02-19-2008, 12:10 AM
Anglers should win a trophy for just being able to pronounce the four fish that make up the grand prize at this inland California fishery
BOMBAY BEACH, Calif. - Desert fishing sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it? Kind of like jumbo shrimp or freezer burn.
For Steve Horvitz, a Department of Parks and Recreation superintendent stationed at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area, it's a contradiction he doesn't mind unraveling to any curious passer-by.
"We get an awful lot of second looks, especially when they see the 36-pound corvina," he said. " `In the desert you can catch a 36-pound fish?' they ask. I don't know if people would believe it if we didn't have it hanging in the visitor center."
And, no, that isn't a mirage outside the building. It's an angling oasis in the Colorado Desert known as the Salton Sea - 35 miles long and 15 miles wide "¦ and brimming with fish.
Salton Sea quick facts
"¢ Filled in 1905 when Colorado River flooded into Salton basin
"¢ Elevation: -228 feet
"¢ Only inland U.S. fishery with sargo and orangemouth corvina
"¢ You need a freshwater license to catch fish
The 36½-pound orangemouth corvina it yielded in 1980 and now mounted in the park office is a state record. Plenty of other corvina - a croaker similar to the white seabass that was transplanted from the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1950s - weighing upward of 30 pounds have been hooked.
The corvina, not to be
with the California corbina, is one of the sea's four game fish. Catch all four in a day and you can brag of pulling off a Salton Sea grand slam.
The Salton Sea slam isn't nearly as celebrated as its counterparts to the north, notably the San Francisco Bay's halibut-sturgeon-salmon-striped bass four-bagger or the Sierra Nevada's trout slam of brook, brown, rainbow and golden. But what it lacks in fame, the Salton Sea slam makes up in uniqueness, diversity and a flair for the exotic. Consider: corvina, bairdiella, tilapia and sargo.
Anglers should win a prize for just being able to pronounce them. The Salton Sea, situated about 160 miles southeast of Los Angeles, is the only inland U.S. fishery to support these species and is thought to be the only place in the world you can catch them in a single day, Horvitz said.
That was the mission of our party as Bombay Beach resident Jay Abernathy's tiny aluminum boat departed the marina here. The temperature was 118 degrees, in the shade; the lake's surface was about 90.
The wrinkled 68-year-old Abernathy is on the water daily with a spinning outfit and 8- to 10-pound line. He usually boats a limit of five corvina - the largest, sportiest and tastiest of the bunch - in an hour or so.
"I eat corvina every day," said Abernathy, whose biggest is a 32-pounder that engulfed a sargo he was reeling in. "Me and my cat, Lucy, we like it real well."
Manning the motor was his fishing buddy of 20 years, Joe Braden, of Hesperia, who is quite at home in the heat. "You get the beer sweated out of you," he said. A heavy-set chap, Braden could stand to do a little more sweating.
From shore the tilapia were rampantly hitting halved worms. Favoring 17-pound line, a size No. 2 hook, a 2-ounce sinker and a long cast on a 10-foot rod, San Bernardino's Calvin H. Pierce brought 63 tilapia to shore in four hours. There is no limit on this perchlike species imported from North Africa, so you can bring home as many as can fit in a cooler.
"When you can get a good bite going and catch so many, there's nothing better," Pierce said. "It beats washing windows. You know, the wife says, 'Honey, do "¦'"
Still, completing the slam would be a tough assignment, considering that sargo bite best in winter and the corvina are rebounding from a decade of high salinity that inhibits their spawning process, Horvitz explained.
The drought years of the 1980s wreaked havoc on the fish population. Lack of rain prevented freshwater runoff - from the Whitewater, Alamo and New rivers and the surrounding Coachella Valley - from diluting the sea. As the water evaporates, salt and minerals are left behind. At times the sea is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
As the corvina diminished, so did the anglers, guide services, boat rentals and bait shops that made the Salton Sea one of the state's most prolific fishing holes in the '60s, '70s and early '80s. That's when the state park would regularly enjoy more than 500,000 visitors a year, most of whom came for the fishing at California's largest lake.
In recent years, Horvitz has faced a publicity nightmare, over and above the poor fishing that resulted in a record low park attendance of 87,000 in 1993. There were claims the lake is polluted and a massive die-off of birds, including 20 percent of the state's endangered brown pelicans, due to botulism.
Theories suggest the fowl were infected by eating tilapia, which were rotting alive from bacterial infections. But no one is sure if the fish got sick as a result of the sea's rising salinity, bacteria, pollution, temperature, losses of oxygen content or other factors.
Just getting to the park can deter visitors. Motorists pass through two of America's most overstated and understated towns - Thermal, where the temperature on this adventure was 122, and Mecca, which is anything but. And don't dare roll down the car window; any coolness from the air conditioning will be sucked out immediately and replaced with a horde of flies.
Evidence of the fish problem is still very apparent. Countless tilapia wash up on the shore in various forms of decay. Mecca, indeed. Carcasses surrounded the boat as we drifted and bounced half-ounce Hopkins jigs - proven to be as deadly on fish as Mother Nature; baitfish anglers prefer night crawlers, mudsuckers, waterdogs and small tilapia - off the sea's sandy and muddy bottom. But enough with the calamity already.
This is a fishing story, for goodness sake. The good news is that the Salton Sea is relishing in a major comeback. The corvina and sargo are recovering, thanks to strong winters and heavy rains in recent years.
More than 204,000 recreationists came to the park in fiscal year 1996-97. "The fishing hasn't been good in five or six years, but this year has been the best in a decade," said Lee Head, manager of the Bombay Beach Marina and RV Park. "We're trying to get the sea back alive."
And August is spawning time for orangemouth corvina, meaning larger specimens are more active. "The hotter the better," Head said.
No behemoths were landed on our trip, but we did get eight hard-fighting corvina in the 2- to 4-pound range.
"They'll strip out a 100 yards of line, stand up like trout on their tales and spit that lure out fast," Braden said. Also boated was a slew of tilapia (those that aren't floating are delicious-eating) and bairdiella, a smaller croaker - both of which are forage for corvina. Only the sargo, an ocean grunt, was missing from the slam.
On one of the afternoon's last casts - two hours constitutes an afternoon of fishing in this liquefying heat - Braden landed a sargo. The slam was executed.
"It's pretty rare," Abernathy stated. The words were like ice to my sun-scorched skin.
BOMBAY BEACH, Calif. - Desert fishing sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it? Kind of like jumbo shrimp or freezer burn.
For Steve Horvitz, a Department of Parks and Recreation superintendent stationed at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area, it's a contradiction he doesn't mind unraveling to any curious passer-by.
"We get an awful lot of second looks, especially when they see the 36-pound corvina," he said. " `In the desert you can catch a 36-pound fish?' they ask. I don't know if people would believe it if we didn't have it hanging in the visitor center."
And, no, that isn't a mirage outside the building. It's an angling oasis in the Colorado Desert known as the Salton Sea - 35 miles long and 15 miles wide "¦ and brimming with fish.
Salton Sea quick facts
"¢ Filled in 1905 when Colorado River flooded into Salton basin
"¢ Elevation: -228 feet
"¢ Only inland U.S. fishery with sargo and orangemouth corvina
"¢ You need a freshwater license to catch fish
The 36½-pound orangemouth corvina it yielded in 1980 and now mounted in the park office is a state record. Plenty of other corvina - a croaker similar to the white seabass that was transplanted from the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1950s - weighing upward of 30 pounds have been hooked.
The corvina, not to be
with the California corbina, is one of the sea's four game fish. Catch all four in a day and you can brag of pulling off a Salton Sea grand slam.The Salton Sea slam isn't nearly as celebrated as its counterparts to the north, notably the San Francisco Bay's halibut-sturgeon-salmon-striped bass four-bagger or the Sierra Nevada's trout slam of brook, brown, rainbow and golden. But what it lacks in fame, the Salton Sea slam makes up in uniqueness, diversity and a flair for the exotic. Consider: corvina, bairdiella, tilapia and sargo.
Anglers should win a prize for just being able to pronounce them. The Salton Sea, situated about 160 miles southeast of Los Angeles, is the only inland U.S. fishery to support these species and is thought to be the only place in the world you can catch them in a single day, Horvitz said.
That was the mission of our party as Bombay Beach resident Jay Abernathy's tiny aluminum boat departed the marina here. The temperature was 118 degrees, in the shade; the lake's surface was about 90.
The wrinkled 68-year-old Abernathy is on the water daily with a spinning outfit and 8- to 10-pound line. He usually boats a limit of five corvina - the largest, sportiest and tastiest of the bunch - in an hour or so.
"I eat corvina every day," said Abernathy, whose biggest is a 32-pounder that engulfed a sargo he was reeling in. "Me and my cat, Lucy, we like it real well."
Manning the motor was his fishing buddy of 20 years, Joe Braden, of Hesperia, who is quite at home in the heat. "You get the beer sweated out of you," he said. A heavy-set chap, Braden could stand to do a little more sweating.
From shore the tilapia were rampantly hitting halved worms. Favoring 17-pound line, a size No. 2 hook, a 2-ounce sinker and a long cast on a 10-foot rod, San Bernardino's Calvin H. Pierce brought 63 tilapia to shore in four hours. There is no limit on this perchlike species imported from North Africa, so you can bring home as many as can fit in a cooler.
"When you can get a good bite going and catch so many, there's nothing better," Pierce said. "It beats washing windows. You know, the wife says, 'Honey, do "¦'"
Still, completing the slam would be a tough assignment, considering that sargo bite best in winter and the corvina are rebounding from a decade of high salinity that inhibits their spawning process, Horvitz explained.
The drought years of the 1980s wreaked havoc on the fish population. Lack of rain prevented freshwater runoff - from the Whitewater, Alamo and New rivers and the surrounding Coachella Valley - from diluting the sea. As the water evaporates, salt and minerals are left behind. At times the sea is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
As the corvina diminished, so did the anglers, guide services, boat rentals and bait shops that made the Salton Sea one of the state's most prolific fishing holes in the '60s, '70s and early '80s. That's when the state park would regularly enjoy more than 500,000 visitors a year, most of whom came for the fishing at California's largest lake.
In recent years, Horvitz has faced a publicity nightmare, over and above the poor fishing that resulted in a record low park attendance of 87,000 in 1993. There were claims the lake is polluted and a massive die-off of birds, including 20 percent of the state's endangered brown pelicans, due to botulism.
Theories suggest the fowl were infected by eating tilapia, which were rotting alive from bacterial infections. But no one is sure if the fish got sick as a result of the sea's rising salinity, bacteria, pollution, temperature, losses of oxygen content or other factors.
Just getting to the park can deter visitors. Motorists pass through two of America's most overstated and understated towns - Thermal, where the temperature on this adventure was 122, and Mecca, which is anything but. And don't dare roll down the car window; any coolness from the air conditioning will be sucked out immediately and replaced with a horde of flies.
Evidence of the fish problem is still very apparent. Countless tilapia wash up on the shore in various forms of decay. Mecca, indeed. Carcasses surrounded the boat as we drifted and bounced half-ounce Hopkins jigs - proven to be as deadly on fish as Mother Nature; baitfish anglers prefer night crawlers, mudsuckers, waterdogs and small tilapia - off the sea's sandy and muddy bottom. But enough with the calamity already.
This is a fishing story, for goodness sake. The good news is that the Salton Sea is relishing in a major comeback. The corvina and sargo are recovering, thanks to strong winters and heavy rains in recent years.
More than 204,000 recreationists came to the park in fiscal year 1996-97. "The fishing hasn't been good in five or six years, but this year has been the best in a decade," said Lee Head, manager of the Bombay Beach Marina and RV Park. "We're trying to get the sea back alive."
And August is spawning time for orangemouth corvina, meaning larger specimens are more active. "The hotter the better," Head said.
No behemoths were landed on our trip, but we did get eight hard-fighting corvina in the 2- to 4-pound range.
"They'll strip out a 100 yards of line, stand up like trout on their tales and spit that lure out fast," Braden said. Also boated was a slew of tilapia (those that aren't floating are delicious-eating) and bairdiella, a smaller croaker - both of which are forage for corvina. Only the sargo, an ocean grunt, was missing from the slam.
On one of the afternoon's last casts - two hours constitutes an afternoon of fishing in this liquefying heat - Braden landed a sargo. The slam was executed.
"It's pretty rare," Abernathy stated. The words were like ice to my sun-scorched skin.