The Fish Sniffer

Feb 11, 2013 The Borrowed Boat

In August David and I accepted a neighbor’s invitation to fish salmon out of Bodega Bay. Yes! 

At 4:45 Wayne picked us up and we headed to the Sonoma Coast, specifically to Mason’s Marina, home of the boat that Wayne had borrowed. We trudged down the dock in darkness and carried our gear...

Jan 29, 2013 Win Some, Lose Some

While some fish have your name on them right from the start, others seem fated to streak across your fishing trip like a shining meteor. Their flash in the pan turns out to be merely the reflection of a vanishing rainbow riding bareback aboard a whirlwind. For the rest of your life you give...

Dec. 20, 2012 A Big Fish Memory

Some fish were never meant to be yours. Like young love, some fish explode into your life, igniting the day with boundless excitement that you hope will never end. You cross your fingers and hold your breath, your pulse pounding and goose bumps rising. At breakneck speed you rush headlong...

Nov. 20, 2012 Deep Dreaming

You start with a dream. Blue skies, clouds maybe, a release of tension. Blue water, a sunny breeze, and a surge of adrenaline. A glimpse of something you’ve never before seen, or commonplace but strangely different here in your dream. This is why we fish.

Disabled military veterans are no...

Two Sides of Convict Lake

My imagination painted Convict Lake as a very dark place. The violent deaths of escaped prisoners had given the lake its name. And a mysterious breed of hard-core anglers known as Brown Baggers spent hours plumbing Convict’s dark waters in hopes of catching the legendary trophy trout...

SEPT. 28, 2012 THE ALBACORE TRIP OF A LIFETIME

It was August, tuna time in Moss Landing. The albacore have been as close as 10 miles from Santa Cruz so far this season. I have not fished for albacore very often and when Carol Jones, the owner of Kahuna Sportfishing, asked me if I wanted to go out with them on Wednesday, I blurted out...

Sept. 6, 2012 Striper Hunger a Two-Way Street

If we hadn’t got there when we did, those fish would have died of hunger. David always checks stomach contents when he fillets our catch, and the stripers we caught on our last Napa River trip were empty. 

We had headed first to the Pond, but the tide was surging out and taking with it...

Shirt Tales: The Beginning Of A Tradition

When he sent me the T-shirt 20 years ago, Carroll had no idea what he started. Neither did I. J-A-M-A-I-C-A in hot shades of pink, lime green, and orange was spelled out across a white background. David wore it fishing.

Hopkins Pond was the prettiest of the ponds we fished regularly, and...

A Special Day for David

Because it was a holiday, we left early enough to be at the public launch ramp by 8:30. Lake Sonoma, in our experience, doesn’t wake up until the sun has been on the water for an hour or two. It was just two days before new moon, whatever omen that might be.

David chose to go up the Dry...

Sink Like a Rock

Line tangles between anglers on two different party boats are a bear to deal with. You’re weaving and winding and shouting suggestions to feverish fishermen in the middle of a hot yellowtail bite. 

You’re grabbing rods to rotate them around, and slicing your fingers as another fish takes...