Can Volunteering Make a Fisherman Lucky?
A true story by volunteer Jerry Poehlman
I’ve been fishing local San Diego waters for close to 40 years,
and have
never landed a legal white sea bass. I retired in Jan of this year, giving
me more time to do some of the things I love to do, such as hiking and
fishing. My fishing buddy, Bob Williams, had also recently retired, so
we
both enlisted in the WSB feeding program, in order to give something back
to
the ocean that we love and enjoy so much. By the way, Bob had also never
caught a legal WSB. As luck (or karma) would have it, Bob finally caught
a
legal WSB in Feb of this year. Although I was very happy for him, I still
wondered if or when my turn would ever come.
The day I caught the WSB, Bob and I had decided to fish Mission Bay for
Halibut. We went to our favorite spot and were catching Spotted Bay Bass
and
small Halibut. That afternoon I hooked a fish that started to fight harder
and was larger than what we had been catching. To our surprise, when I
got
the fish to the boat it was a large WSB. We netted the fish, measured
it and
it was a legal fish.
I took the head of the WSB to Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute on Mission
Bay for their research program. That day they had just picked up WSB heads
from drop-off points from up and down the coast, and were scanning the
heads
for possible tags. They took me to the area where they were scanning for
the
tags and I watched as they scanned the one I had brought in. To our surprise
the scanner detected a tag. A week later Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute
notified me that it was a tagged WSB released from San Diego Bay in 2005.
So after a combined 60 years of local San Diego fishing, 2 old pals decide
to volunteer for the WSB volunteer feeding program, and within 4 months,
both land their first legal fish, and amazingly, one of the fish was a
product of the local hatchery program. Just a coincidence, or could it
be
positive karma? Your guess is as good as ours, but we are 2 happy fishermen,
wearing frozen smiles on our faces every time we show up at the pen to
feed
the baby WSB. Who knows, maybe some of these youngsters will come back
to visit us in a few years!
** Please email volunteer@sdoceans.org to volunteer for the White Seabass Restocking Project!