Erik Landesfeind - SWBA Tournament Trail
The 2012 COC A tale of broken dreams and broken bones
Jan. 27 2012, 6:49 PM
Jan. 27 2012, 6:49 PM
Over the last couple years, a distinct pattern has formed at the “California Offshore Challenge”, a two-day Calico Bass tournament hosted at Catalina Island. Both years, the weeks leading up to the COC were filled with excellent weather and biting fish and teams that pre-fished San Clemente or Santa Barbara Islands were treated to mill pond conditions as they consistently scored 25-30 lb bags of Calicos. But those conditions went out the window as tournament day approached.
The week before this year’s tournament witnessed one of the biggest swells to visit the Southern California coastline since –well, since last year’s COC. The swell was predicted to die down after the first day of this year’s event, but the Navy threw another wrench in the plans by closing almost all of San Clemente Island on the first day of the event. With giant swells pounding the west facing parts of all of the outer islands, it looked like the competitors were in for a tough day of fishing.
As teams made their way to the weigh-in on Saturday afternoon, the anglers’ faces featured more frowns than smiles. For the most part they were just happy to have made it back to the dock safely. When all twenty-six teams had weighed in, only six of them had weighed bags over 20 lbs while seven teams brought in bags of ten pounds or less. Except for the handful of teams with big bags, “tough fishing” was the buzz word around the docks.
At the end of day one, Team “Salty Balls” (Josh Dunlap and Karl Erbacher) had a comfortable two pound lead with their 26.06 lb bag, which was anchored by the big fish of the tournament, a monster 8.97 lb Calico that they’d caught at Catalina Island.
In second place was team “Killerwhale” (Ed Howerton and Dennis Burlason), who’d made a long run and brought back a 23.34 lb bag.
Third place was taken by Team “RedRum” (Bryan Davis and John Kuch) with a 23.01 lb bag.
The fourth and fifth place teams were neck and neck, but Team “Killswitch” (Matt Kozbeff and Scott Pethel) narrowly edged out Team “Basstic” (Evan Salvay and Jeff Walker) with their 22.33 lb bag coming in 0.02 lbs heavier.
After the weigh-in, all of the anglers headed to the bar to either drown their sorrows or celebrate their good fortune. All of the anglers that is, except one. Evan Salvay of Team “Basstic” was taken to the hospital in Avalon and later air lifted to a hospital in Torrance to be treated for a broken pelvis.
Much earlier that day, Evan and his partner Jeff had been fishing tight to the beach at San Clemente Island when a sneaker set rolled in on them. Evan was in the bow of his boat when his partner took evasive action by blasting the boat over a breaking wave. Fishing Calicos tight to the beach is a dangerous proposition in any condition, but with Saturday’s giant swell it was potentially deadly.
As Jeff punched the boat over the first breaking wave, Evan flew into the air, came crashing down to the deck and landed on his back. Evan recounted his tale from his bed in the hospital. “We were fishing Northwest Harbor and were reluctant to go in tight to the beach because of the big swell. So we watched it for a while and didn’t see any big sets coming in, so we decided to head in and fish. The fish were biting really well and we had a decent limit in the boat, when Jeff yelled, “Look out!” and ran for the console.”
A bigger than normal set of waves were breaking outside of their boat and they were in trouble. “All I could see was a huge wall of water coming right at us”, said Evan. “So I just tried to hold on while Jeff punched us over it.” They cleared the wave safely, but as the boat dropped down the back of it, Evan lost his grip. “I probably flew ten feet in the air and landed on my back. I tried to get up, but it felt like I’d sprained my ankle.” After Jeff helped him up, Evan took stock of his injuries. “I wasn’t in a lot of pain, but I was having trouble walking. So I figured that I’d probably broken something, but I was hoping it was minor.”
It turns out that Evan, who is slight in stature, has a higher tolerance for pain than the biggest linebacker. Instead of heading back to the dock, Evan wedged himself against the leaning post and fished out the last six hours of the tournament, including culling several times before making the long run back to the weigh-in. After his partner weighed their fish, Evan stood up for the first time since his injury and immediately passed out. The lifeguards transported him to Avalon, where a doctor decided to airlift him to the mainland and he spent four days in the hospital.
Day two started without Team “Basstic” as Jeff is under eighteen years old and prohibited by the SWBA’s insurance to fish alone, but the twenty-five remaining teams carried Evan in their thoughts and prayers as they headed out. The swell had dropped significantly overnight and teams had their choice of areas to fish. There were a lot more smiles at the weigh-in on day two as team after team brought big bags to the scales.
Last year’s COC champs, Team “Perros Viejo” (John Beerling and Doug Crawford) wore the biggest smiles of all as they weighed a massive 28.48 lb bag of bass that was enough to put them in third place in the final standings.
The ever dangerous and extremely consistent Team “Killswitch” brought a 23.88 lb bag to the scales on day two to secure second place in the event.
But when everything was said and done, it was Team “Killerwhale” who took home the giant check.
Their 24.55 bag added to their previous day’s bag totaled 47.89 lbs which, at the COC, is equal two $4000.00 and a year’s worth of bragging rights.
For those of you unfamiliar with Team “Killerwhale”, Ed and Dennis are arguably two of the best saltwater bass fishermen in the state and having fished together for well over fifteen years, there aren’t many tournaments that these guys haven’t won. I had the chance to talk to Ed Howerton about the tournament and about their tournament success in general.
“Dennis and I have been fishing tournaments together for a long time and back in the old days, there were only a handful of guys that were competitive. It used to be the same guys, like Jack Sowell, making the same trip to the podium event after event, but over the last few years, guys have gotten better at tournament fishing and it’s a lot more competitive.” When asked about their weekend at the COC, Ed explained, “We didn’t do any pre-fishing for the tournament, but we ran to Clemente on Friday to check the conditions.” They found the conditions to be lacking. “We didn’t really catch anything there on Friday, so we decided to run to San Nicolas Island the next morning”. The run to San Nic is a long one, but they didn’t care. “We’ve got a big boat that can plow through the weather, so we headed out there because we knew that we’d have the island to ourselves.”
That is exactly what ended up happening. “We got to Nic and had our choice of spots. The fish were biting pretty well, but we weren’t seeing any big ones so we decided to pull the plug and head to Santa Barbara Island.” Running to San Nic is a long run, so leaving there midday and making a run to another island is quite a gamble. “We had our fingers crossed that there wouldn’t be boats there, but we knew that Benny and Keith (Team “Hammer”) had been fishing there, so we hoped for the best.”
They arrived at Santa Barbara Island to find that they had that island to themselves as well. “We didn’t catch a lot of fish, but we found one spot that kicked out a few good ones.”
Culling three times before they ran out of time, they headed back to the weigh-in and found themselves sitting in second place. There was a lot of dock talk going on after the first day, but Ed played it cool. “I didn’t let on that we’d caught fish at Santa Barbara because I didn’t want to contend with a bunch of boats there on day two.”
Apparently, them “playing it cool” worked out as planned, because when they arrived at Santa Barbara the next morning, they again had the entire island to themselves. Fishing was slower on day two and they managed fewer than twenty bass for the day, but they were all big ones. “I caught a 4 ½ pounder first thing in the morning and then Dennis caught two 5 ½ pounders on back-to-back casts. I knew at that point that we had a shot at winning.”
I then asked the question that I’m sure that everyone wants to ask of the guys that have been crushing the competition year after year for well over a decade. So, what exactly are you doing different than the rest of us? Laughing, Ed explained. “It’s all about the fundamentals. Fish baits that you have confidence in, with tackle that you have confidence in and do it in areas that you have confidence in.”
The answer sounded slightly canned and conveniently oversimplified, so I asked Ed to elaborate. “Too many guys rely on the latest and greatest tackle to help them get bit. They fish with long rods and spectra that helps them hook big fish way back in the heavy structure, but it prevents them from getting the fish out and into the boat. Dennis and I have been sponsored by Maxima Line for almost twenty years and we still fish with 20 and 25 lb mono. We fish short rods (7’ or under) and we can’t cast as far as the guys with fancy tackle, but we know that when we hook a fish there is a very good chance of getting it in the boat.”
Ed went on, “It’s like I said, fish with tackle you have confidence in. We were using Curado 300 and 400 TE’s on short rods with mono and throwing 5” MC Swimbaits in standard colors on standard leadheads. It’s not as exciting as catching fish on a hardbait or a Slug, but on tournament day, it’s about putting fish in the boat.”
When asked what an aspiring tournament angler can do to improve his or her own performance on tournament day, Ed offered, “Don’t fish a certain way just because everyone else is doing it. Fish the way you’re comfortable fishing. This will help your confidence and result in a bigger bag at the end of the day.” In a nutshell, I guess what Ed is trying to say is that old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill (or in this case technology) every time.
Join me next time as we kick off the 2012 SWBA season in Newport Harbor at the “Cabin Fever Reliever”.
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