As they were a day earlier, the whales were “bubble-netting” the anchovies, swimming in circles beneath and exhaling, trapping the fish within the bubbles and forcing them into a meatball at the surface.

But Sunday, the whales appeared to be using Benko’s idling boat to further crowd the fish. In groups of two or three, they took turns charging through the meatball, devouring anchovies by the thousands.

He is used to the presence of humpbacks at this time of year. While the last of the migrating gray whales are passing to the north, humpbacks start appearing in the Santa Barbara Channel, along with much larger blue whales, to gorge on shrimp-like krill that seasonally reddens portions of the channel. The whales typically stay several months.

(It was with this in mind that the ACS chose last weekend for its inaugural humpback whale excursion, open to the public. Another is scheduled July 21 and details are available at https://www.acs-la.org.)

With easy access out of Santa Barbara’s Sea Landing, Benko probably has enjoyed more humpback and blue whale encounters than any local captain. The Condor, which last week began running daily public whale-watching excursions, has been utilized extensively by researchers from around the world.

“But what makes [last weekend] so special,” he said, “is that the humpbacks were feeding on fin fish instead of krill, which is deeper. You sometimes see them lunge-feeding on krill, but it’s nothing like this.

“There must have been megatons of anchovies. They were gobbled from below and gobbled from above. There must have been tens of thousands of birds, along with thousands of sea lions. It was really dramatic.”

Saltwater

* Local: The situation locally is fair at best. White seabass are cooperating only every few days at the Channel Islands--they were biting best at Santa Rosa and San Clemente islands at midweek; the barracuda bites at Huntington Flats and in Santa Monica Bay have subsided considerably, and sand bass have yet to show for the twilight boats.

Albacore, the longfin tuna anglers are longing for, are showing as close as 80 miles from San Diego and conditions are prime well south of that, but ideal conditions stretching to and beyond Guadalupe Island have skippers optimistic. Says Searcher Capt. Art Taylor: “The season is starting off like a season should and people should have patience and wait for the main vein to arrive.”

* Baja: The May marlin bite off Cabo San Lucas has yet to materialize as the billfish, though present in good numbers, remain line-shy. Worse, skippers are traveling as far as 35 miles to find them. On the bright side, dorado catches are slowly increasing. East Cape fleets report similar action on both species. At the northern East Cape near La Paz, tuna to about 45 pounds are the predominant catch, but dorado are beginning to show at the buoys and sailfish are being seen in greater numbers--both signs of impending improvement.

Freshwater

* The annual Youth Fly Fishing Fair at Follows Camp on the East Fork of the San Gabriel River is June 9 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. The event, sponsored by the Southwest Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers, is free and teaches casting and tying, and about insects and pollution. It also includes fishing for trout. Details: (626) 444-9001, ext. 275.

* The annual free Youth Fishing Derby at Crestline’s Lake Gregory is June 9, in conjunction with one of two state-sponsored free fishing days, when adult anglers can fish without a license. Prizes will be awarded in three age categories (7 and under, 8-12 and 13-15), and for most and biggest fish. Trout will be stocked before the event. Details: (909) 338-2233.

Sailing

The 41st Transpacific Yacht Race, with starts scheduled June 25 through July 1, may be without one of its entries. Bull, a Sydney 40 OD-T owned by Seth Radow of Marina del Rey, has fallen victim to foot and mouth disease.

The boat was built in Australia and was to be transported to the United States with plenty of time for rigging, outfitting and inspections. “Shipment was delayed due to, of all things, the beef scare in Europe,” Radow said in a news release. “Apparently, Europe is buying beef from Australia and it is being shipped in refrigerated containers stacked eight high through the port of Long Beach. My boat has been repeatedly bumped in favor of more lucrative cargo.”

Bull is finally en route, though, scheduled to arrive Saturday and be unloaded on Monday or Tuesday. Radow then will scramble to make preparations that normally take about two months.

Boating

* The increasing number of fatalities among fishermen involved in boating accidents has prompted the California Department of Fish and Game to issue a warning that it will step up enforcement of laws pertaining to personal flotation devices and life jackets. Twenty-five of California’s 51 boating fatalities in 2000 involve fishermen. That’s up from 13 out of 42 in 1999.

Capsizing and falls overboard represented 72% of the fatalities last year, while overloading or improper loading represented 24%.

The law mandates that boats must have one Coast Guard-approved life jacket for each person aboard, and boats 16 feet or longer must carry at least one flotation device that can be thrown. Children 11 or younger aboard craft 26 feet or smaller must wear a life jacket while on the water. The law does not apply to children harnessed on a sailboat or within an enclosed cabin of a power boat.

* The annual Spring Boat Show at Fairplex in Pomona runs Wednesday through June 3. Admission is $8 for adults and free for children 12 and under.

Winding Up

Mervyn’s Beach Bash 2001, showcasing “elements of the California lifestyle through world-class competition from the nation’s leading extreme sports and professional beach volleyball tours,” is June 7-10 at Hermosa Beach Pier.

The event features pro beach volleyball (men and women’s competitions), top skateboarders, bicycling freestyle riders and aggressive in-line skaters. Live music and kids’ events also are on tap.

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FISH REPORT: D13