In 1987 I purchased my first real bass boat but I enjoyed saltwater fishing a lot and found dual purposing my 17’ deep-V boat to fish both freshwater lakes and inshore saltwater trips a common place practice. Being an auto mechanic and a person who likes to maximizes everything I owned it was no surprise that my boat looked like it could handle most ocean trips including 3 trips to Catalina Island. This was considered a gutsy thing or as some folks can attest a rather dumb idea if you boat on the ocean long enough. Most trips fishing the ocean I launched out of Dana Landing or the Newport Back Bay to do some local fishing.
On one particular trip I decided to go bass fishing out of Dana Landing and fish along the outside breakwater by myself. Everything was going smoothly launching the boat by myself then parking my Toyota truck and trailer in the parking lot. The marina didn’t seem all that busy at that time of the year which was around late spring when I took this trip. Back then, I was really into fishing plastics like AA Swim baits, Mojos, Fat Gitzats, and Rapalas as my go to fishing lures for Calico bass. I motored out of the harbor and once past the entrance there was a large swell going on so I decided to anchor off the breakwall far enough away as not to be too concerned by being dragged into the rocks. It took a lot of anchor line (scope) to get my vessel anchored safety and I was sitting in about 35 foot of water which was deeper than I wanted to be fishing in. There were good markings on my fish finder of fish activity on a rock pile at this location so I was really excited to see how my luck fishing this area was going to pan out. After getting the boat situated, I got my fishing gear in order and started tossing some swim baits down to the rockpile. I was having some limited success on catching a couple of smallish Calicos and a few mackerels as the day went on. I was getting ready to make a move and headed to the bow to pull in my anchor line and up from the depths of the sea, a large gray whale surfaced not more than maybe 25 yards or less from my boat. As the behemoth mammal surfaced his or her eye looked at me. We had a direct one on one connection to which I could have freaked out but strangely enough, I was at peace witnessing this creature all of time it surfaced. For a few seconds it felt like this very large mammal was just saying "hello". I could feel the intelligence of this magnificent creature when it looked directly at me. We bonded for a few seconds respecting one another in passing. Now you might think I‘m making all this up and telling a fishing yarn but it really happened and I considered this event as one of the rarest, strangest things that has ever happened while fishing in my lifetime. I felt very blessed that day. Truly a gift given to me by powers unknown and something I will never forget. You never know what you’ll see when out fishing. Maybe next trip out of Dana my friend and I will meet again.......hopefully.
