Whales Coming Up Big

This is shaping up to be a wildly interesting season on and beyond the waterfront.

In the Santa Barbara area, where an unusually long salmon run remains in progress, whales have stolen the spotlight.

Sleek and magnificent blue whales, the largest creatures on the planet, have arrived almost a month early in the Santa Barbara Channel, where they’re foraging on krill, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that are turning large patches of channel waters blood-red.

The blue whales, which reach lengths of about 100 feet, are the main attraction but humpback whales, their much smaller sidekicks, have been stealing the show.

Like the blues, the humpbacks have come to regard the nutrient-rich channel as a seasonal home, and should remain through most of the summer. Unlike the blues, they don’t seem to mind the presence of boats and, it often seems, are as curious about people as people are about them.

“On our first trip Sunday we had two humpbacks that came alongside our bow and spy-hopped [poked their heads out of the water at] us for about a half-hour,” says Fred Benko, captain of the Condor Express out of Santa Barbara’s Sea Landing. (The 75-foot catamaran is making a splash of its own; it cruises at 30 knots and can cross the channel in less than an hour.)

The 90-foot Rachel G of Captain Don’s Whale Watching Adventures at Sterns Wharf is off to a memorable start as well. Don Hedden said that on Monday, his customers saw killer whales five miles off Goleta, humpback whales farther offshore and blue whales on the outer fringes of the channel.

Condor Cruises can be reached at (888) 779-4253 or www.condorcruises.com. Capt. Don’s can be reached at (805) 969-5217 or www.captdon.com.

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Krill is not the only crustacean swirling in offshore currents. Pelagic red crabs have taken a northbound journey in bands of warm water and have been washing ashore on mainland and island shores.

The crabs normally don’t make it this far north and are said by some to signal the onset of an El Nino effect, though scientists are uncertain. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting only a “weak or moderate” El Nino to develop in the next six to nine months--nothing like the whopper that dramatically altered weather patterns and wreaked global havoc in 1997-98.

Some outside the scientific community aren’t so sure. They see many similarities. With the red crabs has come another strange invader. By-the-wind sailors, small jellyfish-like creatures that use an air-filled pocket as a sail, have come ashore recently as far north as Monterey and are floating by the thousands off Baja California. They typically remain well offshore and in tropical or sub-tropical waters.

“They’re everywhere,” said Gene Allshouse, owner of San Quintin Sportfishing, which is located 120 miles south of Ensenada.

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Farther south, at Cabo San Lucas, there are odd signs that may mean nothing. Jeff Klassen, a prominent surf-fishing guide, predicted an early and outstanding season based simply on forecasts of an impending El Nino. He made his prediction because surf fishing before the 1997-98 El Nino, he said, was “phenomenal.”

The same situation is developing at Land’s End now. Baitfish are more plentiful and schooling up unusually close to shore, as happened in the spring of ‘97, and with the small fish have come the larger predators--roosterfish, jack crevalle, pargo, etc.--to which surf fishermen like to cast.

“We’re already getting jack crevalle to 30-plus pounds and huge cubera snappers, which didn’t even show last year,” Klassen said. The much larger roosterfish are fattening up on the outer fringes of the bait schools, mostly on the Pacific side, and are just starting to venture into casting range.

Klassen’s six-week Cabo season starts May 31. His annual three-day roosterfish tournament, during which anglers fish 11/2 days in a panga and 11/2 days from the beach, is June 27-29. Details: (360) 402-3474 or at www.Reel1in.com.

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Up the gulf at Baja’s East Cape, baitfish have also bunched up unusually close to shore. Chucky Van Wormer, manager at Palmas de Cortez, said he took advantage of the situation by donning a mask and snorkel and swimming through the schools.

“I was swimming through all those fish and all of a sudden I was face to face with a 600-pound male sea lion,” he said. “He did not want to share those fish with me. He growled and showed me what he had to bite with. I got out of the water.”

The water temperature has climbed to 80-82 degrees at the East Cape, sparking an exceptional marlin bite offshore. Van Wormer said his customers are averaging “a minimum” of two marlin releases and logging as many as seven per day.

The oddest catch was that last month of a long-billed spearfish--an Atlantic Ocean species.

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In Hawaii, some are attributing the wacky weather of late to a developing El Nino.

“We have all the signs of an impending El Nino,” said Rick Gaffney, a Kailua-Kona captain and author. “We had a major snowfall on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa [Monday night] and have had some occasional blustery conditions on the normally calm Kona coast.”

Also, Gaffney said, the fishing is far from typical.

The spring run on spearfish has yet to develop. The tuna showed very early, but the marlin, which typically arrive during the spring, have not shown in their usual large numbers.

What have shown are mahi-mahi, “tons of them, including some over 50 pounds,” Gaffney said.

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El Nino seems to have many messengers. One of them arrived in October on Will Rogers State Beach near Santa Monica.

It was a tiny northern fur seal pup that had come all the way from San Miguel Island, a rookery located 60 miles off Ventura.

Severely malnourished, she ended up at the Marine Mammal Care Center at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro. The center is accustomed to getting elephant seals, harbor seals and sea lions.

But it hadn’t had a northern fur seal since the one that arrived during the El Nino winter of 1997-98.

The latest was only the fifth to have been brought to the facility since it opened in October 1992. The previous four arrived immediately before or during El Nino winters.

Southland Bite

* White seabass: The big news remains the white seabass bite at Catalina. It’s either slow or fantastic; timing is everything. For example, on Wednesday the fish didn’t decide to feed until 6 p.m., long after most of the boats had left. Anglers who stayed were rewarded. On Thursday, fishermen on some boats caught their one-fish limits in the dark, then the bite ended. This is the essence of seabass fishing: You know they’re there, but you never know when they’ll surface.

* Barracuda: These speedy game fish are moving too fast for the fleets to keep up with. They have appeared in Santa Monica Bay, then off Huntington Beach and, Thursday, off San Clemente. Until more schools show, fishing will be hit and miss.

* Yellowtail: The fish are breezing around the Coronado Islands and nearby Rockpile, but anglers aboard San Diego overnight boats are having to wait between bites. Improvement appears imminent, however.

* Albacore: Stay tuned. The flurry of two weeks ago has yet to be repeated.

Riding High

The Surfers Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach on Saturday will induct five-time U.S. champion Corky Carroll, Robert August of “Endless Summer” fame and Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, the innovative long-board specialist and one of the stars of “Endless Summer II.” The ceremony is at 10 a.m. in front of Huntington Surf and Sport on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street.

Why them?

“These three are special,” Hall of Fame founder Aaron Pai said. “They represent past eras and present eras of surfing. They’re all champions who had a lot of influence and a great amount of contributions to the sport of surfing.”

Why this weekend?

“We’re like the Mann’s Chinese Theater in that we have to have them present to get their footprints and handprints, and hopefully an inspirational saying that they can share with the public,” Pai said. “We had to choose a time when they were all available.”

The Hall of Fame, which had always been inside the store, is moving outside beginning Saturday. More than 3,000 square feet of sidewalk has been set aside for the imprints of future inductees.

On Aug. 2, during the U.S. Open of Surfing, the Hall will induct Kelly Slater, Laird Hamilton and Joel Tudor.

Winding Up

The National Safe Boating Campaign begins its weeklong run Saturday, in advance of the busy and often deadly Memorial Day holiday weekend. Boaters can do their part to cut down on the senseless tragedies that occur every season by taking a free safety course being offered by the Boat Owners Assn. of the United States. The course is recognized by the U.S. Coast Guard, and can be taken on-line at www.boatus.com.