Man, Fish, and the Eternal Food Chain at Castaic
There’s something primal about catching a smaller fish, putting it on a hook, and trying to catch a larger fish with it. I’m sure back in our caveman days, there was that one caveman with a few more brain cells to rub together who looked at the situation and said, “So the big fish eat the little fish. And there’s a lot of little fish. So, we catch the little fish and let the big fish come to us! I’ve run the numbers. Let’s circle back next week.”
Fall, if you could even call a 100-degree day ‘Fall,’ usually means shad season is in full swing in Southern California. This is when the bass start keying in on threadfin shad, and plain and simple, if you’ve got live shad, the fishing can be nuts.
If you don’t, things can get frustrating in a hurry, especially when the fish are so focused on the real thing that they’ll refuse just about anything else you throw at them.
Good thing we had live shad.
Getting them, however, required a little teamwork. Mostly, that meant Albert sliding the Nitro into about a foot of water while I gladly jumped out barefoot and stealthily worked the shoreline like a fat brown egret, ARC net in hand, scooping up these two-inch threadfin shad and depositing them into the livewell.
Albert, meanwhile, provided essential moral support from the boat.
“They’re right THERE, stupid.”
And so began our morning’s bait making sesh. There I was, walking barefoot over sharp ass rocks and pointy ass tree branches with a big-ass net roughly three times the length of my body, sacrificing the soles of my feet to catch baitfish about the size of Albert’s wiener. All so we could feed them to something bigger.
You have to appreciate the absurdity of it all.
Yesterday was fun, though. These fish were so dialed in that, after a while, they’d come up to inspect our live shad, notice the mosquito hook worn through its nose like an emo chick’s facial jewelry, and laugh before swimming away.
Between the two of us, we must have hooked about 90 fish, with roughly 60 making it into the boat and another 30 managing to escape. Hooking fish on live bait was like relearning how to ride a bicycle. I must have farmed my first five bites. I was that guy on the half-day boat, running back and forth between the rail and the bait tank, trying to remember how this whole “setting the hook with live bait” thing worked.
Luckily, we’d caught enough bait to last us until noon, at which point we decided to bounce.
I pretty much used one rod all day. Watching that pink braid flicker whenever the shad got picked up was mesmerizing.
I’d hoped for a topwater bite in the morning, but once we conceded that catching these fish was going to require a little less work on our part and elected to use live bait, things got interesting. Sometimes, you just have to stop trying to outsmart the fish and give the little bastards what they want.
Fishing live shad brings out the kid in you. For the most part, you know where that poor bastard shad is going to end up once it hits the water with a hook through its nose. And the whole production is nothing short of fantastical.
When the fish are fired up, your bait hits the water with a delicate little splash. Your bait takes off for its final moments in its life. Then, a second later, a much larger, more violent splash follows as a bigger fish engulfs the poor bastard. Your line takes off. Endorphins engaged.
It’s primal. There’s really no other way to describe it.
You catch a little fish to catch a bigger fish. It’s a food chain reduced to its simplest form, and for a few seconds, you’re part of it. No fancy electronics, no complicated presentations, no trying to convince a bass that your $15 piece of Japanese plastic is worth eating. Just a live shad, a hook, and something with a bigger mouth waiting underneath.
Of course, the fish aren’t stupid. After a while, they start figuring things out. They inspect your bait, spot the hardware, and go about their business. Meanwhile, you’re standing there wondering how a fish with a brain the size of a pea is somehow outsmarting you.
I miss fishing with Albert on the Nitro. It’s funny how coordinated we’ve become on the boat, almost choreographed. And while I did the heavy lifting, sacrificing my bare feet to the shoreline gods in exchange for a livewell full of threadfin, I was reminded how grateful I am to have friends like him. People you can spend a Saturday morning with, laughing so hard your sides hurt.
I don’t remember how many fish I caught or how many I lost on trips lately, but I do remember the ridiculous little moments in between. The insults launched from bow to stern, the scramble for bait, the missed hooksets, and the explosions on the surface when a bigger fish decides breakfast is served. Seeing members from our club, the West Coast Bass Anglers, sharing a stretch of shoreline and hollerin’
“It’s hot out here for a pimp!”
across the lake.
We went out there to get a half day of fishing in, but somewhere along the way, we ended up playing our part in an ancient ritual that probably hasn’t changed much since the cavemen figured out the whole little-fish-eaten-by-big-fish arrangement.
The only real difference is that our caveman ancestor probably didn’t have to listen to Albert farting at 4 a.m. while waiting in line for the lake to open.
He also probably didn’t have an ARC net to catch his bait, or the luxury of farming his first five bites.
We’ve come a long way as a species. Apparently, not as anglers.
