Species: Diamond Turbot (Hypsopsetta guttulata) Location: Del Mar Lagoon, California Date: August 6, 2018 Do you ever read an unfamiliar word and sound it out in your head, ultimately arriving at a pronunciation you like? Well, with fish and fishing, it’s commonplace. Seeing strange fish names is the nature of the beast. As you read more…
Species: Cortez Bonefish (Albula gilberti) Location: San Diego Bay, California Date: August 4, 2018 So I’m in the Air National Guard. I’m in the Medical Services Corps and work as a Medical Readiness Officer. You know the whole pandemic business we’re living through? Well a part of my job includes contingency planning for such crises. In…
Species: Pacific Bonito (Sarda lineolata) Location: Dana Point, California Date: August 2, 2017 Apart from my immediate family (parents and brothers), I don’t get to fish with family much. I often offer, but few people take me up on it, and that’s okay. But when I finally convince a family member to go with me, it’s always…
Species: Copper Rockfish (Sebastus caurinus) Location: Yaquina Bay, Newport, OR Date: March 24, 2016 If you’ve never been on the open ocean on a small boat intended for use in the lake, then you haven’t lived. My first trip was on a 17-foot Bayliner with high gunwales out of the Port of Brookings-Habor. It was a little rough,…
Species: Brown Irish Lord (Hemilepidotus spinosus) Location: Yaquina Bay, Newport, OR Date: July 22, 2015 This fish frustrates me for a number of reasons. After returning home from my trip to Washington D.C., I landed in Portland, and my brother Gabe picked me up. I stayed with him in Corvallis and convinced him to come fishing with me…
Species: California Halibut (Paralichthys californicus) Location: Chetco River South Jetty, Brookings-Harbor, OR Date: July 13, 2013 While fishing with my friend David Clarke, I tried to relive an amazing trip to Brookings I’d had years earlier. Sadly, it wasn’t happening. The charter boat had provided good fishing, but David was so seasick, he didn’t get…
Species: Widow Rockfish (Sebastes entomelas) Location: Off the coast of Depoe Bay, OR Date: December 18, 2014 I wrote about this in my January 30, 2015 column in the Herald and News. Read it below: In 1988, the United States government outlawed the production and sale of three-wheeled ATVs, commonly known as “three-wheelers,” because the third…
Species: Estuarine Triplefin (Forsterygion nigripenne) Location: Kuaotunu River, Kuaotunu, Coromandel, New Zealand Date: February 25, 2014 Mystery is a genre I love to read but fail to write much of. Even investigative journalism is a reach for me, and I’ve spent five years as a journalist. The investigative process of which coffee shop makes the…
Species: Blue Cod (Parapercis colias) Location: Kuaotunu Coastline, Coromandel, New Zealand Date: February 24, 2014 Sometimes you luck into a wide variety of species early and catch lucky breaks with every cast. This is not one such tale. *** David Clarke and I had been plying the coastal waters of New Zealand for weeks before…
Species: Australasian Snapper (Pagrus auratus) Location: Paihia, Bay of Islands, Northland, New Zealand Date: February 14, 2014 Love was in the air. It was Valentine’s Day, and I was joined for the romantic holiday with the love of my life: fishing. To make the holiday even more romantic, I was living out a lifelong fantasy:…
