One Day at Sea and They’re Already Hooked

One of the finest young anglers to set foot on a fishing boat has soft, brown eyes and a shy smile. She is Daniela Mercado, a fourth-grader at Cahuenga Elementary School near downtown Los Angeles.

She and her classmates spent Tuesday morning aboard Redondo Sportfishing’s Redondo Special as guests of the 976-TUNA youth fishing program, which introduces inner-city children to a form of recreation they might otherwise not have the opportunity to try.

Mercado not only caught the first fish, a keeper-size Johnny bass she steadfastly refused to touch, but also reeled in the most fish, four, one a brilliant vermilion rockfish.

A natural? You bet. But what makes Mercado such a fine young angler is an attitude as refreshing as the breeze washing gently over the Pacific.

She never boasted, never complained, never pushed or shoved. She smiled, with each tug of the line, enjoying her day in the sun, wanting no part of the spotlight.

In fact, hers was an attitude shared by her classmates, fine young anglers themselves, whether they caught fish or not.

Being first-timers, they soaked up the sights and sounds others take for granted. The long, comical faces of pelicans made them laugh. The resonant barking of sea lions made them take notice. The distant, flat horizon, and the incredible vastness that lies between, made them wonder.

Indeed, the shimmering blue ocean never held such allure.

“If I catch a shark and reel it to the boat, I think I’m just going to throw my fishing pole over,” declared Omar Lopez, a fifth-grader, as the structures on shore became smaller and smaller.

The mere mention of a shark wiped away the smiles of everyone within earshot, but only briefly, as their focus soon shifted to matters at hand.

They marveled at the sea lions piled atop one another on the base of a large buoy, as Capt. Jeff Jessop held a westerly course toward a spot at the outer reaches of Santa Monica Bay.

They poked their hands into the bait tanks, pulled out anchovies and tried their best to hold onto the slithering fish they would soon be using as bait.

Some handled the excursion better than others. A few were gripped by fears they could not shake, and one quivering, tearful young angler seemed certain that his first voyage would also be his last.

That’s where the adults came in. Representatives from L.A.’s Best, an after-school enrichment, education and recreation program, were on board to offer support and reassurance. The 976-TUNA staff and Jessop’s crew were there to bait hooks, untangle lines and do what they could to ensure that everyone had a good time.

It wasn’t so daunting a task.

“When I first told them about it, last Friday, there was a deafening roar in the classroom,” said Justin Puhl, a teacher whose fourth-grade class took up most of the deck. “They were cheering and pounding their desks and everything.”

At the fishing grounds, the children learned their first valuable lesson: Fishing is called fishing, not catching.

But after a dreadfully slow start, the fish did start biting. Mercado reeled from the depths her 14-inch bass. Danny Cruz bagged a mackerel, and Mabellin Barrios decked a small flounder. Mercado then hoisted high over the deck her vermilion rockfish, its bright red body glistening in the sun.

They were reluctant to pose with their catches. Not so Jesus Flores, a third-grader. But first, there was the matter of holding onto a slippery mackerel, which was not easy. Flores soon found, however, that the mouth of the mackerel wasn’t slippery, so in his thumb went--and out it shot.

“It bited me, but it only hurt a little bit,” the intrepid angler explained. “So now I want to catch a bigger one, like a shark or a swordfish.”

The action was now as brisk as the strengthening wind, but along came a choice that presented itself in the form of a cardboard box full of steaming hot dogs, brought out by crew member Kathleen Delany.

To fish or to feast? That was a question to which there was no easy answer.

Nayeli Mendiola found that the best solution was to do both. She held a hot dog in one hand, rod in the other, and when a mackerel took her bait she simply stuffed the hot dog in her mouth and reeled in her quarry.

Asked how the fight went, she answered in a word: “Shaky.”

“Shaky,” “shivery,” “sleepy” and even “queasy” were all appropriate words by the time Jessop gave the call to “reel ‘em in.”

He was satisfied with this new crop of anglers he helped break in.

“They’ll be out here on their own five years from now,” he said.

Jennifer Lopez wasn’t so sure about that.

“I’m cold and I have all these scales in my hair,” the third-grader quipped. “I need to go home and take a bath.”