BY Merit McCrea
SAN RAFAEL – For the first time since before COVID the Golden Gate Fisherman’s Association put on its famous crab feed – all you can eat delicious Dungeness crab! Well, that’s all that Wendy from Izoline and this writer needed to hear. We made arrangements to head up there to the Marine Rod & Gun Club and share a table with friends from the north coast, Tim and Sherry Klassen with Reel Steel sportfishing, Dave Kasheta from Fish Emeryville and his brother.
It was great to see folks I hadn’t since I was a pinhead at Berkeley Marina 5 decades ago the, Dennis Deavor, Rick Powers, as well as others from more recently, Bob and Sherry Ingels from Half Moon Bay.
It would turn out that both Rick Powers and Tim Klassen were presented with awards by GGFA president Mike Rescino in recognition for their service to the organization – Rick for his long-time presidency and leadership of GGFA and Tim for his work on the Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s Groundfish Advisory SubPanel.
It turned out that between Tim, this writer and Dave Kasheta, all but one of the 4 California recreational groundfish representatives in the Council were in that room, the north and south Charter reps, and the north angler representative.
The big hall was a feast for the eyes for any angler, waterfowler or big game hunter – impressive mounts, framed federal duck stamp prints matted alongside a proof stamp.
Capt. Rescino also gave a shout out in recognition of GGFA’s joining forces with the Sportfishing Association of California -SAC, something that the two organizations had been working toward for years. Today SAC covers the entire state, with all but a few privateers being members of SAC/GGFA.
Not knowing what to expect, the gathering pulled roughly 250 attendees, just about everybody who was somebody in the partyboat and 6-pack industry north of Moss Landing – a room full of captains. The event was much more that a dinner. It was like a Ducks Unlimited fund-raiser on steroids – table games, major raffle prizes and a live auction with a professional auctioneer running it – just like at the state fair – that good.
There were 27 items on that auction list so that went on for quite a while – duck hunts, African safaris, Big Game hunt in New Zealand, 16-seat luxury box at a Giants game, lots of full boat fishing charters from Alaska to San Diego – many tens of thousands of dollars worth of auction prizes, and as a GGFA benefit, most went for top-dollar.
However, one of these charters, a 1.5-day bluefin charter aboard the Sauerfish out of San Diego was the sleeper. No one had any idea what it was really worth and the top bidder got it for like $2,600, less that half its full value.
But before all that, the food! First a salad came out, and participants picked in anticipation of all that D-crab to come. Events and raffle draws were on-going. Next – a great penne pasta, done to perfection. But still, folks just picked. Then the Dungeness crab clusters and some of the most meat-filled crab legs this writer has ever had the pleasure of encountering, solid chunks of delicious crab. At the end of the evening, there was still crab left uncracked to go but we were all well past being able to eat even one more leg.
In the hall I heard that in years past the GGFA would have sold out all 300 spots the venue could accommodate weeks in advance. But for kicking off after a 5-year hiatus, this was a huge success, and well worth the run north.
