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A Local Pacific Piscatologist: A Lifetime of Fishing
A Local Pacific Piscatologist: A Lifetime of Fishing
A Local Pacific Piscatologist: A Lifetime of Fishing
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A Local Pacific Piscatologist: A Lifetime of Fishing

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A Local Pacific Piscatologist: A Lifetime in Fishing tells the stories of a womans lifelong love of fishing. In 1952, Vernona Kay Snookie Fath began recording impressions, lessons, reflections, and catches in a fishing diary that chronicled her angling in the waters around Newport Beach, California.
Drawing upon this storehouse of personal history, A Local Pacific Piscatologist explores the hands-on elements contributing to successful and enjoyable fishing: equipment, dressing, and the community of people on a pier. It also casts its attention upon the lessons one may learn with a rod and reel in hand about the relations between men and women and the celebrations of family milestones. In addition to the stories, A Local Pacific Piscatologist shares a gallery of imagesthe people, the catches, and the oddities that have touched Snookies life.
If you find that accounts of fishing hook you and reel you in or if you enjoy hearing about the experiences of someone who found her lifes passion early on and then followed its lead, then A Local Pacific Piscatologist: A Lifetime in Fishing will educate and entertain you.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAuthorHouse
Release dateApr 26, 2013
ISBN9781481723640
A Local Pacific Piscatologist: A Lifetime of Fishing
Author

Verona Kay Fath

Vernona Kay Fath, who goes by “Snookie,” has spent most of her seventy-six years fishing in the waters around Newport Beach, California. She started keeping a fishing diary in 1952 and updates it to this day, recording her adventures, observations, catches, and memories of the ones that got away.

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    A Local Pacific Piscatologist - Verona Kay Fath

    © 2013 Vernona Kay Fath (Snookie). All rights reserved.

    No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

    Published by AuthorHouse 11/04/2015

    ISBN: 978-1-4817-2363-3 (sc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4817-2362-6 (hc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4817-2364-0 (e)

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2013904006

    Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

    and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

    Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

    Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

    Table of Contents

    Chapter 1   History

    Chapter 2   The Beginning

    Chapter 3   Equipment

    Chapter 4   Dressing

    Chapter 5   Pier People

    Chapter 6   Incidents

    Chapter 7   Learning

    Chapter 8   Other Incidents Near Pier And On The Pier

    Chapter 9   Questions Tourists Ask

    Chapter 10   Extra Activities

    Chapter 11   Man Versus Woman

    Chapter 12   Halibut Habits

    Chapter 13   Problems

    Chapter 14   Whales

    Chapter 15   Catches

    Chapter 16   Sharks

    Chapter 17   Weather

    Chapter 18   Christmas Parties And Birthdays

    Chapter 19   Earthquakes

    Chapter 20   Funerals

    Chapter 21   The End

    Chapter 22   Fictitious Story

    Chapter 23   Various Other Things That Pertain To Fishing

    About The Author

    MomaandCatfishinTexasinjpg.JPG

    Sunny and her brother Wade Jr. holding up her catfish

    Thanks to my late husband Walter, of 54 years who was my inspiration all this time. Also thanks to my daughters Vee and Sandy and their husband’s Jon and Phil plus my two grandchildren Sam and Paul as they all participated in giving me the desire to finish this book. Of course my mother, Sunny I thank for getting me started in this lifelong adventure.

    CHAPTER 1

    History

    Just think. One fish got this whole thing started. When my mother was a child of 10, in 1924, she was at her grandfather’s ranch in the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma near the Texas border. She was by herself and running down the almost dry creek in the woods in a drought year. There were a few puddles left, and she was jumping over them and throwing rocks into the water that was still there. She looked and saw a catfish barely covered in the clean water. She ran back to the ranch house to get her grandfather to help her get her catfish. He said they would not retrieve him in the heat of the day. They would go the next morning at sunup and bring him home in a gunnysack for breakfast. They did and that catfish weighed 26 pounds.

    She had always remembered that catfish and the excitement about getting a fish even if it was by hand and not by hook. Little did she know how that catfish would affect hers and our lives as much as it did. That catfish was the reason the desire to fish first hit her. Never mind the fish being caught the normal way. She was caught! It took us right along with her when the time came including my children and my grandchildren.

    My mother’s grandfather now knowing she wanted to really fish later took mama fishing on Lake Wichita in Texas. It must have been winter because it was so cold she said that icicles formed on the line. That fishing trip went without good results, but that didn’t deter her. She was finally fishing!

    It was years later and mama was home in Texas. My father to be came from California to visit her. While in Texas he took her fishing. They caught a lot of fish. Daddy put them on a rope and placed them back into the water. In those lakes there were turtles and the turtles ate the fish. Mama almost didn’t marry him because of this. Those turtles made short work of those fish.

    In her first year of marriage and now living in Anaheim, California, Mama went to the Newport pier which was about 15 miles straight down Harbor Boulevard. She took my father’s mother, my grandmother, her mother-in-law. Here she caught her first Pacific Ocean fish, a yellowfin croaker. Some person nearby told her that you had to have a license to keep those fish at that time or throw it back. Since it was her first fish there, she said that wasn’t going to happen. She had her mother-in-law take the fish to the car. That was the last time she kept an illegal fish, but she got home with that fish and no ticket.

    Daddy liked to fish shark in the back waters of Seal Beach when I was a baby. Mama sat in the car next to the spot he fished, with me on her lap trying to explain to me the art of fishing and catching. Not that I understood much of what she was saying at the time, but I must have absorbed some of what she was saying because look where I am today.

    I didn’t start fishing Newport Pier until I was nine years old. By that time mama was known by everyone so they were happy to help me learn to fish as well. In the early days of our fishing on Newport Pier the pier was packed with fishermen everywhere. It was hard to get a place at times when the fish were in. Although we were fishing close together, everyone was still pleasant to fish with. If a problem arose, the people that ran the bait house would tell the person or persons causing the problem to leave the pier. As a result it kept fighting and arguments down to a minimum. Today that is not the case. A different type of human is fishing on Newport pier, and the problems aren’t controlled by anyone. Needless to say we don’t fish there anymore. We moved to Balboa Pier years ago because to begin with in the winter the halibut stayed there. Halibut are what we were after. We would catch bait elsewhere such as the bay and bring the live bait out in buckets where we would catch quite a few halibut. As time went by the old fishermen from Newport Pier moved to Balboa Pier because of the fishing as well as the clientele.

    Everyone was much nicer on Balboa Pier. We have a much cleaner pier as well.

    Newport Pier was almost destroyed September 19th, 1939, in a sudden chubasco, a term that was used in 1939. The storm is now called a hurricane. About 500 feet of the end was wiped out and the bait house was taken as well. The cash register was left standing on the top of a piling after it was all over. The pier was rebuilt in 1940-1941. Lots of people insisted it was worth it, so it was done.

    That day the storm came the bait man was down at the local tackle store at the base of the pier around the fireplace with his friends although the fire wasn’t lit because it was quite warm at the time. He was going to close the bait house, but there was a fisherman left. It was a female fisherman, and she was still getting bait as she needed it.

    When he looked out at the pier and saw the storm had increased he knew he’d better close the bait house now. When the lady got her last bait she dropped it and was groping around when he asked what she was doing.

    She told him that she was now getting a chance to fish the prized corner. About that time a wave of rain, wind and water knocked her down. She stayed down to find her bait. He made her leave with him right then! Just after leaving the pier, the pier collapsed. She saw just how lucky and foolish she had been, but that’s a fisherman for you.

    Our restrooms were at the base of the pier. A large building called the Arches had women’s and men’s restrooms. There were many stalls on each side of the archway between them. The ladies side had a white lady attendant dressed in white who took care of the insides of the restroom. We had to pay 10 cents to use these cubicles, but they were nice and clean.

    When the boats brought in the big fish catches for the day there was a big cart to carry the fish off the pier. A good thing too, because some of those fish were quite large in those days between tuna, white seabass and groupers.

    The world’s largest participant sport is fishing. The number of female anglers in all the United States is 37% of the total fishermen. The number one reason people fish is to relax. The number two reason people fish is that they hope to catch a fish to eat.

    CHAPTER 2

    The Beginning

    My nickname and the name most of my friends know me by is Snookie. My mother had a little dog in her youth that got poisoned. That’s when she decided if she ever had a little girl that Snookie would be her nickname.

    My mother took me fishing on Newport Pier in Newport Beach, California, before I was born. That was in 1936, and it must have made an impression as I’m still fishing seventy years later in the same locations. And they say that Mozart can affect us in our youth. Fishing has far more reaching effects!

    I was 9 years old and in third grade for that actual first day fishing on the pier. Little did I know how that day would affect the rest of my life. It was spring at the time. I caught a beautiful white seabass and landed it even though it broke my rod. It was only 6 pounds, but my rod was old and split bamboo.

    My mother introduced me to Newport Pier fishing. We would go twice a week at first. Since it was 1944-1945, and wartime, we had to watch the gasoline use as we had to drive from Anaheim to Newport Beach which was about 15 miles. In those days there was just a simple county road which was one lane each way. There was only one stop sign between Costa Mesa and Anaheim. Mama carried a gun on the front seat because of the empty land areas we had to go through. It is hard to imagine that today with the solid development along the route.

    Mama carried a 22 automatic revolver for our safety when we or she travelled from Anaheim to Newport Beach using Harbor Boulevard. When we got to the pier, she put it in with our fishing equipment. At the time people would see a good looking lone redheaded woman and sometimes try to run her off the road. She never had to use the gun, but it was comforting to have. Daddy made sure it was legal with a permit and her fingerprints on file for it. In those days you could protect yourself. The gun was only 48 dollars, and there were 100 fingerprints taken.

    I am now 75 years old and it is summer again and I am still on the pier although it is Balboa Pier which is 2 miles south of Newport Pier where I spend my fishing time.

    I have two brothers, twins that are 14 months younger than I am. One is George and everyone calls him Dordie because of me when I was a baby. I couldn’t pronounce Georgie so I made it Dordie. Guess what-It stuck for the rest of his life. Not only that but I also created a Big Dordie with our grandfather. Freddie is the other twin. Not much we could

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