Species: Calico/Kelp Bass (Paralabrax clathratus) Location: Huntington Beach Coastline, CA Date: June 12, 2008 I wrote a detailed account on how and when I caught my first Calico/Kelp Bass as part of my How I Got Hooked series. From How I Got Hooked — The Third Lesson (Part 2/2): Determination. “The Charter One day of the trip included…
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: Tui Chub (Gila bicolor) Location: Lost River, OR Date: April 13, 2008 Before I learned where to chase big trout in the spring, I used to drive out to Crystal Springs County Park during Spring Break or any time I had free from sports. Lonely Luke would fish for anything that would nibble his lonely worm. That…
Species: White Crappie (Pomoxis annularis) Location: Gerber Reservoir Date: July 15, 2007 If you’ve kept up with this blog, you probably know that I started keeping fishing journals when I was 14. Let’s be real. I’m quite confident in my writing abilities now, but my early teenage prose wasn’t always the best. Still, as I look back, a…
Species: Kokanee Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) Location: Odell Lake, OR Date: August 6, 2005 As a kid, I think I fished from a boat maybe half a dozen times. For that reason, I remember every time I had this opportunity afforded only to the wealthy very clearly. *** When the family headed to Odell Lake for the first time, I…
Species: Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus) Location: Lost Creek Lake, OR Date: July 27, 2005 Every day, we woke up and went on a run. We’d come back, grab breakfast, do some sort of running game, take a break, and run again. Lunch would come around, we’d have a short reprieve for the afternoon, then we’d go on an evening…
Species: Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu) Location: Lost Creek Lake, OR Date: July 26, 2005 Cross County Camp was great. I mean, apart from running 80 or 90 miles in a week, it was awesome. We always stopped and ran along the highway before we even arrived at our destination: Lost Creek Lake. In those days, I was a…
Species: Pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus) Location: Lost River, OR Date: June 18, 2005 Lost River is so named because it bubbles up out of the ground, wanders around for 60 miles, then goes back into the ground not far from its origin. It is rumored to have once held a great Redband Trout fishery, but those days are decades…
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…
