Salty Dogs

    The drive out to Bodega Harbor is a treacherous combination of thick fog and lack of caffeine, but to my surprise I arrive without incident just after first light. I have wanted to fish salmon off the coast for years now, but the opportunity always seemed to elude me. I caught salmon in the Puget Sound during my days of living in the Northwest, but the northern California coast holds a special allure for me and I need to experience it first hand.
   
    I find my guide, fisherman and farmer’s market salesman Dave Legro, enjoying a cup of mud with Sam Garcia, who apparently is the unspoken mayor of this little group of retired fish hounds, and Mark Dyke, a roofer from Sacramento, who says “fishing is the best free acupuncture he’s ever had.” Secretly, I hope this doesn’t mean that I’m about to get skewered by a hook. They’re busy yapping about the conditions and the spots they are going to choose, spiced up with some great stories of past exploits. Sam is almost eighty years old and he looks in better shape than most fifty year olds I know (me included). At one point Dave says, “If I catch five fish, Sam always catches seven or eight. He’s the best fisherman out here.” Sam shakes his head in humble dismissal, but the twinkle in his eye shows acknowledgment.
   
    Hemingway and Steinbeck spent much of their careers chronicling the exploits of men in their relationship to the ocean. For good reason; there is nothing like a fisherman’s tale of romance and struggle to fire up the senses of our own seemingly mundane lives.
   
    Dave Legro fits the profile of a character in a steamy crime novel to a tee. He’s a combat veteran of Vietnam with dual degrees from Berkeley in English literature and criminology, who spent thirty years on the police force as a detective and sheriff. For him, fishing and selling his catch at the Healdsburg and Sebastopol markets is the culmination of retirement dreams come true. “As a cop, you are hated by the criminals, and the victims are too overwhelmed by their own tragedy to care. So when I sell my product at the market and people tell me how much they appreciate what I do, it’s a real lift for my spirit.”
   
    Before long, Dave says its time to head out and we make our way to the dock where his boat the Bumble Bee is moored. It’s a smallish boat with enough room for a few coolers and me. The boat seems well used and at first I’m a bit concerned about how long it’s going to take for us to chug out to sea. Then Dave fires up the Chevy 350 engine and I know I’m in for a ride.
   
    Loaded with enough Dramamine to stop the earth’s orbit, I hang on tight as Dave opens up the throttle in rough seas, just outside the harbor. I feel like I’m fishing in Alaska. The fog is thick and the waves are high. Dave says it’s one of the worst days he’s seen this year and I’m swearing once again at Murphy for coming up with that law of his.

    But I’m almost as stubborn as the ocean and, no matter what; I am not going to ruin my chance at fishing by getting sick. At certain moments I can sense Dave sizing me up out of the corner of his eye, which makes sense. Who the hell wants to ruin a good fishing day by having to coddle a seasick chef?
   
    Fortunately, once we get out to about 220 feet of depth, the seas calm a bit and I begin to feel better. For nine hours we troll slowly up and down the coast with herring bait on two poles with eight lines. The fog never lifts, but that doesn’t stop the sea lions and gulls from watching our every move in hopes of swiping a free meal. At one point Dave calls Sam on his cell phone and it seems they had a close call with a great white shark attempting to pull over one of the boats. I hope he doesn’t get bored and come our way. In the end Dave caught four beautiful salmon. People often wonder how to tell a fresh fish from an old one and all I can say is that there is nothing like the rainbow turquoise sheen of a freshly caught salmon. It’s magic to the eyes.
   
    I am sure Dave would not want me to mention this. But after several hours of tough talk about seals, I catch him feeding salmon guts to a seal pup that’s taken to trailing the boat. Then to top it off, he even reels in a seagull that’s been hooked trying to steel bait and releases it unharmed in mid-air. This display is testament to the fact that the beauty of nature can make softies out of anyone tough enough to venture out of bed.