BY Merit McCrea
LONG BEACH– The Los Angeles Rod and Reel Club Foundation has been dedicated to taking underserved youth fishing on SoCal charter boats at no cost to the kids since 1951. This year was no exception and this past week they hosted kids from the Antelope Valley Young Marines. In past years it’s included wards of the court and other groups of kids coming from some of the most challenged, underprivileged backgrounds there are.
The urge to ‘catch critters’ is innate in all of us. It’s country kids catching tadpoles and pollywogs. It’s city kids catching Pokemon. It’s gown-up kids adding to their list on eBird. It’s beach kids bagging a bunch of shore crabs.
Somehow we all start with the urge to keep whatever we’ve caught, but then realize that’s really not the best idea. Even a box-full of snails ends up faring poorly after a while.
Catching a first fish is really the ultimate. Not only do the parental units smile rather than frown when you show them, but you get to keep it, and even eat it. Somehow doing so finally completes the quest.
No fish tastes better than fish you’ve caught yourself.
So that’s what taking a kid fishing is all about. It’s showing them that full success and catching something is so important, even if it takes several tries. Catching a worthy but not huge fish for a first helps too. There are so many bigger fish yet to be caught.
So these Young Marines from the high desert got a first taste of salt water and fishing. They headed out from Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach onto flat seas off the LA County Coast. The bait tanks of the Enterprise and the City of Long Beach were already stocked with school of live anchovies.
But the bait of the day was squid strips. While the sand bass had been on the chew, two days prior winds had rolled the surface waters out and brought up the cold green stuff and with it, the sand bass too.
Crews striped out the squid and LARRC volunteers helped rig rods, 8-0unce sinkers, a small yellow lead-head on a long dropper loop.
It seemed like just a few minutes and we were in the zone. The Victory was already anchored. The Enterpise dropped the hook not far from them. The City’ was already anchored ahead of us. We could see sculpin coming aboard the other boats.
Our young anglers took a few minutes to get organized. LARRC members showed them how to nab a wily squid strip and pin it on the tiny lead-head. Most set-ups were spinners so pretty easy for them to start off, dropping to the bottom as the current pulled the lines down the rail. Soon the first of the many red devils were on lines and coming up.
The kids were warned about the sharp and painful spines. In the end the only one to get spined was a crewman. Of course everyone was ready with advice on how best to deal with the growing pain that radiated up his arm from his wounded palm over time. But in classic deck-hand style the victim simply sucked it up and shook it off – no hot water, vinegar, nothing—just fortitude.
In the meantime, scorpionfish were swinging aboard all over. If there was a spare rod at the rail one of us would bait it up and send it down, then find someone to catch the fish that bit. It literally took just a few seconds to a minute on bottom to get a bite – no bite? No bait! That was the deal.
About 45 minutes in I traded a rod with a fish on it to a young lady for the one she had in hand. As her fish neared the surface I wound the one I’d traded for in. It was surprisingly quick.
Unhooking her fish I asked for her bag number and delivered the fish to a surprisingly empty sack – a first fish. It all became clear. She had been dropping down only about half-way.
It was only about 10 or 15 minutes later with the two rods that she had her 5-fish limit!
While sailors stay on board, Marines go ashore. Marines are not necessarily hardy sailors and so it was. A few found the motion of the ocean unfavorable, and after a fish or two settled back from the rail in recovery mode. But even those had their 5-fish inside of a couple of hours on the anchor and we were off inshore looking for other species.
Those aboard the City’ hooked up a pile of ocean whitefish to go with their sculpin limits we would learn. We moved on to live anchovy quarry and soon we were circling while our tank man slung scads of ‘choves into our wake.
Not many splashes resulted, but still one or two. Dropping the anchor once again, down the lines went, but this time with live bait hooks on the dropper loops, baited with anchovy.
A few more splashes appeared. I found a small sliding sinker and rigged that with a live bait hook and tossed out – had to try it—all else were on bottom with dropper loop rigs.
Son-of-a-gun, BIT! I clumsily jammed the bail over on that spinner, wound down and set the hook. ON! –handed it off to the nearest Young Marine ready to take it. Paul Varencheck beeped his beeper.
It was a nice sand bass and soon several other LARRCers set up the same. We got a bass or two more, both on dropper loop and on slider rigs. By a bit past noon we were back in the harbor, kids had fillets of the fish they’d caught. All costs, food, fish cleaning tab, were covered by the club, same as they’ve been doing for the past 75 years.
In that time they’ve chartered boats from San Diego to Santa Barbara and kids have fished mackerel and needle fish off the Long Beach Barge and caught their limits of calico bass on Naples Reef and the 1-mile out of Santa Barbara.
In recent years the club has added lake fishing opportunities as well, stocking trout and catfish into city lakes for those events to increase youngster’s chances of success.
From humble beginnings in 1951, their good works continue to inspire many other clubs and groups to provide youths and veterans too with a day of fishing where success is as assured as it can be.
