I don’t remember when I started fishing but early family photos suggest I was 4 or 5 years old. As kids in Coronado, we spent countless hours fishing the San Diego Bay at the boat ramp and numerous Navy piers for anything from bass to sharks. We peeled mussels off the rocks in front of the Hotel del Coronado for bait to catch perch in the surf. I bought a 12 foot aluminum boat in high school to patrol a greater portion of the bay for sand bass. My summer job during college was at Point Loma Sportfishing where boats were sent half day to the kelp beds or all day to Mexican waters for yellowtail, bonito, barracuda and others. Mid-summer, the all-day boats shifted offshore for albacore. My first career job took me to Chico where I took up flyfishing in 1984 and spent significant time on Sierra small streams far from any other people. Adulthood added numerous trips to Baja for tuna, dorado, wahoo and billfish as well as expanding my flyfishing from trout to stripers and largemouth bass.
What every one of these experiences share is the anticipation of participation by fish at the other end of your line. A nibble on bait, a trout rising for a dry fly, stripers stopping your strip with a jolt or unweighted live bait getting slammed and line screaming from your reel as a tuna tests your endurance. Our time on the water requires so much preparation of gear and travel planning, but more than anything, we anticipate that electric jolt that comes from any kind of a strike far from our hands. We all know the saying, “The tug is the drug!” and how true it is that we keep coming back to experience that connection again and again.
My mother used to request pictures of me that did not include a hat, dark glasses and a fish but like most of us, my albums are loaded with pictures of success. I sometimes think my most memorable fish are the massive strikes that were never landed. A bluefin tuna I could not boat at the Coronado Islands. An impact bite and screaming run in my kayak in shallow water off New Brighton–big striper, maybe white seabass? Several personal best trout at Crowley in my float tube. A huge Baja yellowfin tuna that spooled my 50 lb reel without ever slowing. And most recently, a striper at the Forebay who was very big and wiser than I. That extra level of what might have been plays over and over in my mind.
Fishing for me is about the outdoors, spending time with favorite fishing partners and catching fish in wonderful settings. But perhaps what constantly takes me back for more, is the anticipation of life impacting the other end of my line and the excitement of what it might be.
Posted on April 29th, 2026