Out for a bigger tattoo

THE VOICE answering the phone at Irvine Lake insisted on respect for Southern California’s king of catfish.

“I seek the one they call Catmando,” I said.

“You mean the exalted Catmando,” she corrected. Moments later, his majesty, Ronson Chuka Smothers, was on the line.

“Ronson, let’s go fishing. Are you going out this week?”

“Yup, all day Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” he said. “Meet me at 5:45 tomorrow morning at the bait shop.”

Most anglers are liars and wannabes, but Catmando -- “I like catfish, I’m a man and fishing is what I do” -- is anointed. His name appears liberally in weekly fish reports. He caught an 89.63-pound blue catfish at Irvine Lake in 1999, a freshwater Godzilla nearly 5 feet long and then the biggest catfish catch in California.

But his triumph lasted just five months, until San Vicente Reservoir served up a 101-pounder to an angler reportedly fishing for largemouth bass.

Smothers cannot accept that the behemoth mounted on his wall and tattooed on his biceps is an asterisk. He’s spent about 100 days a year for the last five fishing Irvine Lake for a new state record. His last shot this season came the weekend of Oct. 15 as autumn cooled the water.

Smothers arrived at the lake before dawn with a boat, seven rods and an ice chest of cut bonito bait. His reeking vessel was one continuous stain, a 24-foot fiberglass bin of fish scales, Del Taco bags, rumpled clothes and secret “Catmando” sauce that rained like runny peanut butter each time Smothers cast a big bonito chunk dipped in the concoction.

Trophy catfishing is as unglamorous as angling gets. Giant cats have wormy whiskers, pink mouths big enough to swallow an infant and the physique of sumo wrestlers. They scavenge lake bottoms and swallow bait such as hot dogs, chicken livers, Spam, crayfish, stinkbait, even bars of soap.

Undaunted, Smothers, a 33-year-old teacher from Baldwin Hills, sometimes spends all day and all night in his boat, often alone, watching for the slightest twitch of a spinning rod.

As a boy, he cried when his father picked him up after a day of pier fishing.

“Why not? What else is there to do? ... You tell me something better,” he said.

Suddenly, monofilament rapidly uncoiled from one of the spinning reels as a fish ran with the bait. Smothers waited and waited some more, then set the hook and reeled in a 5-pounder. He unhooked the dink as it gagged and squawked and tossed it back. He had caught a 47-pound fish the previous day, and dozens over 20 pounds earlier in the year.

Southern California largemouth bass anglers know the best fish they can hope for is about 18 pounds or so. Crappie anglers and fly fishers expect pan-size catches. But catfish anglers -- they target brutes older than they are and nearly as big as their girlfriends.

“It’s the mystery of the deep,” Smothers said. “You don’t know the biggest catfish. Every time that line moves, you don’t know how big it is. Knowing any second you could be hooked up to something half the size of you, that’s what keeps you going. I’m looking for one fish, for the one bite.”

To read previous Fair Game columns, go to latimes.com /outdoors.