Although I did start the New Year on Jan 1 with a short boat ride and one sculpin caught, it wasn’t until the third a real trip was scheduled. I rounded up my attorney/boat partner Matt Resnik and accountant/good buddy Don Trojan and headed into the chilly pre-dawn hours with a couple bags of frozen squid and plans to fish local for a few hours. We hit the harbor mouth with a backdrop of high clouds and flat calm seas, a pleasant start to the trip.

Heading up the coast, my plan was to start somewhere along Palos Verdes with the hope of a seabass to start things off right. That part of the plan was not to be. But all the rest worked fine…with one major exception. We had decent bass fishing for a nice mix of calicos and dandy sandies which made for some good action and lots of laughs. As almost always, the winter bass responded best to light line and a small piece of squid as opposed to fishing a whole bait and the bite was steady.

Working back down in the early afternoon, I had a request to catch a few sculpin as they fry up so tasty, so I stopped on a little wreck that has produced famously in the past, hit it perfectly and…no sculpin…just more sandbass.Ok…so then I made our last stop a bass spot and sure enough…no bass but lots of big sculpin. We caught what we needed, got rolling towards home, started cleaning fish and that’s when the drama started. Matt comes up to me with a look of discomfort about him and announces “I’ve been stuck by a sculpin!!!”

He had got hit by one of the spines on the anal fin, which is a much better scenario than the dorsal spines. But even so, the pain is nearly instant and severe. We heated some water to hot but not scalding and he soaked his finger which helps to denature the proteins in the poison and control the discomfort. A couple of hours later he was joking about the experience and I cautioned him that he had gotten off with a cheap lesson as the dorsal spines extract a far heavier penalty!!! When you are cleaning sculpin, clip off the spines prior to handling to save what can be a trip-busting experience!!!

Good luck and Good Fishing

Mark Wisch