My best day of fishing I was working,
Dan Beswick sold paper to printers, and on summer weekends he took them salmon fishing on his double ended Monterey which was docked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. Good customer relations for Dan, and an opportunity for me at 15 to make a little money while pursuing my favorite hobby.
In 1956 most of my high school buddies were lucky to have $1.00 an hour jobs as box boys or mowing lawns, and $40 a week was good money. I “worked” one day a week, Saturday, and three or four guests on the Lollie B. tipped big since they paid nothing for some fine salmon fishing. $30 to $80 a Saturday helped support my other interests.
My job was to get to the Wharf at about 5:am, buy frozen blocks of anchovies for bait, swab down the boat, make sure it was fueled and oiled, and then rig the baits. A special hook is run from vent to mouth and then the mouth pinned shut and wired so that the bait trolls true. I would do half the five pound block and put the rigged baits on ice, saving the rest for later.
Men would start to arrive about 5:30am and I would direct them to the coffee shack which was in the center of the docks and away from the tourist spots. Dan would roll in about 6:am, check the boat and round up the fishers of the day. He always brought something great for lunch, sometimes Italian cold cuts on French bread, sometimes cold cracked Dungeness Crab, some times hamburger meat (we cooked on board) and buns. He loved to serve a special lunch.
The galley produced coffee too, so all sat around holding hot cups to sip from and to take the chill from their hands. Dan took the helm and we slowly chugged out the Bay, through the Gate and out to where the squawk box said fish were being caught. We were the slowest boat of all, the Lollie B. had a two cylinder diesel that fired so slow you could hear the individual ignitions. But nobody minded, brandy and coffee go a long way.
Furthest West we went was to the Farallones, some small islands which are about thirty miles off the California coast. Famous now for being one of the favorite haunts of the great white shark there were more sharks there then than when Jaws slandered them. To us they were the “damn sharks!” To be fighting a good size salmon and then feel the line go slack only to then reel in a two pound head with a moon shaped chomp where the rest should have been is devastating. We seldom saw them, but now and then one would cruise along right next to the boat, and almost as long as the boat!
We trolled four rods, each bait and leader taken down about thirty feet by a three pound iron weight attached by a pin and spring mechanism which when pulled from the bait end dropped the weight so that the fish could be fought without all that weight interfering. Guys drew numbers for rotating strikes, and when the rod snapped up if it was your number it was your strike, and hopefully your fish. FISH ON was the cry to draw attention to the rod in action. Salmon fight as good as they taste, and the silver salmon although usually smaller were the most fun because they jump, not only a sight to behold but a dual excitement because that is when they most often throw the hook.
Keepers had to be 21 inches and the limit at that time was 3 fish per person. Dan and I could take limits too, so some days we came in with 18 fish ranging from five to thirty five pounds, most in the high teens and low twenties. Fish under 21 inches were called shakers because they were un hooked by grabbing the hook with a small gaff and while turning the hook upside down shaking the gaff – the fish dropped into the sea to feed, grow and get ready for us next year. When things were really slow I would fire up a hibachi on davits above the engine cover and place a butterflied shaker on the grill. Tented with foil the fish was ready in less than ten minutes and I slid the crisp skinned fish to a platter and removed the bones. Fingers got burned as men grabbed chunks too hot to hold. No butter, no capers, no salt, no pepper, nada – but the best salmon anyone ever tasted.
One day it was very, very slow during the morning and the guys got bored and drank way too much. By noon all were asleep in the cabin. FISH ON I yelled and no one responded, so I fought and landed the fish, a nice one of about twelve pounds. We were into a school of them and as much as I yelled no one came out of the cabin. So I caught twelve 12 pound salmon, one right after another until the school departed. By the time the guests came on deck only a few smaller fish were available, but everybody got at least one and all were quite pleased with their day outside the Gate with Dan and the kid.
With 36 pounds of salmon each, tips were huge. I deserved it, I was working after all.
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