Mooching

My brother Dr. Thomas C. Brown and I woke at three in the morning in Stockton, California and drove to the sport fishing boat in Oakland arriving at five A.M. I paid the hundred dollar fee for a ten hour day of salmon fishing off the coast of San Francisco near the Golden Gate bridge. Tom knew little about ocean fishing but was proficient in fresh water angling. On the other hand, I felt more at home with salt water fishing.

Several years ago a man shot and killed or injured school children at a Stockton elementary school. Tom was called upon to counsel the relatives of the Cambodian children who were killed or maimed in that slaughter. Now, after many months, Tom is still a friend of the Cambodian community in Stockton and Long Beach.

Dr. Brown had questioned his Cambodian friends and learned from one of their most respected fishermen the best way to catch a big salmon was to board the Salmon Queen III in Oakland and go mooching. Tom explained to me, "Mooching is a word borrowed from the Alaskan Eskimos. For many years Americans visiting Alaska have fished for salmon using bait or lures that are trolled through the water by their boats or expensive fishing reels. During those years the Eskimos consistently caught bigger salmon than the fishermen from the lower forty eight states.

Not long ago a few fishermen started copying the Eskimo style of fishing and instead of catching small salmon, they were able to bring home some of the grand-daddies. They tried to keep it a secret how they were able to catch the big ones but you know how it goes. They bragged too much and other fishermen started catching on. After a while the Canadians figured it out. Then the fishermen in Washington and later Oregon learned how to go mooching. Now here we were, my brother and I, mooching under the Golden Gate bridge, and to tell you the truth, I did not feel secure that we would catch anything.

As we passed under the Golden Gate I felt the cold foggy morning air penetrate my flimsy windbreaker jacket. We were cruising about ten knots. I looked skyward and the bridge looked smaller than it had looked when I sailed past forty years before on my way to Guam and the Korean War adventures.

Now there were about twenty five of us paying to go fishing. The bay water leading to and under the bridge is called The Potato Patch because the tide is swifter in this narrow channel and the surface is bumpy. A live bait trawler came up behind us in open sea beyond the Golden Gate and we stopped. They gave us some frozen anchovies because they had failed to round up any live bait.

The deck-hand trotted to help inexperienced moochers like us rig up fishing lines. If they caught fish they would later give the young man a good tip. I noticed a man who looked and dressed like a real good fisherman. He was standing by the fan-tail and he wore dirty dark blue trousers, a loose fitting shirt, a golf cap, and very dirty old, run down, white jogging shoes. His face lit up in a superior smile when I asked for his help. He told me he was only a normal person, but I could tell he was almost a pro fisherman and probably a friend of the skipper who knew all about fishing for salmon. And I was grateful to him for rigging my rented pole and baiting my hook and giving me many secrets about the mooching technique of salmon fishing.

First he put a special one inch red plastic straw on the monofilament line with a swivel to attach a leader. The straw would glide up and down the ten pound test line. At the end of the string he tied a crescent shaped lead sinker two inches long with swivels at both ends. The swivels were to prevent a tangled line when fishing. The heavy sinker would make the line hang straight down in the water making it less likely to tangle with the other fishermen's lines hanging in the sea. The expert used an eight inch needle to thread the six pound test leader through the dead frozen anchovy explaining the hook can be either at the head or tail. After threading the needle from eye to tail he hooked the leader and pulled it through the bait leaving the fishhook exposed at the eye. Then he attached the leader to the straw shaped glider above the sinker. He used a half-hitch knot over the tail to secure the bait better. He said, "The big salmon do not hit the bait. They are more lazy than small salmon. The larger fish are in no hurry to eat. They sniff the bait, nose it and mouth it. If everything seems alright they turn the bait fish so the head is swallowed first. Then they finally eat the bait. Laziness has saved many big salmon from the hook. Most fishermen like to jerk the bait away when they feel a fish bite. This practice only pulls the bait away from large salmon."

He said, "Measure your line as you let it down in the water. The captain will tell us how far down the fish are. He sees them on his sonar. Usually they are between ten and forty feet deep. Remember, we will be drifting, so the bottom changes. Sometimes it is sandy and sometimes the bottom is rocky. But it may be eighty feet deep when we start drifting. As we drift toward shore the bottom gets shallow and we may be in only twenty feet of water before we head out again for the next drift."

This was July of nineteen ninety, and I had spent the last few days in Sacramento where it was one hundred ten degrees. The San Francisco summer chill was making me uncomfortable. Tom and I had not eaten breakfast because I assured Tom there would be a galley. He said, "Lets bring some sandwiches, apples and beer." I said, "No, we can buy all that kind of stuff on the boat." Well, I was wrong. There was no food to buy on the boat and it was just lucky Tom brought a couple of apples to eat later in the day. The lack of food in my belly made me feel cold.

Before seven, we had our lines in the water. Tom and I fished from the bow because the early-birds took the other posts. About every three feet on the rail was a fishing pole holder for those who elected to use it. Our expert told us to watch the tip of our pole to see if a fish would make it wiggle. He said not to be too quick on the trigger. "Let the fish play with the bait for a while. Then you will see your pole start bending down slowly towards the water. That's when you pull up and set the hook in his stomach. You have to hold the tip of your pole up and keep reeling. Let the drag be kind of loose so your line slips if he makes a run for it. Follow your fish if he swims around the boat. You've got to go over or under the lines of other fishermen as you pass them. Don't be in a hurry. Remember, your fish may be fifty pounds and you only have a six pound test leader. And remember to keep the line taut so the fish doesn't shake loose. Keep your tip up and let the pole do the work."

He continued, "If someone else is hooked up and his fish comes close to your line, you should move out of his way and get your line out of the water if you can. If his fish wraps or swims around your line, don't yank on your pole. It will break his line. No, the best thing to do is put your reel on free wheeling. He may have to cut your line but it is better than losing a big fish."

After digesting all the fishing instructions from our mentor, Tom and I fished under the overcast sky until noon. I was lucky and had a few bites and threw back a small shark and a junk fish. Tom had no luck. He just suffered and complained mildly. He talked about the Cambodian refugees from the Vietnam War.

"Last week they called a special meeting and I was the guest of honor. There were nine religious elders present who asked me for advice. They are called shaman or priests and their religion includes animism. When a child or someone of their faith is ill the shaman is called to heal them. He often brings a live chicken, sacrifices the chicken by cutting its throat in the bushes, and then he uses the dead chicken to ward off evil spirits. They save the blood from the chicken, and end up eating the chicken after all the ceremony and incantations or prayers. Anyway, this was all a part of their lives before they left Cambodia. They have all been Americans since the U.S. government brought them here after the war. They have been living mostly from government programs for housing, food stamps, and all that. The big problem now for them is freedom of religion. The priests are afraid to practice the old religion openly because most protestant Americans and especially the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would object to the animism in their worship. I listened to all these things through an interpreter. Then I pondered the problem. Finally I gave my opinion. I told them the United States was formed to give freedom of religion to the first Americans and those who would come later. I said, 'We have a Bill of Rights.' and I did my best to explain it to them. Then I advised them to get documentation from other reliable Cambodian Americans to verify that each of them was sure enough an experienced healer who did this to practice his faith. Then I suggested they apply for tax exempt status for their church and demand protection from those who would discriminate against them. That's what I told them." Tom said they seemed pleased with his advice.

Going fishing together gave my brother and I a good chance to talk to each other. At noon I felt and saw the tip of my pole wiggle and after a minute, the tip slowly bent until I felt it was time to take a chance. I pulled up hard and the fish was hooked. I hollered, "Hook up!" and the deck hand came running to my aid shouting instructions. Only a few salmon had been landed and some had been "farmed out" meaning the fish got off the line. The skipper wanted us to catch fish in order for his business to catch more anglers tomorrow. I followed the fish half way back down the port side of the sixty foot boat. I kept my tip up and kept winding as the deck hand loosened then slightly tightened the drag on the reel. The fish came close and we saw his white color but he saw the boat and ran straight away from me. He stripped away most of my line but then he turned and I was able to get some of my line back. I was getting too excited and I began to fear I would have a heart attack. I was too busy to reach in my pocket for the little nitro pill bottle. I tried to relax as I reeled the fish close to the boat. A deck hand held a three foot wide net over near where my fish was swimming. The fish saw the net and shot out toward the front of the boat. I held my pole over and under other poles to keep from tangling our lines as I passed by other fishermen and I crossed the bow to the starboard side. The fish was tiring and finally after fighting for fifteen minutes or more, he swam into the net and we landed him. The deck hand cut my leader and told me to drag the sixteen pound salmon to the back of the boat. I was tired from the fight and the excitement but I obeyed the young man. Someone tagged my fish with a metal number and me with the same number. The fish went into a gunny sack.

All along the coastal waters we saw other fishing boats and some were commercial looking boats. Some of the boats were trawlers. One boat was busy letting out a long net and making a big circle. Then the crew drew in the net to cinch it up like a purse string and this is how they caught bait fish. I noticed other boats passing by that seemed to be mom and pop enterprises. Often the man would be steering while the woman stayed in the stern to watch the outriggers. Some boats had as many as seven outrigger lines pulling lures separated by large wooden floats dragged behind the boat. Frequently a boat stopped and a woman called to her husband for help to pull in a fish. I guessed the salmon were spread out all over the place waiting to enter the San Francisco Bay and swim up the fresh water rivers and canals to where they had been born or released as fingerlings. In California the life of the salmon is controlled by man and his fish hatcheries.

For most of the afternoon I listened to my brother complain of his bad luck and of boredom. A Japanese businessman caught three beautiful salmon while standing next to Dr. Tom. The man was built so slight he looked like a boy. He did not speak English and he used hooks without eyes from Japan. Finally my brother caught a fish just like mine. Then I took a little nap in the cabin while Tom tried to get his limit of two fish. The sun had been out since noon and the weather was perfect. That day the jack-pot fish was thirty five pounds and a total of thirty two salmon were landed. Fishermen were allowed to take home no more than the two salmon limit. We arrived back at the dock in Oakland about six in the evening and we were sunburned and tired. As I drove toward Stockton my brother who had complained to me of boredom and bad luck most of the day said to me, "I cannot recall having spent a nicer day fishing. It was perfect."