A Fish Story

So My sister, Janet, and I went to San Diego to go Deep Sea fishing this weekend for a 3/4 day trip. We drove over on Friday, because we had to be at the dock at 5Am. There were several different groups taking people out fishing. Who knew? It was a bustling sight. Our boat was the Malahini, from H & M Landing. We had 51 anglers on board for our trip. Janet and I were 2 of only 3 women. There was one other girl there with her boyfriend. The only other woman was June who ran the galley. Here I am ready to go fishig. Notice the earrings, Penny?

Here is my sister, Janet ready to fish.













This is some of the folks on the boat getting loaded up and ready.

Here is another boat loading bait.

This is Corey, on our boat loading bait. He was a great help to us, as was Nick. In the beginning, they baited Janet and I's hooks for us every time. And they showed us what to do. They were quite nice and patient.

This is some of the Sardines and anchovies that didn't make it into the bait tanks. No one quite seemed to worry about them. They either got stepped on and smashed or maybe scooted overboard with a foot.

This is some of the wild life that hung around the bait docks. They knew where the food was.

Janet on the way out to where we could fish. See all the back packs piled up? They were really man purses. I tried to get Janet to put her purse up there, but she wouldn't. She gave hers to June in the galley. I wore a fanny pack.

This is Corey, throwing bait. They do that quite a lot to try to lure the fish to us. We didn't have a great fishing day, unfortunately. They said the water had recetly "changed", becoming green or brown in places and it inhibited the fishing.

They took us to an area to fish for Sculpin. Sculpin are rather intimidating looking fish and have some rather poisonous spines. But they said they are actually really good eating , especially in tacos. When you caught a sculpin, you were supposed to leave it over the side of the boat and yell sculpin! Then someone would come and grab it for you. Once they got it, they would use some wire cutters to cut off all the poisonous spines. They can be very painful, we hear, and some people go into anaphylactic shock when stung.

Janet fishing, protected from the son. The guy with the red beard was my fishing buddy on that side. He was with a group of guys who worked together in Las Vegas. He caught quite a few Sculpin.

I only caught one Sculpin and one mackeral. The mackeral they throw back because they say the aren't good to eat. Janet caught about 10 Sculpin, 5 of which were keepers. She also caught a couple of mackeral. We had 6 fish b the end of the day.

Here is a small sculpin coming up the side of the boat.

Here is a bigger one with spines all displayed before being dismembered.

Dismemberment in process.

This is a vermillion Rock Fish that my neighbor caught. They are not very common. Their eyes pop out when they come up from the depth that they live at. They also start to fade to white when they die. This one is already dying and was more the color you see on his back before he started to die. Some other folks caught White fish and Calico Bass too. They were all in the same size range.

Here is a picture inside Janet and I's sack of our Sculpin we caught. For a 1$ a fish, a great bargain, the guys gut them and fillet them for you. So our 6 fish ended up in a small plastic bag. I don't think the meat weighed more than 3 or 4 pounds.

Here is the Malahini as we all leave the boat. It was a fun day and I wouldn't mind trying it again some time!