The Key to Catching Fish

face. Staring at the rapidly turn- ing spool of his reel Harrison said, “I think I’m hung up.”

a minute.” The spool stopped for a beat, then started up again even faster.

scored exceedingly well the day before.

that morning and just what bait to use. But when I began my early-hour quest for crab, source after source said, ‘sorry, sold out.’ I feared that if the rockfish were keying on crab, anything else would be a very distant second choice.

At 10am, armed only with a bag of scraggly bloodworms purchased in desperation, we finally motored out to try live-lining.

of our rigs’ sinkers bouncing over shell bottom was reassuring, and soon we were swinging a couple of four- to five-inch perch.

I filled our live well, hooked up the aerator and deposited the baitfish with a sense of relief. Perhaps we could tempt some rockfish to eat after all.

Once we had a dozen small perch in our well, we headed for the Bay Bridge. It was almost noon, and the sun was bright and high.

ting on chum slicks. Their anchor lines looked slack, and the postures of the anglers slumped in their craft suggest- ed things had not been going well.