Before the last few years started and my fishing crossed the line between a hobby and a maniacal obsession, there were many things I thought I'd never find myself doing. Either through morality, or cowardice, or the sheer impossibility of it, there was a long list of things that I'd never do or have happen to me. Above all, I never thought I'd find myself entering any sort of fishing tournament.
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| Wrong year, but they must have given up with logos after 2010. Also, that isn't a rockfish. |
For starters, I HATE fishing tournaments. Given that I already treat fishing like a competition, having it actually become one only raises my constant intensity level and stress. Why can't everyone just fish for the fun of it? Why does it have to be a cutthroat competition where everyone's trying to outdo each other for some monetary prize? I have watched PLENTY of bass fishing tournaments on TV, and that experience alone only intensified my hatred of angling competitions. ESPN coverage. Ridiculous speedboats with NASCAR-esque logos festooned on their sides. Bubba McGuire or whoever cranking in his bass on 50 lb test and screaming "who's your daddy" or something along the lines at the confused fish. The fireworks display at the weigh in. The cheerleaders. The confetti as Bubba's victory is announced to millions of viewers. More screaming. More "who's your daddy"-ness. I imagined the ORC being more or less along the lines of that sort of spectacle.
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| Now that's one confused fish in the upper left hand corner. |
For once in my life, I was glad to have been wrong. The ORC was a relaxed, casual competition more focused on getting people involved in kayak fishing. Although the grand prize was an all-expense paid trip to Alaska, most of the guys entered (except me of course) had probably all been to Alaska at some point and were more concerned with enjoying a day out on the water. Since Depoe Bay is the safest and easiest place to launch a kayak on the coast, it was ideal for beginning kayak fishermen. Unlike most bass tournaments I've seen, where shotguns start coming out if guys fish too close to one another, most of the fishermen were seen in close proximity to one another. I could easily have casual conversations about the fishing with people nearby, and I was pleasantly surprised to even run into people I knew. As for the fishing itself, it was on the slow side. The first several areas I fished had nothing but snags and uncharacteristically aggressive seagulls. However. I found some structure on my fish finder a little ways south of Depoe Bay and began catching some nice Black Rockfish.
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| I was also the only entrant in Depoe Bay's concurrent kayaking fashion contest. I lost. |
I started off the day's fishing with the biggest jigs I could find, hoping for a giant Lingcod. After countless snags and the dawning realization that today wasn't going to be one of those days, I switched out my rig for some shrimp flies. Since I wasn't going to win the tournament, I figured I might as well catch some rockfish to eat. I didn't want to come back with an empty stringer. Thankfully, I began catching more and more Black Rockfish with the smaller shrimp flies.
Most of the rockfish were pretty good sized, too. Of all the rockfish species, Black Sea Bass are by far the hardest fighters and the most aggressive. However, the biggest reason I was glad these fish were on the larger side was because of a new toy I had picked up a few days ago for this occasion. It was something I've wanted to own and use for a long, long time.
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| Now that's something you don't see on most fishing blogs. |
No, not that. The photo above is of my uncle wearing a fashionable bunny suit that was a birthday gift from me. The story behind it is long, confusing, and involves razor clams, but I thought it would be worth putting here for later use. Also note the large bottle of whiskey the rabbit is clutching. The toy I was talking about is this bad boy pictured below:
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| It also comes in handy in case I lose one of my hands! |
That's right, a gaff. Something about a gaff just screams "extreme" the way a landing net never could. A muscular fisherman sticking a giant fish with an enormous, dangerous hook attached to a wooden pole is infinitely more badass than a wimpy neophyte weakly flailing at a trout with a moldy net. In addition, you can't just gaff any fish. Although I've definitely tried to gaff just about everything, including hatchery trout and aquarium fish, a gaff is only meant to be used on a big fish. One that you couldn't land without a gaff. Of course, there were no such fish today and I had to settle for using my new instrument of terror on the rockfish. It worked surprisingly well, and I didn't lose any fish.
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| The face of a fish that just got GAFFED! |
Although most of the fish I hooked were Black Rockfish (Sea Bass), I managed to catch a few shaker Lingcod as well. These little guys were everywhere, as most of the fish I saw other anglers catch were little Lings in the 14-20 inch range. I did talk to a few fishermen who had caught Cabezon, a species who's rapidly approaching "cursed status" (see
here). Although my situation with these extremely ugly fish is nowhere near my former status with the surfperch, I have been bottom fishing for way too long to have never caught one. I've seen dozens of guys all around me catch them on identical tackle, but have never hooked one myself, Every time I go bottom fishing, I tell myself that this will be the time I catch the Cabezon. It never is and likely never will be.
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| For now, I'll have to settle with catching shaker Lingcod. |
After a few more hours of fishing, the coast guard radioed in to recommend that all kayaks head in due to increasingly rough ocean conditions. Although the "recommendation" was ignored by most of the guys I was fishing with, I was tired and hungry and decided to head in with my stringer of fish. None of the fish were large enough to win the tournament, but it had been a fun day on the water nonetheless. I caught several nice fish, the weather wasn't bad, and it was a great opportunity to do some kayak fishing on the beautiful Oregon Coast. I would definitely enter the tournament again next year.
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| A far less dramatic weigh-in than the one I showed earlier. |
I have been fishing out of Depoe Bay since forever, but I haven't fished from a kayak until fairly recently. Before I began donning spacesuits and heading out in unstable plastic contraptions, I would usually go with Tradewinds Charters. They were fun, safe, and good for the beginning fisherman. At the beginning, I was so excited about catching fish that I didn't really pay attention to anything else. However, as the years progressed and I fazed out of my initial excitement of purely catching fish I began realizing that the charter boat scene wasn't for me. I didn't like sharing a boat with twenty other people who were fishing for the same fish as me. I would always see other, less experienced people catch more and bigger fish than me and someone would always end up puking over the side. The deckhands were generally friendly but did everything for me and I sometimes felt like I wasn't even fishing. At a certain point, I just kept going because I liked catching fish and didn't have any other way of getting out. That was until Tradewinds got nailed for like 20 counts of racketeering and fraud.
It felt like one of those moments when a celebrity gets arrested for something. These guys have been around for years, and precede virtually all other charter services in the area. Finding out that the owners and the vast majority of their fleet have been indicted for a crazy amount of charges is unbelievable. I always suspected they had something to hide, but I thought that it'd have something to do with whaling. I don't remember half of the charges being pressed against these guys, but the internet article went over a few of them.
That's fifteen counts total in that short section alone. Apparently, they had been illegally selling counterfeit fishing licenses and keeping the money (nearly $70,000) for themselves. Essentially, stealing from customers. In addition, there are counts later in the article of "assisting others in wildlife violations," and "conspiring to assist others in wildlife violations," meaning that that Lingcod I caught last season probably wasn't 23 inches. Although the company has stated that they are still open for business, I can't imagine a scandal like this not ruining their reputation and their business. This can possibly result in the biggest and most profitable charter company on the coast going out of business and leaving a gaping hole in the Depoe Bay fishing industry. I'll give updates on anything else that has to do with this scandal, as well as on my plans to overtake Tradewinds Charters with my own charter services. It's time for some change.
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| Our prices are so low they should be as illegal as Tradewinds' business activity! |
How did we get from bass tournaments to questionable business schemes?
Kamran Walsh
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