Pacifica Pier News

STEADY REPORTS of excellent striped bass fishing in and around the San Francisco Bay area have come across my desk for the last three weeks. Jim Smith, captain of the Happy Hooker and one of the best striped bass party boat captains in the bay, called three or four times in the last couple of weeks to report the good fishing.

Thirty members of the Sacramento Chinese Sportsman’s Club went out with Smith last week. I was invited to go with the same group last year on Smith’s boat and we had tremendous success on striped bass in the beaches area by Pacifica.

The group said the fishing last week was tremendous. In less than two hours, 60 striped bass and a few salmon were caught. On the way in from the beaches, Smith stopped the boat to let the SCSC members do some halibut fishing. Only a couple were caught but the party seemed pretty happy with the stripers.

Tuesday, I decided to take a look first-hand to see just how good the striped fishing is.

SMITH, WHO OPERATES out of Pt. San Pablo Harbor, informed us we would be fishing inside the bay, around San Rafael Bridge and in an area called The Brothers.

A couple of the people on board moaned. Why not go to the beaches? asked one. We want to go to the beaches, demanded another.

But Smith hasn’t acquired his reputation by being lucky. Or being told( where to go for fish. He knows where to go and when. Monday, he got his customers limits fishing in the San Rafael Bridge/Brothers areas. The ride from Pt. San Pablo is a half hour; to the beaches it’s 1 1/2 hours.

There is a drawback to fishing the closer areas, though. You fish with eight ounce weights and bounce them on the bottom. Unless you are very proficient at this, you will probably lose a lot of tackle. At 75 cents a weight, you either get proficient in a hurry or don’t fish.

We made a few passes over these areas but found no fish. Several of us lost weights, though. Reel them up, said Smith over the microphone. We’re going to the beaches.

SMITH TOLD ME he had been in contact with another party boat that was a little below the beach area. The skipper of that boat told him the stripers were really biting. We could probably stay here and catch our limits, said Smith, but the bite might not come on until 1 p.m. The fish are bigger here but if the fish are at the beaches we will catch our limits.

Fishing at the beaches is a little different from fishing at the San Rafael Bridge/Brothers area. At the beaches you use a 1/4-ounce weight with a live anchovy. You just let it float away and down and all of a sudden - wham!

When the stripers hit the floating anchovy, you know it. And if the fish wants to go to the front of the boat and you are in the back, you’d better chase him.

In the two hours we were at the beaches, cries of fish on, fish on, fish on were constant. Smith would let the boat drift parallel with the beach to about 100 yards from the Pacifica pier and then go out, circle and start the drift again.

THE FISH WEREN’T big - average size was probably 10 pounds - but they were plentiful. And they put up a heck of a fight.

By the time we had 30 limits for the people on the boat, it was only 1 p.m. Smith said he would stop for about an hour’s worth of halibut fishing on the way back. The hour produced only one halibut and one California sunfish.

The striped bass fishing should be good through August, said Smith. The big ones aren’t here yet. They’ll be coming up pretty soon.

For more information about the striper fishing in the bay, call Smith at (415) 223-5388.

IF YOU ARE interested in catching ling cod, there’s a party boat skipper in the Bay area who knows where and how to get the onsters.

Rick Powers, who runs Jaws out of the Berkeley Marina and the New Sea! Angler out of Bodega Bay, will start running ling cod specials Tuesday and Thursdays and Mondays and Fridays.

On the Tuesday-Thursday trips, Powers will guide Jaws to Fanny Shoals. The trip takes close to four hours and leaves the Berkeley Marina (415-849-2727) at 5:30 a.m. The Monday-Friday trips aboard the New Sea Angler leave Bodega Bay (The Tides 707-875-3595) at 6 a.m. for the two-and-a-half hour ride to Fanny Shoals.

Powers will start the Berkeley trips Aug. 2 and the Bodega Bay trips Aug. 13.

IF YOU HAPPEN to watch the Olympic rowing and canoe events at Lake Casitas and feel sorry for all those fishermen who would usually be fishing the lake this time of year, don’t.

In two weeks the lake will again be all theirs for the first time since July 5, when nearly half of its 2,700 acres were set aside for Olympic rowing and kayak courses.

There is further solace in the knowledge that beneath the lake’s shimmering waters are 7,000 pounds of freshly planted catfish, the product of perhaps the most outlandish deal negotiated by the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee in its scramble to secure venues for the 1984 Games.

In an effort to secure the reservoir in northern Ventura County and not anger the fishermen who fish this popular Southern California lake, the LAOOC purchased $12,000 worth of catfish, which last week, without ceremony, were deposited into the lake.

Now, local fishermen are figuring the lake will actually receive three fish for the price of one. Normally, the district plants 5,000 pounds of catfish a number that is matched by the State Department of Fish and Game.

Now, anglers hope the district will decide that the Olympic Committee’s planting satisfies the catfish planting and will thus put in 5,000 pounds of trout. Which, they hope, means DFG will match that number.

BAY ANGLERS FIND SUCCESS WITH STRIPERS
SACRAMENTO BEE
August 2, 1984
Author: BY GARY VOET
Estimated printed pages: 3
Memo: OUTDOORS
Edition: FINAL
Section: SPORTS
Page: D10
Index Terms: FISHING
Record Number: 145