Salt Spray

[HabaneroDog]

Daily Breeze By Philip Friedman October 9, 2003

http://www.976-tuna.com/article.php?6.0

Wed Oct 08 2003, 02:11PM

By

Philip Friedman



The gubernatorial victory by Arnold Schwarzenegger Tuesday night has anglers feeling very good about there future. “I think Arnold will give us a fair shake,” said Bob Fletcher, President of SAC (Sportfishing Association of California). “Arnold sees anglers as the big group of voters they really are and we get the impression he will be fair with us. That’s something the previous administration never gave us; fairness,” said Fletcher.

Tom Raftican from United Anglers is thrilled about the prospects with Governor Schwarzenegger. “I have met with Arnold (Schwarzenegger) and he has expressed a great desire to work with anglers and do what’s right. We are not looking for a yes-man,” said Raftican. “We just want someone who will look at the current science before instituting fishing closures,” said Raftican.

“Arnold has given us all some hope and we will be watching to see if he is indeed fair to us,” said Rick Oefinger from Marina del Rey Sportfishing. “We have seen a lot of people get needlessly hurt by fishing closures that were based on catering to environmental extremist,” said Oefinger. “It just fells good to have a chance at a Governor who might treat us with some fairness,” said Oefinger.

Linda Hicks attended a rally for Schwarzenegger on Sunday at Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach and said she supported Schwarzenegger because she thought he would protect her right to fish. “I read where Arnold said we could fish if there were enough fish to catch. That sounded logical to me,” said Hicks.

During the campaign, Schwarzenegger gave hope to anglers with the following quote. “Recreational angling has traditionally been part of the quality of life for millions of Californians, and as long as scientific measurements of fish populations show surpluses available for harvest, California anglers should be allowed the opportunity to be out on the water angling for those fish,” said , Schwarzenegger. Anglers will be paying very close attention to make sure that, Schwarzenegger stays the course with them.

The Eastern Pacific has been a hotbed for meteorological activity over the past two weeks and Baja California has been hit hard. Hurricane Marty reeked tremendous destruction on much of Southern Baja on September 23. Hurricane Ignacio had already caused a great deal of destruction the month before. The good news is that the two current Eastern Pacific disturbances have been down graded to tropical storms and do not seem to present the same kind of danger as the previous Hurricanes. Nonetheless, the region remains very active and bears watching for Baja bound travelers.

Many anglers look forward to the fall albacore bite in Morro Bay as so many times the albacore are bigger. This year however, the albacore have been bigger in San Diego. “It’s truly amazing,” said Legend skipper Shawn Trobridge from Seaforth Sportfishing in San Diego. “Our jackpot fish have been between 40 and 50 pounds for the last several weeks and we have seen very few albacore under 28 pounds.”

That may all be changing as the Seahawk called in on Wednesday from Santa Barbara’s Sea Landing with 94 albacore averaging 30 pounds for only 9 anglers. The Pacific Queen had 195 albacore and 3 bluefin tuna for 25 anglers on Monday. The Queen’s fish were in the 18 to 22 pound class but more and more of the bigger fish are starting to show up.

“We know we are going to get a shot at these big ones,” said Pacific Queen skipper Bill Cavanaugh. “It looks like we are going to get that shot very soon.”