First Albacore Catch Comes Early

The first day of a new year is full of firsts, and if you’re a saltwater fisherman there’s nothing quite like being the first to catch an albacore--especially when that feat usually isn’t accomplished until June or July.

Patrick Maloney boated what many believe to be the first sport-caught albacore of 2002, which came over the rail of his boat Tuesday about 7:45 a.m.

“It was kind of neat catching the first fish of the year,” he said. “I had never caught an albacore in January before.”

OK, so Maloney, 32, a Los Angeles attorney, did not seem overly excited during a cell-phone interview on Wednesday morning--while stuck in downtown traffic en route to his office.

In fact, he seemed to downplay his accomplishment, referring to the year’s first albacore, if indeed it was the first, as nothing more than “a novelty fish,” indiscernible from the nine others he and his fishing partner ended up hauling aboard their 32-foot sportfisher, got bait?

“All I know is that our biggest one weighed 36 pounds,” Maloney said.

But there was some pride in his tone. After all, he was one of only a few dozen anglers deciding to forgo their New Year’s Eve festivities in favor of the long run to the fishing grounds, under a frigid night sky atop a dark and bumpy ocean. And to spend their New Year’s Day away from the TV sets and all those football games.

Recent unseasonable catches of the highly prized longfin tuna off Ensenada had inspired this thinking. It’s the kind of thinking only a serious fisherman can appreciate.

“It’s very different fishing for albacore in the winter,” said Barry Brightenburg, a San Diego lure maker who also made the run with two friends, ending up with three albacore among them.

“It’s cold and it can be under difficult conditions, and psychologically it’s hard to think about albacore at this time of year, but they were out there, so we went.”

Because it had been an afternoon bite, Brightenburg opted for a 5 a.m. Tuesday departure, arriving at the tuna grounds five hours later. He and his friends were satisfied with an albacore apiece and turned for home.

Maloney and Dave Nunley left San Diego much earlier, at 1 a.m., with the sounds of revelry still in the air. They wanted to be among the first on the scene, in hopes of being at least among the first to hook up.

They began trolling at 6:30, traveling west until they found the proper water color and temperature, with birds fluttering over what appeared to be a school of bait fish being pursued by larger predators.

It was in this area that they experienced a double strike on the lures. Maloney was the first to get his tuna aboard, he said, but both landed their fish, quickly pinned a bait to their hooks and caught another.

Maloney can’t say for sure whether his “jig fish” was the first to have been caught in 2002; just that it seemed to be the general consensus among those in the area monitoring the bite via VHF radio on Channel 72.

“There were one or two others hiding out on Channel 65,” Maloney said. “And one of them caught a fish at about 10 and shouted out, ‘We got the first one!’ but we got on and said, ‘Sorry, it’s already been caught.”’

*

Maloney doesn’t belong to a club and thus will not receive official honors for unofficially being the first of the year to boat an albacore.

Receiving such honors, however, are Dave Runstrom of Irvine for the 20-pound 14-ounce albacore he boated Tuesday at 9:08 a.m., while fishing within sight of Maloney. Runstrom, 52, was awarded the Balboa Angling Club’s first-albacore flag for the third year in a row.

He and three others at least had enjoyed the privilege of traveling in style, aboard a 48-foot sportfisher named Dragon.

“We left at 3 p.m. [New Year’s Eve],” he said. “We were all asleep at midnight so we had our champagne after we caught the fish.”

Alan Baron of Newport Beach claimed the Avalon Tuna Club’s flag for the 11-pound 3-ounce albacore he caught at 9:52.

*

Now that the first albacore of 2002 has been caught, the question is: How long will the tuna stick around?

The answer, probably, is not long. The fish are being found 70 miles southwest of San Diego, 40-50 miles offshore, in a band of 60-degree water that appears to be moving west and giving way to cooler water as it goes.

Steve Crooke, a Department of Fish and Game biologist, said the reason the fish have stuck around so long probably has to do with the fact that winter storms have not been severe enough to cause significant cooling.

He stopped short of calling the presence of albacore in January unusual, but was somewhat surprised that so many big fish seemed to be lingering, explaining that the smaller albacore are more tolerant of cooler water.

As a rule, albacore prefer water at or slightly above 62 degrees.

Saltwater Notes

* Cabo San Lucas: Striped marlin are still making a splash at the Golden Gate, where few boats are getting skunked and some are returning to port flying as many as six release flags per day. Meanwhile, two of the fleets have released catch totals for 2001. Pisces Sportfishing last year logged 1,271 striper catches and of those an impressive 1,153 were released. Its top week was Nov. 28-Dec. 4, with 68 striper catches. Gaviota Sportfishing logged 950 catches, of which 693 were released.

* Southern California: New rockfish regulations that would have extended the January and February closure to include nearshore waters (fewer than 120 feet) did not go into effect as scheduled Tuesday because the Office of Administrative Law had not yet signed off on the measure.

Official approval could happen any day, but until then fishing for rockfish, including sculpin, is legal in nearshore waters.

Freshwater Notes

* Bass fishing: In the spotlight this week is Riverside County’s Lake Perris, where big bass have begun to stir.

Will Steele, visiting from Idaho and fishing with lake regular Jerry Rago of Independence, Calif., last Friday set a lake record by landing an 18-pounder while casting one of Rago’s homemade lures near the launch ramp.

The lures resemble the trout on which the bigger bass prefer to feed. Rago didn’t have a bad day either, catching bass at 111/2 and 91/4 pounds.

* Fly-fishing: Downey Flyfishers is offering a series of five Wednesday night fly-tying classes that are free to the public, beginning Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Apollo Park in Downey. Details: (562) 691-7878.

Snow Sports

* Brisk business: California ski resorts swooshed through the holidays in grand style, thanks to Mother Nature and a willing public.

Bob Roberts, director of the California Ski Industry Assn., went so far as to say “The gods have smiled on us” and that “All of the worries about what Sept. 11 and the economy would do never materialized.”

As for Mother Nature, she did her part locally by providing cold enough temperatures to enable day-and-night snow making at the Southland’s big four resorts: Mountain High in Wrightwood, Snow Summit and Big Bear Mountain in Big Bear Lake, and Snow Valley in Running Springs.

Business has been as brisk as the weather. At Mountain High, for example, the average daily attendance was 5,000 during the two-week holiday period, up from 2,500 the previous year. The resort has already gone over 200,000 skier-snowboarder visits for the season and “They accomplished all this on just 10 inches of natural snow,” Roberts said.

In the Lake Tahoe area and at Mammoth Mountain, natural snowfall has been measured in feet rather than inches, and during the holidays the flurries also came in waves of people negotiating mountain roads en route to the slopes.

“The towns have been full to the brim at Tahoe and Mammoth so people are hanging in and doing their part,” Roberts said.

There was particular concern at Heavenly Ski Resort on Lake Tahoe’s south shore, because the facility caters largely to Europeans, mostly from England, but they apparently weren’t too concerned about airline travel because Heavenly’s slopes were as busy as any of its cross-lake rivals.

* A worthy cause: Mountain High on Saturday is hosting its annual Boarding for Breast Cancer Board-a-Thon, doing its part to combat a disease that is the leading cause of death in women age 15-54.

The fund-raising event, which is free to anyone buying a lift ticket, will feature live music, vendors, pro snowboarding exhibitions and educational booths. Donations are accepted and improve chances of winning such prizes as skis, snowboards, lift tickets and season passes. For more information, contact Kathleen Gasperini at (206) 323-2369 or via e-mail at Kathleen@b4bc.org.

Winding Up

Thomas Holmes, 35, a Los Angeles resident visiting Maui with his girlfriend, was released from Maui Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, a day after being treated for bites to his buttocks and thigh by what is presumed to be a six-foot tiger shark.

Holmes could not be reached for comment but told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that after spotting the shark while snorkeling off Olowalu Beach, he and his girlfriend started swimming to shore. Holmes looked back and saw the predator a few feet away with its mouth open.

Its mouth closed and a tussle ensued. “I pounded his nose,” Holmes said. “I got two good shots at him and he went below the surface.”

The beach was closed after the 1 p.m. New Year’s Day attack, but reopened Wednesday.