Fish Report for Friday June 17, 2007

Today I had a charter with 4 persons aboard, plus myself. We fished the rockfish early in the morning and by 11 am we had many nice reds ( 3 to6lbs. ) and an assortment of other colorful, and tasty rockfish. In the early afternoon we fished for calico bass and did real well, with 5 fish over 4lbs. ( released ) and 21 keepers plus dozens of shorts, less than 13 inches, but still fun to catch. We also had sand bass, rock bass, mackerel, a shorthalibut and some blacksmith perch. All in all a very successful day, the guys were kept busy catching fish and enjoying a beautiful day on Santa Monica Bay.
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Thoughts on Chartering...

When I decided to become a charter boat captain, I knew it would not be easy finding fish on a regular basis for my clients, especially in Santa Monica Bay! But it was the closest spot from where I lived, and it was closed to commercial fishing, NOT! I added the NOT! because although it is closed to commercial fishing, the commercial's sneak in there all the time at night and without running lights just have their way with the place.

I have called The F & G dept many times only to be told they have no wardens available at the moment. ( Get off your soap box Roy ).

Anyway I took many trips on 1/2 day, 3/4 day, and overnight boats for several years and kept records on where they fished, time of day, month year, where the tide was, weather conditions, ( wind, waves, clouds, water temps, air temps ) and any other info I could get. I got my SCUBA certificate and made many dives on the spots where I caught fish to see why they were there, and how they related to structure, during different, weather, wind and current conditions. I talked to as many fishermen as I could, and asked questions until they were tired of seeing me. I spent as much time as possible on the water putting all this info together, and always looking for reasons why fish were where they were, and what conditions they bit under. ( No matter what you learn about fish, they are great about throwing you a curve when you least expect it.)

LIFE LESSON # 7: PRIOR PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE!!!!!!!!!!!

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Fish Report for June 12 - Sunday

I had a charter in Santa Monica Bay, with four anglers catch 26 calico bass, 7 sand bass, 1 5lb trigger fish, 2 sheep head, 1 cabazon and 1 halibut. These were keepers, we also caught about twice that number of shorts, not keepers but still fun to catch. 99% of the time we use circle hooks, they mostly hook the fish in the corner of their mouth, making unhooking and release a snap.
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Boat Captain pt 2

You come in after a charter, You still have to clean up the boat after every one else goes home, not just dried blood. I've had people go below and lay down in my bed and lift the covers and throw up in my blankets. Some hours later when I had finished cleaning, was very tired and needed to go to sleep, because I had an early charter the next day, I got in bed and found the " little present " they left me.

Now I still have to go to the laundry.

You need to be a good mechanic, in the summer it takes weeks to get into a boat shop. If you can't fix it yourself, you will lose 1000's of dollars!

You need to be good with children, people bring their children and you have to bait their hook, cast their rod, hook the fish, help them reel it in, take the fish of the hook, re-bait etc. Some people have three kids, who needs a gym? But, know what? I LOVE IT!! Kids are so cool, and they are the future of sport fishing!

You need to be the school nurse, I've never had a serious problem aboard my boat other than a few hooks stuck in fingers, but you need to know how to take care of medical emergencies just in case one happens.

You need to be an entertainer, fish don't bite all day, and during the slow times you need a vast joke library to keep people laughing.

I could go on and on, but I'll give you a break and end this here.
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Boat Captain pt 1

Lots of people tell me they would love to be a charter captain, "BOY, you have the greatest job in the world!" Getting paid for taking people fishing!! That's like saying the president gets paid for signing a few bills. They don't see the other 18 hrs a day he spends running the good ole USA.

My job entails being the guide and finding fish for you. Fish don't stay in the same place all the time, anytime there is a place where the fish hang out in the same place, fishermen quickly find out about it and quickly fish it out. I have some secret spots, but the other charter guys know my boat, and when they see me in a spot for more than a few minutes,they will wait for me to leave, then move over it to check it out with their electronics. Later they will come back and fish it, now it's not secret anymore.

For the past 25 yrs I have been insisting that my customers release all bass over 5 lbs. These are special fish, it takes 8 to 12 yrs to grow to this size. I have caught the same fish many times in a season, ( I mark them with a tag, then I can keep track of that fish, sometimes for years. )

People don't realize how hard it is to keep a boat in shape for chartering, You usually drive them for two days and work on them for three days. My wife thinks its just an excuse to get out of the house. The salt air is constantly eating up your wiring and generally causing havoc with anything metal ( your motor ). During the charter season the boat is kept in a slip in Marina del Rey, the rest of the year the boat is kept on the trailer in dry storage. Salt water is hell on a boat!!
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Life Lesson 3 (2/2) : Being pulled over by a policeman is not necessarily a bad thing!

I couldn't believe this, I had tried to be so sneaky, and here I was busted! Guess my Momma done raised a fool after all! Seems like every time I didn't play by the rules I got bit in the ass. And why did I think this would be any different, does the word DUMMY come to mind?So I pull into a gas station across the street, and got out my drivers license.

The police officer walks up beside my van, ticket book in hand, as he gets near the drivers door, he notices the sign "ROY LAWSON'S FISHING ADVENTURES" on the side of my van. He looks at the sign for a moment then comes to the window, and asks me," Are you the Roy Lawson with 40 IGFA world fishing records that was in the recent Sea Magazine article, IN SEARCH of WORLD RECORDS?"

That's me, I answered. What a coincidence! He said, since I read that article, I really wanted to go fishing with you, but there was no phone number in the article. Then he asked me a few questions about shark fishing, and I mentioned I just happened to have my shark photo album with me. After seeing my pictures, he said, " My buddies will flip over these, I'm going to call them over." While waiting for his friends to show up, he asked why I was driving with a expired registration? I told him the story of either the boat payment or truck registration, next day charter and broken water pump. He chuckled, I'm going to give you a little break, just get your pump, go straight back to the boat and don't drive till you get it registered. Thank you so much officer, I said.

By now three or four other police cruisers had pulled up next to my van. There was quite a crowd of onlookers probably expecting to see me put in handcuffs and taken away to meet Bubba. I guess they were really surprised. I showed the group of officers my shark pictures and they set up a charter on the spot for the next weekend. Then they all shook my hand, got in their patrol cars and left. Three days later I got a deposit check from one of them for $300.00 for the shark charter.

Usually you get stopped by a policeman, get a ticket, and mail money to the city. I got stopped, and the officer sent ME money! How rare is that!?
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A Shark Story the Conclusion

We worked feverishly with the buckets to empty the water from the boat.

After about 45 min. most of the water was gone, and I could see no new water coming in. I looked over the side of the boat and noticed since we had stopped chumming most of the sharks had left. Now how were we going to start the motors with 2 dead batteries? I went to the medicine chest and got the bottle of aspirin, then I dropped 1 in each battery cell. The acid in the aspirin would give me one quick burst of power. I waited about 15 min for the aspirin to work, then used my jumper cables to hook both batteries to the engine that started the quickest. Crossing my fingers and holding my breath I turned the key...

The engine turned slowly, rrrrrr, rrrrrr, rrrrrr, varoom!! What a sweet sound. I let the engine run for about 10 minutes to charge the batteries up then started the other engine, when both engines were running smoothly I went back to the engine compartment to see if I could discover where the water was coming from. I immediately saw water coming from the rubber hose that connects the riser to the exaust system, it had split and a good amount of water was flowing out into the bildge. I shut the motor down and tightly wrapped duct tape around the hose, that quick repair would get me home, the hose could be replaced tomorrow.

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I have been chartering in Southern California for thirty years, I have learned many tricks on making emergency repairs to get the boat back to port, ( no service stations out here, you are on your own! ) These also work on you car or motorhome when you find yourself far from services. In my stories I will give some helpful hints on how to make it back when you are stuck.

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