Fishing Report: LB Breakwater 7/17/09

Left the dock at 5:30 with my buddy Danny Bluth, Servite '05, same as Wednesday.

At the fuel dock, the bait guy didn't like the fact that we were getting anchovies, while everyone else was getting sardines. Most the boats looked like they were going out for 1+ days of offshore fishing, so sardines were their pick. This meant the bait guy actually had to open the anchovy tank and move his net to a different location. There is no amount of Pabst Blue Ribbon at 6 in the morning that can make that an enjoyable activity. I also found out that if you give the bait guy some hats and a T-shirt from your fishing sponsors, you can cut in front of every boat. Anyone interested in my new venture Mackerel Hunters LLC? We have apparel! We asked for only $10 of anchovies, rather than the $20 I have been accustomed to and found that this was the right amount. The bait stayed alive longer and still had enough dead guys to chum the waters.

Limited by gas, we chose to fish the breakwater just past the bait barges. We fished the inside of the breakwater and hooked into 3 legal sandbass, 1 octopus, and 1 queenfish. We dropped anchor about 5 times, but never pulled more than 1 fish from each spot. There was action, but not as constant as the other side of the breakwater.

We left for the other side of the break water at around 10am. There was a zoo of 3 small boats anchored and 2 more trying to get in all trying to fish the end of the breakwater. Knowing that these goofs probably saw some boats and thought that it was the spot tried to squeeze in. I did not want a fouled anchor and crossed lines, so we went down the breakwater about 100 yards. We anchored 20 yards off the wall and we easily dropping our anchovies into the surging rocks. There was less thick kelp as the bay side, just some light growth, so for the most part we could get our bait into the rocky surge.



The action was hot on this side of the rocks. We were getting constant hits on the anchovies. We experimented with the couple of sardines that made it into our scoop and found that they were awful, which explains why every boat jockeying for position at the end of the wall were skunked and resorting to trolling.

We pulled in lots of calico bass, 1 sand bass, and 1 barracuda. You were either getting caught in the rocks or hooking up on the weather side of the rocks. We ended up running out of bait and tired by about noon.

Plastics and irons were not working, and really not needed because the live bait was so hot. I was working one pole with 10lb test and outfishing Danny on 2 poles with line in the 20lb range. The largest bass was landed on 10lb test.

The Keeper Kount brought to you by the folks at Mackerel Hunter:
4 Calicos
4 Sand Bass (largest 16.5 inches)

Fishing Report: HB Flats 7/15/09

Went out to HB Flats by the two oil rigs off Bolsa Chica/Huntington Cliffs. At least ten 1/2 day boats and about 20 private boats were working the area past the rigs. We stayed inside by the platforms and had a consistent action. The 1/2 dayers never held a position and we could see that they were not doing well. Barracuda were in the area the day before, but none today.

Picked up sardines from the bait dock with some squid. The live bait did not do well for a couple reasons:

• No Pump, only buckets of water
• Sardines were a month old
• Too much bait
  
• Mixing varieties
  

Got bait in the water at about 5:20. First sardine hooked a calico withing a minute. Saw color and the calico spit the bait. It was possibly legal sized.

We were plagued the whole day by fighting fish to the boat and as soon as they saw it they spit the bait. We are gonna try again tomorrow with live anchovies. We are hoping to set the hook with some smaller bait that can easily be swallowed.

I snagged a 12 inche halibut jigging a squid head on the white/glow iron by one of the rigs. I got the Tady blue/chrome and worked the surface every now and then. No action on the blue/chrome.



My legal sand bass was caught on fresh dead squid hooked on a 1/4 ounce lead head.

I landed a short sand bass on fresh dead squid.

Sand bass seen but not landed, roughly 5, were all in the possible legal range and all sand bass on either squid or live anchovies.

I filleted my sand bass at home and cooked it on the stove with 1 part olive oil, 1 part butter, and 1 part white wine with bay leaves. It was some of the best fish I have had in a while.

We are heading out tomorrow at about 5am probably back to the flats with frozen squid and live anchovies or small sardines. Hopefully the bite will open up and we can catch our 10 fish limit.

Kayak Fishing (Actually a Complaint About the British System of Units)

I went kayak fishing with my uncle on Saturday at a man-made island about 1 km of the Ventura coast.

I am glad to use the metric system to describe things. It is so much easier to deal with once you learn it.

Metric System Example: 1000 meters = 1 kilometer

Conversions in the Metric System are elegantly simple. You just need a basic understanding of the decimal system and a couple prefixes and you are set for life. Not too difficult.

British System Example: 5280 feet = 1 mile

What an ugly and arbitrary conversion. This site gives a history of the unit of a mile:

One mile was the distance of a thousand paces: in Latin, mille passus. A pace being 5 feet gives a mile of roughly 5000 feet. The mile acquired its current value of 5280 feet (1760 yards) by the decree of the English parliament during the reign of Elizabeth I. Since this was a legal definition it became known as the statute mile — statute being another word for law.

For the sake of my story about how far the island is offshore,

1 kilometer = 0 .6213 miles (for fairness to the British System let's simplify it to 2/3)

and every American Soccer Mom and Joe Sixpack knows that

2/3 mile = 3520 feet

and every high school graduate in the United States knows that

3520 feet = 1173 1/3 yards

and every NFL player knows

1173 1/3 yards = 9.8 Football Fields (from goal post to goal post).

Finally we have a system of units that everyone can understand and I can finally talk about kayak fishing. But our friends everywhere else in the world won't understand, because what they rightly call "football", a sport that primarily uses the feet, is really "soccer" in America. It is no surprise that the American sport is poorly named.

I am now too tired to write about fishing.



Why didn't I just skip that whole exercise and do this right from the start?

Home Improvements

As a makeshift job I am doing small repair jobs around the house. It is much easier to ask for money when I have something to show for and it is probably easier for my dad to give money when he sees the door he destroyed fixed.

While I was at school, I missed a comical incident when my dad got locked in his room. Something failed on the door nob and he could not get it open. So from the second story my dad pulled up a care kit of tools selected by my sister and mom. It is likely they gave him the prettiest tools rather than the most functional ones. That is honestly how they think. They recently bought a TV simply because it was white. They had no idea what functionality it had, they just know that it matched the kitchen. So needless to say the tools where probably rust-free and matching the blood red fury in my dad's face.

My dad ended up hacking away at the door with a flat head screwdriver and needle nose pliers until the handle and bolt came out. Great. Now the door is semi functional and completely ugly. This is where I step in.

I was able to to cut out the destroyed part and replace it with some scrap wood I had in the garage. I sanded it, primered, painted it, and rigged it with a new locking handle. Mom said "It looked so great!" and Dad said "It works!".

With Mother Form and Father Function happy, I can now pridefully ask for some money.

My next project will be installing a tile floor in their bathroom. Yeah...I'm that poor right now.

Old People and Technology

My grandparents have some pretty nice technology, but sometimes they just don't know what to do with it. They have a 60 inch flat screen and a nice Blu-Ray player with iPod dock, but they just watch Larry King Live with it.

My grandpa now has an iPhone. I am not kidding when I say this, but he likes the manual more than the actual phone. Weird, because via the iPhone one can pull up the same manual online...but for whatever reason he prefers the manual. I ask him how the iPhone is going and he says

Just great! I just got to the chapter on music downloading.

To his defense he is actually learning the technology and using it, not in a very practical sense, rather as proof of concept. Not bad for an 85 year old. He is downloading music, mainly opera (Madam Butterfly and Nessun Dorma). He sends text messages sporadically to the grandkids

I bet you didn't think I could text!

He still needs to learn about how awesome the internet is from a desktop before he can realize the beauty of accessing it on a phone. He would love to read every newspaper in print, but he does not know that it can be a reality. He loves old math texts but a niche search engine, even if it is offered by Google like GoogleScholar or GoogleBooks, is just beyond his reach.

I am starting to think that we need technology that speaks ordinary language to its users. One great example of this is the Harmony One remote control. It is a smart remote, not a regular programmable multi-remote, that performs actions like "Watch TV", "Watch Movie", or "Listen to Music". Anyone who has ever networked a home stereo know what controls do what and the functions and limitations of each peice of electronic equipment. To my mom or grandparents they just scream to the closest person

I just want to watch the 10 o'clock news!

rather than learning how everything works. This remote takes care of them. Press "Watch TV" and it:

1. Turns on the TV
2. Puts it on the correct input
3. Turns on the stereo
4. Puts the stereo on the correct setting(complete with best surround sound setting...but they don't know that)
5. Customizes the remote for the specific action

I think a quick training on signal inputs and outputs would solve everybody's problems. It involves a quick flow chart of where the video and audio signal come from(CD, DVD, CABLE, DVR, etc) Then break down what devices pass the signal. And finally show how a signal is outputted via speakers and TV screen.

Its that easy.

Fishing not Catching

I went out fishing last night on Summer Salt II and the night before on the south breakwater at Seal Beach. I always have fun getting ready, picking what kind of fish to go after, which gear to bring, what bait to use, etc. I run into the tackle shop to get bait and a quick pep talk from the guy at the counter,

"...You know a buddy of mine just caught a 20lb. halibut there with the exact setup your using."

Despite friends of the tackle guy catching fish, I did not catch any. Getting skunked 2 night in a row is not fun. I got some got nibbles and some molested bait, but no fish. Fishing is fun, but it can be frustrating.

I might go out to the grunion run next week and check out all the fish making babies on the sand.
If I am really feeling down on my luck, I may just grabs hands full of grunion and yell to the heavens "I CAN CATCH FISH!"

Change of Location

This is where I will be blogging from now on. I am leaving behind the Viterbi blog and I am moving on.

Here is my final post from the Viterbi Student Blogs:

I graduated from USC about a month ago and things are great. I am super close to getting a job. I have done lots of small trips and vacations. I hiked to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite and I just got back from hanging with family in Arkansas.

I have been asked many times by parents on behalf of their high school seniors if I would go to USC all over again or go to another school. My answer is honest and is "Yes, I would do it all again."

I have developed personally in so many aspects of my life: academics, leadership, communication, relationships, and goals. I am so proud of what I have accomplished on the Aero Design Team. I have learned so much about myself and others as a Viterbi Student Ambassador and a Freshman Academy Coach. I discovered my passion for teaching science and engineering through Iridescent Learning.

I am equally proud of my friends. They have been role models to me in so many ways. They are motivated to succeed and all manage to achieve their goals in their own unique ways. We all have different traits, strengths and weakness, that allowed for some really great memories. In class, at football games, at the dorms, in computer labs at 4am, in the ADT lab, on roadtrips, on retreats, on spring break, and in other countries, I have had truly amazing moments with so many great people. I would not be the person I am today without the support and guidance of my friends at USC.

I am now moving on the next phase in my life. I will be starting my career as an engineer. I will spend time doing the things I like to do: surfing, fishing, sailing, woodworking, making planes, and cooking (no real surprises here). I look forward to constantly learning new things and meeting new people. If the past is any indication of the future, things are looking pretty good.

Look forward to more posts here at thedanorr.blogspot.com

Dan