Sun, Fun, And Striper Pandemonium During California Dawn’s Third Annual Couples Challenge   By: Cal Kellogg June 18, 2008 More Articles by Cal

For my money there is nothing on the Northern California fishing scene as exciting as red hot striper fishing. If you’ve ever been on a charter boat during an absolutely wide open striper bite, you know the feeling. If you haven’t you’ll have to use you imagination.

It’s an adrenaline rush that only occurs when fishing with a group of other anglers. Birds are dropping into the water to grab baitfish. Anglers are yelling “FISH ON!” all around the boat. Crew members are running back and forth across the deck frantically netting bass and you know that as soon as you drop your anchovy adorned hook into the water you’ll be hooked up to a handsome hard fighting striper almost instantly.

Such was the scene on the deck of the California Dawn during the 3rd Annual couples challenge on May 15, but I’m getting way ahead of myself. I guess that adrenaline hasn’t fully worn off yet!

The California Dawn’s Couples Challenge is the only event of its kind on the West Coast. Basically, it is a lighthearted saltwater fishing battle of the sexes sponsored by Captain James Smith of the California Dawn and the Fish Sniffer Magazine, in which men and women battle for bragging rights while live bait potluck fishing within San Francisco Bay. Since the women had dominated during the event in both 2006 and 2007 there was a lot of pressure for the men to step up and earn back a little respect this year.

When my wife Gena and I arrived at the Berkeley Marina at 5:30 in the morning, about half of the 26 Fish Sniffer readers that had signed up for the trip were shuffling about the deck of the California Dawn and Tawny, the boat’s talented cook, was hard at work in the galley preparing breakfast. The trip was slated to be a fully catered affair and I’d been looking forward to enjoying Tawny’s delicious culinary creations during the days leading up to the trip.

James and his wife Ashley arrived at about 6:30 and we soon found ourselves motoring over to the marina’s bait receivers to load up with live anchovies before heading out onto the bay in search of halibut and stripers.

The Smith name is a familiar one with anglers in the Golden State and beyond. Captain Jim Smith of the Happy Hooker is the patriarch of the clan. Over the decades Jim has earned the reputation of being one of the most talented skippers operating in San Francisco Bay and the ocean waters outside the Golden Gate.

Two of Smith’s sons, Captains Steve and Chris Smith have migrated up to Alaska were they spend their time hunting huge halibut, hard fighting salmon and the world’s largest lingcod.

James Smith has followed in his father’s footsteps. He has taken everything he learned working with his dad, combined it with years of on the water experience operating his own boat and is now recognized as one of the North State’s hardest fishing and most consistently productive charter operators.

I’ve had the opportunity to fish with all the Smiths. Jim and Steve are the most outwardly intense, while Chris and James seem more kicked back, yet below the surface all four of them have the same drive to put their clients on the best fishing available. As a result when James quietly announced a few minutes after boarding the California Dawn that he had a surprise for us, I knew we were in store for something special indeed.

After sliding out of the marina, James steered north past the Berkeley Pier and into the North Bay, coming to a stop off Point Richmond. The previous day James had found good numbers of big halibut in the area, so we dropped our live bait rigs to the bottom with high hopes. The tide was nearly slack when we started, so we weren’t covering much ground, but it didn’t seem to matter since we started picking up halibut right away.

We’d probably been drifting for a half hour or so and had 3 or 4 fish in the box, when someone yelled fish on from the portside. Since I was on the starboard side I couldn’t see what was going on, but when a cheer erupted on the other side of the boat I knew a big fish had been landed so headed over to the fish box, to take a photo of the lucky angler.

The halibut was a real dandy that I guessed to be about 17 pounds. The angler that caught it was named George Covert. His name was destined to become familiar to everyone aboard as the day went on and quality fish continued to zero in on his baits.

After George’s big halibut went into the box, we continued making drifts in the same area. In all we probably spent about two hours working the area in front of Point Richmond and ended up with a total of 9 keeper halibut, a similar number of shakers and one beautiful 10 pound striper.

When the halibut bite slowed down we secured our rods and set out on a run up past the brothers. Most anglers aboard didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that we were looking for stripers, the surprise James had mentioned.

With the spring striper spawn in the delta largely over, the bass are migrating down from Suisun and San Pablo Bays toward their summer stomping grounds in San Francisco Bay and on beaches outside the Golden Gate. The stripers, hungry from the rigors of the spawn feed voraciously on anchovies, salmon smolts, smelt, perch and pretty much anything else they can catch as they make their way down into the bay.

It was an uncharacteristically hot day out on the bay and I was enjoying the cool breeze and spray when James’s voice burst over the boat’s public address system.

“Guys to battle stations! Get your rods - there’s a huge group of birds up in front of us and they’re going nuts,” exclaimed James.

Taking a peek around the boat’s cabin the sight of the circling and diving birds made my heart skip a beat. I’d been telling Gena how wild a wide open striper bite can be and now it looked as if she would be experiencing one first hand!

A few minutes later, James throttled back, turned the boat sideways in the drift and told us to drop in. Our first drift skirted the edge of the action. We had a few strikes, but only landed one bass. As James positioned the boat for our second drift he told everyone to put on a fresh bait. “Don’t drop your gear to the bottom guys. The fish are near the surface. Just put your gear down 20 or 30 feet and then slowly reel up until you get hit,” instructed Smith.

From that point forward things get a little hazy. As soon as we dropped our baits, people started whooping and hollering “Fish On.” Gena’s rod got hammered and her fish bolted for the bow, got tangled in other lines and broke off.

As she walked toward me a bass grabbed my anchovy. I drove the hook home, snatched her rod, handed her my rod with line surging off the reel and proceeded to put a new hook on her leader. Before Gena could land the fish I passed off to her, I dropped in with her rod and hooked up again.

The bass weren’t huge, but the majority of them were quality stripers between 6 and 8 pounds with some 9’s and 10’s mixed in. I just can’t describe in words the intense excitement of the moment with anglers yelling, tangled lines, fish hitting the deck, sea lions grabbing hooked bass, birds diving…In short it was something that every angler should experience at least once. In roughly 30 minutes we put 60 stripers in the box and probably released at least 20 more small keepers and shakers.

We could have stopped fishing and headed in right then and everyone would have been happy, but it was barely noon and we had more halibut fishing to do. We spent the rest of the afternoon making drifts near the Brothers. The bite wasn’t hot, but we steadily picked up an assortment of keepers and shakers as Tawny provided us with a steady stream of awesome food ranging from hamburgers to brownies to caviar…

When all was said and done everyone was stuffed, tired, sunburned and smiling from ear to ear! So were the men able to edge out the women?

No, but it was a back and forth battle that went on right up to the last minute’s of the last drift. There was no way we could score the stripers, there was just too much going on at once, so we opted to decide the winner based on the number of halibut caught.

The women had the edge in the morning, but lost the lead early in the afternoon. As the end of the trip approached the women came on strong and recaptured the lead with 11 halibut to the men’s 10.

Just as the final drift of the day was concluding a guy up on the bow hooked up and all of us men were hoping for a tie, but it just wasn’t meant to be. That darn halibut was a half inch short, icing a third straight victory for the ladies!

The battle of the sexes aspect of the trip is purely for bragging rights, but we also awarded four awesome prize packages including rods from Lamiglas and American Spirit, P-Line, Kershaw fish and game shears, Kershaw knives, Eagle Claw Hook packs and Fish Sniffer Subscriptions. After consulting with James we decided that we’d give prizes for the top three halibut since it was technically a halibut trip and one prize for the top striper.

George Covert was the day’s big winner. For his first halibut, which weighed an impressive 17.8 pounds he took home the top prize and the big fish jackpot. For his 9.9 halibut he took home the second place halibut prize. Despite suffering from a cold, George had a lifetime day on the bay, scoring a limit of three halibut and adding a limit of stripers for good measure!

Chris Bryant nailed down the third place halibut prize with his 9.2 pounder. Ken Cody took top spot in the striper division with the 10.8 pounder he caught off of Point Richmond early in the day.

I for one can’t wait for next years Couples Challenge. On the way back to the marina us guys decided that next year the ladies will be fishing with bare hooks. That might just even up the playing field, but I wouldn’t bet on it!