Rent-rod, a Yellowtail Adventure By Dr. Howard W. Wright
Rent-rod, a Yellowtail Adventure
By Dr. Howard W. Wright
I am not used to being screamed at while on the water. Don't misunderstand me, I am no stranger to belting out a good hoot when I catch a beautiful halibut or cry like a baby when I miss a tough hookset. It’s just that being on the water for me is a peaceful, serene and calming exercise. Skippering the boat, setting up the lines and waiting for the subtle feel of the bite relaxes me. It is a beautiful calming pastime.
Nevertheless, here was Captain Eric, the 6 foot 3 inches, 250+ pound captain of the Redondo Special screaming at me not to lose my fish. “Don’t you lose that fish Rent-rod” he howled shaking his gnarly fist at me. “Don’t you lose that fish.”
Wait now, did Captain Eric just call me Rent-rod? Really? Rent-rod?
I must admit I did rent the rod and reel and my tackle box was a one gallon zip lock bag holding four weights, a few 6/0 hooks and a needle nose pliers. I had arrived at the dock at 7:00 am, found my way to the tackle shop, paid Scott the manager $5 for the rental setup and headed out. The outfit consisted of a 7 foot saltwater pole and a weathered Senator 1/0 Penn reel with new 30 pound double X line for the half day trip. To try and keep degenerates from stealing the outfit, the pole was painted a nauseating fluorescent yellow which also worked to let everyone on the boat know that I indeed was the resident newbie. I was the only one on the boat that had rented the equipment and actually the gear looked pretty good so I didn’t mind the name Rent-rod too much.
Now the reason Captain Eric was screaming so loudly was because on party boats like the Redondo Special, boat owners lived and died by the daily fish counts posted online. We had 22 anglers on a boat that could hold 60 fishermen and anything less than a 3 fish to 1 angler ratio was death by math. Without a decent fish count, anglers were not about to plop down their hard earned $45 dollars to spend a half day on the water, so there’s no room for sloppy fishing by the guests. I had one heck of a fish on the line and Captain Eric wanted to remind me in the strongest way possible how important landing the brute was for all concerned. Looking back over my shoulder I glared back toward the captain and screamed, “Don’t you worry about me! You just clear the rail!”
It was at that moment that I realized that most guests on the Redondo Special didn’t typically yell back at Captain Eric.
Located at the Redondo Beach Pier for over 50 years, the Redondo Special, or the Special as it is called, is 65 feet long and typically operates with a three man crew running half day trips twice daily. Looking back now I can understand why Captain Eric questioned my ability to land the fish. He knew most of the locals that frequented the Special and seeing the rental rod, my nifty zip lock bag for gear and the fact that he had never seen me before made him cautious. Party boats were often crowded with guys standing shoulder to shoulder using every trick in the book to land the fish of the day. Lines get twisted, gear “misplaced” and tempers can be short. Before you know it one inexperienced, self-centered or mean spirited person can cause real problems for everyone.
There was no way Captain Eric knew that I had spent years catching fish of all kinds on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, Texas’s Sam Rayburn, Southern California’s Lake Casitas and Arkansas’s White River. He didn’t know I fished deep in Lake Michigan and shallow in Lake Erie. He didn’t know I grew up in Redondo Beach and he didn’t know that, more than anything, I was lucky.
By 8:30 am we were anchored about a mile off the Palos Verdes Peninsula in 125 feet of water. We were supplied with six inch live mackerel which we were told would “do the trick.” The California Yellowtail are members of the Jack family of fish, typically weighting between 15 to 30 pounds and move in schools of hundreds following warm water from Mexico. Finding Yellowtail this far north is a rare treat and catching them is even rarer. Watching the other fishermen and following suit, I flung the bait with a cautions overhead cast placing it about 25 feet from the boat.
The moment the mackerel hit the water the bait dove to a depth of about 10 feet and swam at a slow meandering pace away from the boat. I let the line play out inch by inch, watching it move further from the boat and to my left. In an attempt to keep the bait in front of me, I moved sideways along the boat railing respectfully ducking under some anglers while reaching over the top of others. Keeping my line straight, pointed directly at the bait, was key to keeping the mackerel swimming free and unobstructed.
Soon the bait was about 50 feet from the boat, when the strangest thing happened, something that I never experienced. Watching the line and feeling the bait fish, I felt the mackerel become nervous. I had been watching the line play out for about five minutes when suddenly the line started unspooling a little faster, the subtle beat of the swimming mackerel picking up speed ever so slightly. It was almost like I could sense the mackerel’s panic. It was as if I was sharing, in a small way, the horror being experienced by the baitfish as it was being hunted beneath the water. Gently shifting the butt of the pole to just above my left hip and sliding my right hand in front and below the reel, I readied my left hand to throw the leaver and engage the reel. As the line continued to free spool faster and faster, I knew the baitfish was no longer carrying the line and that instead, the baitfish was dead, consumed whole and the hunter, the California Yellowtail and I were joined. Pointing the tip of the pole toward the water, I flipped the lever, the line stopped dead and I set the hook as hard as I could.
It took me years to learn to set the hook on a fish. You don’t want to pull so hard and so fast that you pull the hook out of the fish’s mouth. Then again you don’t want to wait too long, have the fish recognize the line and end up missing the fish. You need to pause long enough for the fish to hold the bait firmly and then set the hook hard enough to force the hook through the skin in the fish’s mouth but not so hard as to break the line. You need to take into consideration how much line stretch you’ll need to overcome and lastly you have to consider the amount of force necessary to turn the fishes head around. Seeing the incredible way the Penn reel was spinning and knowing I had well over 75 feet of line out, I knew I was going to have to hammer the hook hard.
I set the hook with one fast powerful motion, arching the tip from a downward pointing direction all the way back to behind my head. It was here, as the reel was screaming and the pole now bent to the water that Captain Eric first realized that I, Rent-rod, had a good Yellowtail on the line and that it was time for his own brand of encouragement to make its debut.
Pulling me around the boat, the Yellowtail forced me from bow to stern as I fought to keep it on the line. The beast made four hard runs stripping line that I had previously struggled to reclaim. Between the scream of the reel, the threats from Captain Eric “Don’t lose that fish Rent-rod!” and my own groans, after about 10 minutes I finally saw “color.” Using a ten foot gaff the deck hand swiftly and expertly snagged the fish and muscled the 30+ pound Yellowtail aboard.
Over the course of the day I landed a total of three California Yellowtail, two in the 30 pound range and one in the 20 pound range. By the time I hooked the last monster, Captain Eric finally realized that this was not my first time fishing and stopped screaming orders at me on how to land a fish.
All in all it was a great day fishing on the Redondo Special. It was exciting tapping into the lessons I had learned battling everything from largemouth bass to walleye, crappie to catfish. Allowing the bait to move free, watching my line, hammering a good hook set and keeping enough consistent pressure on the line made fishing for the Yellowtail a success. At the beginning of the charter we were given the option of kicking in $5 to be part of the 'Big Fish Pool'. Winner gets the money with me and fifteen guys bucking up there was $75 dollars on the line. I lost by about 2 ounces on a 35 pound fish. Well, you can’t win them all.
If you enjoyed reading Dr. Wright’s stories, check out his amazing autobiography, Trials of the Whistle King. Get it at stormwhistles.com or through Amazon or on Kindle.
Dr. Howard Wright grew up in the South Bay having attended South Torrance High School and later graduating from the University of California, San Diego. He moved to St. Louis to attend dental school, married his wife and raised a son and twin girls. Having invented the Storm Whistle, the loudest whistle in the world, Howard was able to retire from dentistry after just 20 years and shift his attention to education where he, for over the next dozen years, taught chemistry, coached wrestling and mentored students as dean. Dr. Wright, while being very active in scuba diving, surfing and biking, is also a prolific writer having written a number of academic articles, commentaries on fishing and outdoor sports, an adventure trilogy for Hawaiian language students and his own autobiography. When asked what is his greatest inspiration, Dr Wright answered, “His faith in God, the love of his wife and the devotion of his family.”