Fishing in the Central Valley: Stay humble, because anyone can catch the big one
I can still vividly remember seeing an angler at San Luis slowly driving an old broken down, wooden “double ended” drift fishing boat back to the dock. It was powered by a sputtering, 2-stroke outboard, with several huge poles hanging out the back. Not an everyday type fishing setup at all.
What was this guy doing? It was almost laughable — so it seemed.
Backing up: My buddy and I had just finished a “fun day” of fishing, and we had done okay, But the overall bite was slow for us.
Of course, because I’m a guide, my boat and tackle are in top shape. So when I saw the guy beaching his boat near the dock I couldn’t help but think, “Could anyone ever catch a single striper in that rig?” From my viewpoint, the boat was a fishing disaster —outdated, dirty and falling apart. Maybe even dangerous.
From where we sat, I could see several massive 8’ shark poles paired with old saltwater Penn level wind reels loaded with at least 50 lb mono. “Was this guy crazy?“ I thought, as we got ready to pull the boat out.
About this time, a guy walked by my boat and asked me if we did any good? I told him we did okay. “Hey, there’s a guy who just came in and he got a big one today. Did you see it?” Now, I always take these things with the grain of salt because “big” means many things to anglers; I was skeptical.
About this time the guy points down the bank to the beached wooden boat, “That’s the boat,” he says. “No, not THAT boat,” I think. I really don’t want to walk down the beach to see if it’s really true — especially if it’s “the floating disaster.“ But I figure it was probably just a small catch in reality. I hate getting crushed.
As I walk up to the boat, it looks even worse up close — with some of the upper planks coming loose. The owner, a nice guy, says that yes, he got his biggest striper ever today — and he invites us to take a look.
I peered over the side and saw that there was a a good 4” of standing water covering the bottom of the drift boat, but it was the big 30lb striper floating in the middle of it that caught me by surprise. How did he do it? The boat had taken on a lot of water, and he had been standing in it all day. I was flabbergasted.
“What happened,” I asked him incredulously.
“I’ve never gotten anything big before,” he told us, “and I don’t know what I’m doing, but I tried trolling a lure for awhile, when I got a huge hit. I landed it around noon. Then I tried trolling again. I hooked another big striper, but I lost it.“
The guy was humble about the catch and almost apologetic — feeling like he hadn’t “earned” the big striper and hooked another. He had just wanted to go fishing — even if he knew that the old boat wasn’t very “seaworthy” and his rods and reels hailed from the 70’s. It was all he had. Yes, someone who really didn’t know much had completely outfished a supposed pro! Ouch! Funny, the simple tactic he was using worked. So I asked him some questions about it that helped me later on, too.
His humble gratitude about the catch took me aback. I hadn’t given him a chance in the world of catching anything, but his willingness to honestly try had produced a lifetime fish any angler would be proud of. I had judged the situation badly. My pride and ego tripped me up.
Looking back, I honestly thought this guy had no chance of catching one small fish, let alone land a monster. In fact, when the first guy at the dock told me about the fish, I had discounted his story because it didn’t fit my preconceived notions. Good lesson for me about humility. It keeps you from having to eat crow.
My takeaways? Stay humble, don’t ever think you’ve got it all figured out, keep learning, and never give up.
