Death In America

I write today about the sad state of our country when great influential people are gunned down because they exercised their 1st amendment rights to free speech granted to the citizens of the United States of America. The person I'm referring to is Charlie Kirk who was the target of a political assassination on September 10th. To those of you who knew Charlie and followed his podcasts on "You Tube" and Facebook, knew he was a very powerful speaker for the Right. He bravely went to college campuses here in the U.S and abroad, and had open microphone debates with people who didn't share his points of view. These debates for many, were very emotional. He discussed topics such as abortion, religion, ethic groups, crime, transgenders and many more topics. He was respectful to those he debated and let them speak their minds and used common sense often to rebuttal arguments. All was done in a peaceful manner. Where ever he spoke their were huge crowds of young people. They say it was Charlie that helped Donald Trump win the 2024 election and that maybe true by helping him to procure a lot of young voters. Charlie was only 31 years old and was married with two young children. He was a Christian and preached those values to his audiences. He authored 2 best selling books and was one of the founders a peaceful organization called Turning Point as well. He was brilliant. Donald Trump and JD Vance considered him a personal friend as did many in the political world on both sides. He even did a podcast with Gavin Newsom. He was fearless. We as a country, need to come together and end this madness of killing people that may have a different view of things. Both Kennedys, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Ronald Reagan shot, Congress women and men and a long list of great people that died too early in life from crazy people. Its got to stop or we are looking at an America that you may not want to live in anymore. Sorry, about this editorial but I had to get this off my chest today and grieving the loss of another great person.

I recently studied the saltwater fish counts from local So Cal Landings and the fishing reports from freshwater fisheries. The outlook was good by my standards. I saw Bonita in the fish counts down south in San Diego. I almost thought them to be extinct the last couple of years. A 10 pound Bonita fights like a Bluefin Tuna on light tackle and although not very good eating they are a heck of a lot of fun to catch. Bonita have sharp teeth so catching them can be challenging on light line. My biggest Bonita went 14 lbs. One other fish that I would love to see make a comeback into local waters is Albacore Tuna. I haven’t seen one caught here in the Southland in over 10 years! We saw them up to 50 lbs. down in San Diego waters and some caught 40 miles west of Morro Bay. I hope they aren’t totally fished out by the commercials and perhaps someone can give me an update on their status. Here’s a fact of interest. When I started fishing saltwater locally we had Chinook King Salmon caught right here off the Newport Beach trench. You could go up to Oxnard and go out on an overnight boat to catch them. My biggest went 23 lbs. Another fun fact there was a Striped Bass fishery in Newport back bay. I never caught one but Greg Silks a renown striper fisherman told me about them. For those of you interested in bay fishing you might try your hand at catching Spotted Bay Bass inside Newport and Huntington Harbors. I’ve done it with my bass boat and it’s a lot of fun. Plastic swim baits and grubs work really well when fishing 6 lb. Test. Chartreuse was my color of choice and occasionally you would catch Halibut, Calicos and Rays to liven things up. Typically, Barracuda start showing up in the fish counts but I haven’t seen any healthy Cuda counts in years. I’m starting to get the impression that fish we once caught locally here in Southern California are going bye-bye like the Dodo. Do you guys feel the same way as I do? Recently I saw a documentary on that they may be able to bring back the Dodo with Genetic Engineering like Jurassic Park movies....... very interesting don’t you think?