A new neighbor moved across the street from us and after several months, I wandered over to the country house that sits behind a two hundred yard 20 ft. wide easement. The four bedroom house with large double garage, pool and three acres sits on the side of a hill with a sloping horse pasture between the house and the front neighbor property. As I walked up the easement I noticed that the horse enclosure and fences had been removed, tall trees that grew in front of the house were gone, there were several cars and large tree trimming trucks, tractors, and equipment stored in the yard. A boat trailer carried a 25 ft. fishing boat parked on the dirt field close to the black top driveway.
The garage door was open and I noticed a four wheeled golf cart and a stack of fishing gear close to the door. A door leading into the house was open, so I yelled hello, and forty year old Mike Grange invited me into the kitchen where I met his younger pregnant wife, and their 18 month old son. They invited me into a living room where I met Mike’s mother and father-in law, and a teen age step-son since both Mike and his wife had been divorced from other spouses.
Mike told me he owned a small tree trimming business, had several well paid Mexican workers, that business was good, and that he would rather be fishing than working all the time. Mike carried a cell phone and used it often to communicate with customers, his workers, his wife, his family and friends. Mike seemed friendly. He asked me if I would go deep sea fishing with him. He said, “My boat is built like the ones the Coast Guard uses. It is strong, fast, seaworthy, and has a good radio, fish finder, automatic steering, radar, and everything needed for sport fishing. There is room for five people to sleep and stay dry. I have been out in the ocean more than one hundred miles. We like to fish out of San Diego. We head southwest into Mexican waters where we find warm Japanese currents and deep water where the big fish hang out. By the way, you have three houses over there where you live. How many houses do you own?”
I explained about the houses and mentioned we needed three large palm trees removed from a rental house we owned in Poway. He said he would remove them for us very cheep. He said, “You and your wife are good neighbors. My business can help you for half what other tree trimmers would charge.”
A week later Mike had removed the three offending palm trees. They stood about forty feet, their trunks were three feet wide, and they were leaning on the back roof. It was a dangerous job to remove them. There was a mess to clean up, fences had to be moved and replaced, and it was a big job. Mike did a good job and the cost was low. Mike said he needed that work to keep his men working, but they were busy and it took two weeks longer to remove a shade tree at my home. He kept promising me we would go fishing and asked me to get a Mexican fishing license that I purchased at a bait and tackle store in Oceanside.
Barbara and I took our kids and fourteen grandchildren for a week vacation at Mammoth lakes and mountains. When we got back Mike told me he had gone fishing and had caught a thirty pound yellowtail about twenty five miles out. He said the fishing was especially good this year and he was hopeful we could go out and fish together. He said, ”I love to fish. I wish I could go everyday. Don’t worry about bringing your own poles or fishing gear. What size are your shoes? You can borrow my rubber boots. They have soles that will not mark my white deck.”
We planned to go fishing for tuna in two weeks. I made baked chicken and peanut butter mixed with sour cream and celery sandwiches. I like them. We planned to leave in the afternoon. I spent the day getting ready by borrowing a sleeping bag from my son, getting my raincoat that hangs on my wall close to outdoors and putting them in my car to drive next door. I was excited! We planned to leave home before dark and drive the boat all night. Mike had checked and found the fish were out about seventy five miles.
Mike phoned me at four P.M. “The water is too rough out there today. My friend Robert wants us to wait a few days.”
So, I ate one sandwich and fed the rest to my two dogs Buttercup and Bingo. They are nine and are over sixty pounds and we feed them only in the morning. They were not hungry and ate only to please me.
On August 20th we got ready to go and before seven P.M. were driving the truck pulling the boat. Half way to San Diego we stopped and Robert and I bought some potato chips, and special energy drinks loaded with caffeine for Mike who intended to drive the boat all night. We bought more stuff too even though I had fixed food from home. Robert insisted on paying for the food because I had helped pay for part of the gas. He said, “You can pay for the live bait.”
We had driven thirty miles to the ramp where you can launch your boat free. Robert drove the truck with Mike handling the boat as Robert backed down and stopped with the brake on while he tight-roped down the trailer tongue to untie the boat and gave it a shove. The inboard motor backed the fishing boat out beyond the loading pier.
After a few minutes Robert had parked the truck and trailer, and he walked out to the end of the pier to help me tie the boat for more loading. Then we untied and cast off as Robert jumped in. He pulled in the floating side bumpers.
Robert is about forty like Mike. He is energetic, a natural hard worker and owns his own unusual business collecting wild California plant seeds. He has crews of Mexicans who work with him. This past year has been a dry one, and not many seeds could be gathered. He said, “Lately I haven’t had much work to do. Last year we had rain and I stayed busy. I have saved money for now. But today I worked a long day and I’m tired.”
We drove about a mile in the dark. I saw a full moon shining through the clouds in the east. We saw some submarines anchored close to the Navy base. Mike said, “If we get too close to those subs they will shoot us right out of the water!”
It was very dark at the bait tank. We were the only boat. Two young men came to our service. I asked how much for a scoop of live bait, and was told twenty dollars. I ordered two scoops and gave the man two twenty dollar bills. We uncovered the oval bait tank, turned on the water pump, and fresh seawater was pumped through the tank. The men on the bait barge used a large screen net that they dipped into their fish tank and brought up hundreds of fish. Most of the fish were four inch anchovies and about one forth were six inch sardines. These fish were lively and probably the best scoops of bait fish I had ever seen. A smaller net was used to transfer the fish to our bait tank.
We shoved off and pulled in the plastic floats that kept our boat from bumping the bait tank. We headed out through the harbor going slow to keep waves from bothering Navy boats along the shoreline. It was very dark but I could see part of the full moon in the east. We headed westerly until we got to the breakwater, then south as we headed out to sea. We sped up to fifteen knotts, and I stood next to our skipper and watched him play with the steering wheel. Usually he let the boat steer itself to our course, but sometimes he helped it steer as the wheel spun back and forth. Waves caused the boat to stand on its tail and come crashing down past the wave making a loud banging sound, and the ride was rough enough, so that I had to hang on to the bulkhead.
Robert sat on a box in the open behind the steering room. I traded with him and sat outside while he sat on a stool next to the captain and they visited. Outside there was nothing to see in the dark except for a few clouds, glimpses of the full moon, and dark waves. Our boat left a white foamy trail that snaked two hundred yards behind us. I became bored and went into the sleeping quarters in front of the boat, threw down and opened my sleeping bag and pillow, and I tried to rest . Once in a while, the waves lifted us up and we came crashing down behind them. There was a shock each time when we hit the water. I tried to sleep. I could hear Mike and Robert talking back and forth. It was men’s talk with serious talk about their lives, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The motor and the water made too much noise. After a while I dosed for half an hour.
After I got up, Robert went inside the cabin and went to sleep. He said he was dead tired. We must have slowed because most of the bouncing stopped. Robert started snoring right away. I sat next to Mike, and I could not see out the front window. It was too dark and water kept splashing on the windshield. Mike tried to explain to me how the radar and other special gadgets worked. I did not learn much. Sometimes I sat quietly and watched as Mike grew sleepy. He drank bottles of his special stay awake soft drink. Eventually we spoke of many things, and I tried to keep him alert. I looked at the full moon as it rose over our heads. Most of the clouds were gone, and the moon was bright.
Eventually Mike said, “I think we have come close to the fish. I can’t see any fish through my fish finder, but we are probably close to them. He shut off the engine, told me to take a nap inside the front deck, opened his own sleeping bag under the steering wheel, and rested. He said, “I will wake you at five A.M. and we will find some fish. I am comfortable lying here on the floor.”
We got up at five A.M. and had a sandwich and pieces of cold chicken. Robert and Mike strung up a bunch of fishing poles, put hooks on some of them and tied lures to five or six poles. We could barely see a fishing boat working a couple of miles south of us. We started a zig-zag trail leading toward the boat. Mike listened to fishermen who were catching tuna and some were catching yellowtail. We listened but could not tell where they were fishing. We could see only one boat but it seemed to move, stop a while then move again. After half an hour one of our light poles bent and the reel screamed. Mike handed me the pole while Robert stopped the motor. Mike tied a leather belt around my waist, buckled it in back, and said, “This is your pole holder. When the fish stops running you can reel him in. Keep the tip of your pole high until he stops pulling. Then you can lean back and wind your pole tip down. Keep raising your pole to pull him in then allowing the tip to straighten as you wind. When he sees the boat he will try to swim away. Let him swim. Don’t let him break the line. After he swims out a few times he will tire and we will gaff him. Don’t farm him out, John. We want you to catch the first fish.”
Finally the fish was gaffed and pulled aboard. It kept flipping and bled all over the white deck and some blood splashed on the sides. We used my needle nosed pliers to remove the hook and Robert picked up the twenty pound albacore and threw it in a fish box at the back of the boat. It continued to thrash itself about and wiggle its body trying to swim.
Robert turned on a hose and washed the blood off the boat. While I was pulling in the fish, fresh bait was thrown into the water for chum. The fish would not get chummed up, so we took off and trolled at six knots to scare up more tuna. After ten minutes we had another fish on. Then another one hit another pole and as Robert and I fought our fishes, they crossed our lines. We kept our lines from getting tangled up because that’s how lines snap sometimes.
Mike was busy pulling in the limp lines and he hung up the poles. Then he baited a hook and let it float out behind our boat, and after it went out about forty feet, a tuna hit his bait. He let the fish run for a few seconds then set the hook. The fish ran and Mike’s reel whined. We were all three very busy and excited. We got the first two fish in the boat and Robert was having a hard time gaffing Mike’s fish. It came close to the boat then dashed off again. Finally Mike got his fish into the boat without using the gaff. There was no blood on the deck from this fish.
We came closer to the larger fishing boat. Their captain said they had all caught their limit of albacore, and they had a few yellow fin tuna that looked about fifteen pounds. He said they were leaving, he threw in more chum and said, “Here they are. There are lots of them down there and they are all yours.”
We used live bait and before ten A.M. we each had our limit of albacore. We cleaned up the boat and drove home slowly not knocking the boat much on the waves. We had more to eat and didn’t finish the food because we got full.
While moving north toward San Diego, a giant whale surfaced close to us. They told me it was a sperm whale swimming northwest toward Alaska. It was all alone and had probably come close just to visit us. We also saw a big white sunfish that swam next to the boat for five minutes. Later we saw three other sunfish swimming not far from us. They stay on the surface and have a long white fin that curls into the air.
We docked the boat in the afternoon, and Robert went for the truck and trailer. Soon we were driving in heavy traffic heading north on interstate five. There was a lot of clean up to do on the boat at home. Mike told me to go home and let them clean up the boat. After they cleaned and hosed down the gear, Mike drove over to my house with his golf cart, gave me clean filets of tuna, my sleeping bag and other stuff I had left on the boat. Mike said, I hope you had a good time and will come again with us next time. I tried to show my gratitude by smiling.
I slept well that night but decided deep sea fishing is too tiring for my seventy three year old body. My next trip will be snorkeling with my wife. I will hold her hand as we search for reef fish on a south sea island.