Species: Pacific Chub Mackerel (Scomber japonicus) Location: Huntington Beach Coastline, CA Date: June 12, 2008 This week, a classmate contacted me about planning our 10-Year Class Reunion. It’s crazy that I’m in that phase of my life because it feels like only yesterday that I wrote about it in my fishing journal. It was the culmination of four…
Species: White Croaker (Genyonemus lineatus) Location: Seal Beach Pier, Seal Beach, CA Date: June 11, 2008 You meet all sorts of people fishing. Some of them are terrible. Some of them are great. My senior year of high school, the Class of 2008 went to Seal Beach, California. Within an hour of arriving, I’d already started fishing. I…
Species: Lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) Location: Brookings Coastline, OR Date: May 26, 2005 It had started the day before. My first time on the ocean, I rode out in a small Bayliner in the afternoon. The handful of students and three chaperones who decided to brave the afternoon waves thought it would be worth it. The newness of the experience…
Species: Blue Rockfish (Sebastes mystinis) Location: Brookings Coastline, OR Date: May 26, 2005 This part of the trip was uneventful. After catching several of the larger Black Rockfish, I pulled up a much smaller fish with a bluish tint and faint stripes on its face. I was told “That’s just a small blue,” and I should “throw it back.”…
Species: Black Rockfish (Sebastes melanops) Location: Brookings Coastline, OR Date: May 25, 2005 Elementary school was terrible, junior high was better, and high school was all right. As a freshman, I was awkward in the way most freshman are, but I was also extra awkward in my own, special way. I’m not sure I really knew what I wanted,…
Seal Beach Pier, Seal Beach, CA Trip Date: June 9-13, 2008 The Pier The piers of Central and Southern California have a unique subculture. By day, they teem with tourists of all different races and backgrounds, all living completely separate lives. By night, the multi-ethnic tapestry remains, but the occupants of the pier share a…
Seal Beach Pier, Seal Beach, CA Trip Date: June 9-13, 2008 The Jetty The night before graduation, I decided to scrap the speech I’d written weeks in advance and start a new one. I finished it around midnight, and it is, to this day, the best speech I’ve ever written. While my delivery was a…
Brookings-Harbor, OR Trip Date: May 25-26, 2005 The mind is a funny thing. How we can remember the subtle differences between the radio-edited song and the original, but draw a blank on the name of a childhood friend, I will never understand. While I don’t understand, I do remember. I remember loading into a red…
