Sea quest

SUMMER turns into autumn and the ocean warms and the great predators appear offshore. Striped marlin, the noble billfish, muggers of the high seas, ride the basking currents up from Mexico to feast on mackerel. Their arrival each season in Southern California draws another predator to the saltwater beyond the horizon.

Us.

It is a ritual clash a century old. Indeed, historians say the ritual began here, with fishermen first embarking on a quest for big-game billfish in these waters.

There is a ring to the words -- marlin fishing. Sometimes the ring is followed by a question mark, for billfishing is a specialized, demanding, introspective and costly absorption, and one that requires bountiful tolerance for coming home empty. It is possible to spend a lifetime here on the edge of the ocean and never meet a billfisherman. They are a rare sort. And it is likely that if you do meet one, the fisherman will keep the secret to himself.

What secret? That few creatures are as lovely as a striped marlin when it lights up its iridescent flanks. That few fish of this size and ferocity rise from the deep to be hunted on the surface where you can see them and they can see you. That nowhere on the planet is the country any wilder than the vast oceanic currents where the marlin roam. That late summer and early fall are the loveliest time of year to be here, in the scrubbed-fresh salt air far out of sight of land, with the sway of ocean underfoot and your heart alive with anticipation.

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A salty pair

FOR half of the storied 100-year history of Southern California billfishing, Bill Von Henkle has had a line in the water. He caught his first marlin here when he was 10, or maybe 12, hard to remember exactly. He is 68 now, the owner of a Newport Beach insurance agency, a partner and skipper in a two-boat Cabo San Lucas sport-fishing business and an angler with a swaggering reputation.

This year, he has covered more miles in a boat than he has in his car. “If you’ve been doing it for more than 50 years, it gets to you,” he says, a grin spreading across his sun-weathered face. “You gotta keep doing it.”

At the moment, he is: rigging marlin rods in at the stern of the 38-foot sport fishing boat Wrens’ Nest. The vessel is owned and skippered by Von Henkle’s 15-year fishing partner, 70-year-old Bill Wren, a retired Chevron executive who lives in Balboa and has hunted marlin in these waters for just under half a century. Two Bills; 10 decades billfishing.

There are two contradictory things about this salty pair, perhaps not unlike others of the breed. Their commitment is huge, in time and money and drive -- all this gear, fuel, hard-won experience, and the physical effort of putting it to use 12 to 14 hours a day. Yet their pride and their determination is not so large as to blind them to the fact that this is still just fishing, and catch-and-release fishing at that.

“Fun,” Von Henkle says. “It’s about fun.”

That’s the argument behind most obsessions, but, as we know, it takes more than steady feet on a strong sea to keep you in balance over the long run.

One by one, Von Henkle sends four artificial jigs streaming into the water to bounce in the froth of the boat’s trolling wake. His expression changes. Muscles tighten in his face and he assumes the look of a hungry hawk. His jaw moves slowly in and out; he scans the ocean with the unblinking squint of a South Sea sailor.

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Of jigs and lines

FISHERMEN call this place the “One Eighty-One.” Here, between San Clemente Island and the mainland community of Carlsbad, an undersea ridge rises out of deep water. The depth reaches 181 fathoms, 1,086 feet below the surface. The warm-water Davidson current surges against the submerged mountain chain and propels nutrients upward -- thus serving to concentrate the food chain.

On the surface, dawn emerges, moist, gray, cool and breezy. It is Friday, the week before the autumn’s equinox, the opening of the two-day Master Angler’s Billfish Tournament sponsored by the Balboa Angling Club. Fifty-six boats from Southern California’s big-game fishing clubs pick their spot in 1,000 square miles of ocean and drop their lines for the 6 a.m. start.

Twenty marlin will be caught by this fleet today, and all will be released in accord with tournament rules. This is a contest for bragging rights, not for meat. The winner gets a trophy as Master Angler of the Year.

Fishermen are allotted 240 points for a marlin brought to the boat on 12-pound test line, 210 points for 16-pound test, 180 for using 20-pound test and 150 points for 30-pound test. In the event of a points tie, victory goes to the first angler to catch a marlin. Scoring is on the honor system.

These, however, are details for later. Right now the world comfortably collapses to a space no larger than the wrinkled surface of the water within eyesight. Billfishing, perhaps all fishing, arouses the primal and focuses the mind.

There are endless subtleties in the techniques of fishing for marlin, but the pattern generally follows what’s occurring aboard Wrens’ Nest. The boat trolls at a brisk 7 knots. Five stubby graphite rods ride in sockets at the stern. The lines of two are threaded through splayed fiberglass outriggers. They are tipped with colored lures with hard-plastic heads, large faux eyeballs and flowing skirts, followed by 9/0 stainless-steel hooks -- once with a mackerel added on for good measure. The foot-long jigs ride just under the surface and intermittently jump free of the water, like a panicked baitfish might. Inboard, two more rods troll similar jigs directly in the boat’s wake. The fifth rod is fitted with a bare hook and is lodged near the bait tank to be harnessed to a live mackerel whenever a marlin comes within reach. Half or more catches occur when a billfish strikes and rejects an artificial jig and then snaps up the offering of live bait.

Sometimes marlin will materialize unseen from the deep and seize a jig. But trolling is only part of the story. At every chance, the fish are hunted. There are “sleepers,” who lie at the surface nearly motionless. There are “tailers,” whose scythe-like tailfins break the surface of the water as they hunt. There are “leapers,” who rise intermittently in a rainbow of spray to take your breath away, and “feeders,” who churn the surface water when they tear into a school of fish. When you see one, you take the bait to it.

At 8:30 a.m., a boat radios the tournament control vessel and reports a hook-up. Aboard Wrens’ Nest, the signal comes through loud -- indicating that action is not far away. Several dots on the horizon show that the two gray-haired Bills are not alone fishing the 181.

Twenty minutes later, a reel screeches aboard Wrens’ Nest. One of the rods is bent into a quivering J.

The jig has hooked a floating kelp patty.

“Hey, Willie, you gotta watch that,” Von Henkle shouts to the bridge.

“Yes, dear,” replies Wren.

Von Henkle reels in, unhooks the kelp and resumes his raptor scan of the dark water. He will have to burn through the first rush of adrenaline before he can pull his eyes away and retreat to the galley. Almost as much as his fishing skill -- and some years his catches here and in Mexico number in the hundreds -- he is proud of his shipboard cooking. Today’s breakfast: a three-egg cheese omelet swimming in chili along with half a pound of sizzling sausage rounds and a toasted bagel.

“This is mostly about luck,” he says of fishing. “The harder you work, the more luck you have.”

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Logging the years

THE Avalon Tuna Club was established on Catalina Island in 1898 and remains a repository of the history of big-game fishing off Southern California. According to the club’s archives, “Here is where the world’s first rod and reel captures of tuna, marlin and broadbill swordfish took place.”

The club logged the first marlin catch into its yearbook in 1903. But billfish were still a mysterious rarity when, on Aug. 2, 1916, Zane Grey, the author of celebrated Western novels, left Avalon harbor with the biggest reel and stiffest rod a fisherman could find. At exactly noon, he later wrote, he hooked a swordfish. He battled it for nearly six hours, bringing it close enough to look it in the eye before the hook worked loose. He guessed it would have weighed 400 pounds.

Swordfish, which can grow larger than twice that size, are still taken in these waters, although rarely by rod and reel. Von Henkle has caught eight in his life, a source of great satisfaction to him. Additionally, in odd years when warm currents are especially strong, the still larger blue marlin also can be found here.

But the striped marlin remains the most plentiful and sought-after billfish. Although known to weigh more than 500 pounds, any 200-pound striped marlin is considered very large in California waters, and 135 to 150 pounds is closer to average.

Of course, billfishing here isn’t what it used to be.

Despite the popularity of the catch-and-release ethic and an emphasis on conservation, sport fishermen believe the striped marlin is in gradual decline. Detailed records maintained by local fishing clubs show a downward trend in catches over the decades despite advances in fishing gear and technology.

Scientists and sport fishermen have recorded a drop in the average weight of marlin over the years. This is believed to be the result of commercial marlin fishing for Japanese seafood markets. In the United States, marlin is not regarded as a desirable food fish.

Beyond weight, the overall condition of marlin stocks is more a matter of debate.

“The stock is really healthy,” says Steve Crooke, senior marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. He is a member of the multi-agency Highly Migratory Species Management Team, which will present a report to fishery managers next month stating: “It is considered that striped marlin stocks in the Eastern Pacific are in good condition and near-term anticipated fishing effort less than MSY (maximum sustained yield).”

Crooke concludes, “If people in Southern California catch a few hundred, and keep a few, it doesn’t affect things at all.”

Sport fishermen tend to question these management assessments and wonder whether they are skewed for the short-term benefit of commercial harvesters. “How can the marlin be in as good a shape as it was 20 years ago when good fishermen with better gear aren’t catching as many?” asks Ellen Peel, president of the sport fishermen’s Billfish Foundation.

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Hits, then pauses

INTERMITTENTLY, the radio aboard Wrens’ Nest tells of other strikes and hook-ups. One boat reports two fish on at once. Released fish are also radioed to the tournament control vessel.

Von Henkle and his partner Wren have mixed feelings. It is encouraging to hear that marlin are coming to the surface and hitting rather than staying deep and feeding. After all, Von Henkle is chairman of this year’s masters tournament, and at least the event is shaping up as a success. But the messages are frustrating too, because no marlin is coming to the surface and hitting one of their jigs.

In fact, Wrens’ Nest will not catch a fish this tournament. At the twice-a-day radio roll call, boats shorthand their luck into three numbers -- strikes, hook-ups and catches. Von Henkle ends up 2-0-0: a pair of explosive, sizzling strikes that send line screaming off a reel and then, nothing. One hit occurs Friday afternoon and another Saturday morning, leaving hearts thumping and eyes wide at the memorable sight of a marlin’s glow in the water and its tail knifing through the wake.

Von Henkle will hunt two other fish this tournament, one a feeder that has turned a patch of water into a froth. Then, with less than an hour remaining before the 6 p.m. “lines out” call, the boat turns toward a jumper ahead. Neither takes the bait.

Instead, the days pass in a dreamy lullaby: the rock of the sea, the drone of the twin diesels, the chilly morning fog, the needle-dance of afternoon sun on the eyeballs, the vast horizon, the endlessly changing hues of the ocean, the rough wind-chop of afternoon, the aroma of salt air and Coppertone.

The rhythms of billfishing create intervals of overpowering drowsiness. These are followed by bursts of euphoric energy, eyes riveted like lasers on the dancing jigs behind.

At anchor off San Diego on Friday night, dinner comes out as rare filet mignon and baked potatoes, followed by a deep sleep with dreams of purple-blue fish flying in the sky, another dawn, another day, another omelet, a gibbous moon, a night run home, 256 miles traveled on the water, 2-0-0.

Von Henkle has a well-practiced speech on the subject of fishing without catching. “My fellow Americans,” it begins, and it continues on to the matter of “piscatorial enterprises,” fate, the meaning of life, the justice that sees to it that the same fishermen do not always catch the fish, and eventually he circles back to the vivid promise of “next time.”

Fishermen tend to be contemplative, otherwise they are happier being ex-fishermen. Few have such generous opportunities for contemplation as billfishermen. Among the things they brood upon is the mysterious joy of what they do.

“There was no fun, no excitement, no thrill now,” wrote Zane Grey. “As I labored, I could not help marveling at the strange, imbecile pursuits of mankind.” His passage described fishing off Southern California, not in the long lulls between action but in the very midst of fighting a billfish. Yet, the quest absorbed a good deal of his life.

It did Ernest Hemingway’s too, and he devoted the better part of several articles raising and trying to answer the question, why?

Because the waiting is worth it, he concluded, “and as said, while you wait there is plenty of time to think. A good part of the things you think about are not put into a magazine printed on shiny paper and designed to go through the mails. Some they can put you in jail if you write and others are simply no one’s business but a great part of the time you think about fish.”

Which, presumably means the actual fish itself -- the navy-and-silver meteor that lights up lavender and neon blue when roused and strikes with the fury of a hand grenade -- as well as fish as metaphor for a good many other things.

On the waterfront in Newport Beach, Bill Von Henkle is sometimes referred to as “our Lance Armstrong.” He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given six months to live, a prognosis subsequently reduced to three months.

That was eight years ago: Eight seasons afloat on the warm water currents, eight years with jigs bounding through the water and mackerel in the bait tank and the sun in his squinted eyes. Is he disappointed not to catch a fish? No, sir, hardly, not when weighed against the most exhilarating thing of all: the chance to.

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John Balzar can be reached at john.balzar@latimes.com.