Can’t wait for bait

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- Late in the morning on a clear June day, the purse

seiner Pamela Rose cruises slowly into the channel at Newport Harbor.

The five-member crew has been fishing off Long Beach since 2 a.m. Now,

motoring up to the aqua-colored Newport Bait Barge that bobs in the

channel, they get ready to unload some of their catch.

They’re carrying bait fish, glistening anchovies and sardines. They hook

a yellow rubber hose up to the receivers on the bait barge and let loose

a torrent of saltwater and fish.

The man running the barge, John Cunningham, watches the transfer with

discriminating eyes. Some of the fish are a little on the small size, but

they’re fairly lively. They will be good bait if he can keep them

healthy.

Right now, because of the way the tides are moving, conditions are not

perfect for anchovies. The big highs and big lows draw warm water out of

the Back Bay, and the temperature-sensitive fish can be weakened in the

current. Sardines, which are more resilient, are easier to work with.

But even when conditions are ideal, Cunningham says, the simple matter of

getting good bait, bait that stays alive and active, can actually be

pretty complex.

“It’s not like giving people produce,” he says. “There’s a lot of

variables.”

Some of the simplest challenges he has to deal with include the tossing

of the surf in the channel and the birds and sea lions that tend to crowd

around the barge. A Labrador retriever named Zuke scampers around on the

deck to scare away gulls and the like, and he also provides a little

company between customers.

Cunningham also has to worry about the process of “seasoning” the bait,

of acclimating the fish to their new environment. To do this, little more

is required than to keep the fish in captivity for a few days. After

awhile, the weak ones die and the ones left over look vigorous and

spunky.

But you never know how they’re going to act. Sometimes, maybe because of

the tides or for some other mysterious reason, the fish just don’t seem

to have the energy they should.

If the bait isn’t ideal, Cunningham says, he lets his customers know.

There’s no point in trying to tell an experienced fisherman that you’re

giving him good bait when he can see that the fish are going to die in a

few hours anyway.

Under the best conditions, though, Cunningham can tell people he’s got

amazing bait, frisky as hell, and then serve up a scoop full of flopping

fish to prove it.

Cunningham looks down at the anchovies swirling in the receiver, a dark,

rushing school of motion. Then he looks out at the channel, calm under

the hot sun. With all that good bait around, there’s only one thing to

do.

“The tide’s good for bass right now,” he tells a visitor to the barge.

“You throw a line down there you’ll get a bite in five seconds. You want

to try?”