5/29/2023 0 Comments Fish heads shoesHe always wore suspenders with his jeans, which were too high and tight around his waist. Tom-Su had buckteeth and often drooled as if his mouth and jaw had been forever dentist-numbed. "Dead already." And that's all he said, with a grin. Why do you bite the heads off the fish when they're still alive?" "Tom-Su," one of us once said, "tell us the truth. He was new from Korea, and had a special way of treating fish that wiggled at the end of his drop line. Tom-Su spoke very little English and understood even less. When the catch was too meager to sell, it went to the one whose family needed it the most. ![]() We sold our catch to locals before they stepped into the market - mostly Slavs and Italians, who usually bought everything - and we split up the money. We'd fish and crab for most of each day and then head to the San Pedro fish market. And always, at each spot, Tom-Su sat himself down alone with his drop line and stared into the water as he rocked back and forth.Īside from Tom-Su's tagging along, the summer was a typical one for us. Often the fish schools jumped greedy from the water for the baited ends of our lowering drop lines, as if they couldn't wait for the frying pan. It was also where Al Capone was imprisoned many years ago.īut mostly we headed to the Pink Building, over by Deadman's Slip and back on the San Pedro side, because the fish there bit hungry and came in spread-out schools. Sometimes, as we fished and watched the pelicans, we liked to recall that Berth 300 was next to the federal penitentiary, where rich businessmen spent their caught days. Sometimes, as an extra, we got to watch the big gray pelicans just off the edge of Berth 300 headfirst themselves into the wavy seawater, with the small trailer birds hot on their tails, hoping to snatch and scoop away any overflow from the huge bills. Then we strolled over to Berth 300 with drop lines, bait knives, and gotta-have doughnuts, all in one or two buckets. Sometimes we silently borrowed a rowboat from the tugboat docks and paddled to Terminal Island, across the harbor just in front of us, and hid the rowboat under an unbusy wharf. Additionally, circle hooks for anything larger than a croaker is new for me.SOMETIMES, that summer in Los Angeles, we fished and crabbed behind the Maritime Museum or from the concrete pier next to the Catalina Terminal, underneath the San Pedro side of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. However, I had been hooking heads through the buttom or both lips until my recent video discovery (only because hooking through the lips left the hook tip exposed). ![]() I'm sure that any drag setting that allows the rod to be jerked back 3-8 foot without the drag totally letting line out is enough to make a large "J" hook pierce the fish's mouth. Again, it's small with the heads being roughly 1/2 inch wide in the neck area. My "fresh" bait normally comes from throwing a casting net and it's small (just cut it in half). ![]() This past weekend.I happened to clean them on the pier and I just found myself stuffing them in a ziplock. I usually let them run a bit before disengaging the baitrunner and setting the hook.but this is with the back or tail sections.ĩ outta 10 times I clean my fish at home and I never save the heads. I stay staked in pretty good and prefer to hammer the spikes completely verticle or a little back towards the beach.
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