Hsieh Lives the Good Life With Bad Company

When the vessel Bad Company drew closer to port, it was as clear as the desert sky that this was no ordinary fishing machine.

It was not only bigger, but leaner, cleaner and much meaner-looking than the other high-priced yachts there for Bisbee’s inaugural fishing tournament in this sun-baked capital of Baja California Sur.

Its seven anglers were traveling grandly and it showed; they looked cool, whereas everyone else looked hot.

On their vessel was $100,000 worth of tackle . Guiding them along was a sonar unit valued at $50,000. Powering the yacht, to a top cruising speed of 33 knots, were two 1,400-horsepower diesel engines.

But there was something conspicuously wrong with this picture: Bad Company, despite all the hype surrounding the sportfisher, had not a single fish to show for eight long hours at sea. The same thing had happened the previous day.

Tournament organizers were mystified. They had expected Anthony Hsieh and his band of merry fishermen to steal the show.

Instead, some guy from Michigan had done that, aboard a junk heap by comparison, with a 352-pound blue marlin caught on the first of the two-day spectacle.

“That’s just fishing,” Hsieh casually said. “Besides, we have a lot more fishing ahead of us.”

It was a point well made. What lies ahead for the Huntington Beach millionaire is every fisherman’s dream: a 16-month odyssey to Panama and back, with nothing to worry about but when the next fish might hit.

“This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” Hsieh said. “I’ve worked hard all my life, so it’s time to play for a year.”

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Hsieh, 36, made his fortune by launching an online mortgage firm, LoansDirect.com, which he presided over for 10 years.

The business was sold to E-Trade mortgage in a deal that closed last February. Hsieh (pronounced SHAY) retired not long thereafter, and began building his dream boat and recruiting a team he hopes will become the first to catch and release 1,000 billfish in a calendar year.

He spent $2.5 million just to build the boat, a 60-foot Hatteras he named Bad Company, same as the rock band, “Because I’ve always liked the band, I guess.”

Hsieh spent another $150,000 on electronics. So vast are the systems that it takes 900 pounds of wire to run them.

On board are 37 rod-and-reel combinations, the top ones worth $3,500 apiece and the cheapest worth about $800.

At Hsieh’s request, the boat was built with smooth white panels covering all screws, for reasons both aesthetic and practical. There’s nothing to get snagged on, nothing to trip over.

The vessel has 13 tuna tubes, used to hold live tuna, which are used to catch blue marlin. When smaller striped marlin and sailfish are being targeted, the tubes are removed and the wells used to hold smaller live bait.

The boat has several bait tanks. It also has a spacious fish hold on the stern deck, featuring a crushed-ice machine that chills the catch with the touch of a button.

In the cabin are three plush staterooms with heads and showers, and smaller staterooms with sizable bunks. The vessel is self-contained, able to convert saltwater into freshwater and, during happy hour, to turn freshwater into cubes of ice.

Hsieh was asked what his credit-card limit was. He smiled and answered, “All I can say is that I’ve compiled a lot of frequent-flier miles.”

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On tour with Hsieh are six people who obviously have very loose or no ties to him. To ensure their loyalty, Hsieh put three of them on salary: Cabo San Lucas’ Martin Herrera and Elisio Rodriguez, as captain and mate, and Jim Kingsmill as top angler.

The others, Rowland Heights’ Ron Ashimine (second captain, angler) and Fountain Valley’s Jim Magnuson (engineer, angler), are along for the ride, enjoying free room and board and an adventure they otherwise couldn’t afford.

As for Kingsmill, the decision to become a professional fisherman wasn’t a difficult one. He had served 131/2 years with the Westminster Police Department and had burned out.

“I had pretty much done everything there was to do as a cop,” he said. “I investigated every kind of crime as a detective for six years. I worked homicides to petty thefts. It just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.

“Hopefully this will turn into a good program that will last till I’m an old man.”

In case it doesn’t, Kingsmill can return to police work. He stayed on with the department as a reserve and has a year to decide whether running down marlin is better than running down criminals.

One thing’s for sure, he’ll be just as busy.

The next stop for Bad Company is back in Southern California, to fish two marlin tournaments. Then it’s back down the Baja coast to Cabo San Lucas for three big-money billfish tournaments in October. Bad Company will remain in Cabo for a a tuna tournament in November, then travel to Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.

After that, the tour heads to Costa Rica, with stops n Zihuatanejo, Acapulco and Barra de Navidad.

Ultimately, the vessel will arrive in Panama to kick off 2002, at the peak of black marlin season.

Bad Company will remain in Panama through March, then return to Costa Rica for April and May. In June, it returns to Cabo San Lucas for the summer and fall tournament season.

And the climax of the trip, it is hoped, will take place in November 2002 off Magdalena Bay north of Cabo on the Pacific side of Baja.

It is then and there that striped marlin gather in phenomenal numbers, and it is there that Hsieh expects himself or one of his teammates to set the hook on billfish No. 1,000.

Of course, first someone has to break the ice by landing billfish No. 1.

“We just need some karma, some good luck,” Kingsmill said. “We’ve spent the past few days seeing lots of marlin; we’re just not getting any bites.”

NEWS AND NOTES

* Shelled: No trip to southern Baja California would be complete without flipping through the Gringo Gazette, a biweekly published in Cabo San Lucas.

A story on the cover of the latest issue deals with a 250-pound sea turtle--named Josephine--who had been tracked since last December from her nesting site in southern Mexico to a village in southern Baja.

Apparently, after a $2,500 transmitter stopped giving signals near Magdalena Bay, a researcher from a San Diego conservation group interviewed locals and was told that Josephine had been the main course at a barbecue for about 100 people.

All five species of sea turtles found along Mexico’s west coast are endangered and protected by federal law.

* Bragging rights: Dove hunter Kyle Hudiberg, 13, of San Diego has something to boast to his classmates about: He won the “biggest breast” contest last Saturday at Sprague’s Sport and RV in Yuma, Ariz., an event that kicks off the dove-hunting season.

Hudiberg’s breast, that of a white-wing he brought down with a shotgun, weighed an impressive 84.3 grams. He beat out 212 others.

Dove hunting was productive throughout southeastern Imperial County and along the Lower Colorado River last weekend and good hunting is expected this weekend as well.

* Albacore score: The albacore bite south of San Diego, after a few lulls that appeared to signal the end of the season, is back up to speed and Mexican limits (five fish) at mid-week were not hard to come by. In the mix are some very large bigeye. The Aristokat returned to Seaforth on Labor Day with a bigeye weighing a whopping 256 pounds.

* Ducks and geese: Waterfowl seasons and regulations for 2001-02 have been announced and topping the regulation news is that controversial spinning-wing, or motorized duck decoys will be banned until Dec. 1.

A total ban was considered but the Fish and Game Commission decided that a partial ban would enable biologists to compare hunter success rates with and without the devices.

Duck hunting in Southern California zones runs Oct. 13 to Jan. 20, 2002. The bag limit is seven a day, including a maximum of two mallard hens, one pintail, two redheads, four scaup and one canvasback. Goose season in Southern California runs Oct. 20 through Jan. 20. Bag limit is five per day. Details: www.dfg.ca.gov/hunting .

* Tourney time: The King Harbor Yacht Club will hold its annual “Mako My Night” tournament Saturday night. Entry is $500 a team and grand prize is a trip for four to Manzanillo, Mexico. But the goal of the tournament is to raise money for the Let’s Go Fishing Foundation, which treats children from the Redondo Teen Center and a nearby youth-gang intervention center to fishing trips aboard the Redondo Special. Details: (310) 376-4101 .... Jerry Esten’s annual kayak-fishing derby, one of the largest cash and prize kayak derbies in Southern California, is set for Sunday with registration beginning at 7 a.m. at Redondo Marina. Cost is $50. Details: (818) 727-9666.

* Coyote ugly: Robert Wright and James Wood, of Corpus Christi, Texas, pleaded guilty recently to charges of illegally attempting to take wildlife after being caught using fishing poles baited with venison to try to hook coyotes in a national park on the coast of Texas.

The San Diego Log reports that Wright, 18, was fined $550 and Wood, 18, was fined $750. Wood also was ordered to attend a series of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Both men were banned from the park for two years, prohibited from possessing Texas hunting licenses for one year, and required to attend hunter safety classes.

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Fish Report D13