My First Time Surf Fishing
in Santa Barbara
Blue Water Hunter Shows Me the Ropes
and Invites You to Try Too
by Tyler Hayden | June 8, 2023
Read more of our Blue & Green 2023 stories here.
It was a fight for the ages, a true test of man and beast tethered in primordial combat, neither willing to give any ground even as time and fate drew us together. Salt and sleet whipped my body as the great fish heaved below. Day turned to night and our muscles screamed. Our bones groaned. The sharp remembrance of my child’s hunger is what finally wrenched the leviathan from the depths, all of its ancient strength no match for a father’s stubborn instinct to provide.
That’s how I tell the story, anyway. Because fishermen are supposed to tell tall tales, right? I’m still tinkering with the hyperbole; I’ve got a long way to go with the fishing.
It was actually a pretty nice morning at the Santa Barbara Harbor, if a little gray, when I met Owen Scheid from Blue Water Hunter for a lesson in surf fishing. I’ve watched people angling from beaches and piers ever since moving to town and I’ve always wanted to learn. I did in fact catch something ― on my very first cast, no less ― but it was a six-inch perch that went straight back into the ocean. And I did feed my kid fish that night, though it came shrink-wrapped from Trader Joe’s.
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