While crusing one of my favorite bulletin board web sites for fishing updates http://fishingnetwork.net/forum4/index.php I came across a post for Redondo Beach with a picture of the Isle of Redondo.
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| From So Cal Barges and the Matt Walsh |
This was an anchored fishing barge that was off Redondo Beach when I was a kid. It brought back some great memories of fishing with my dad in King Harbor and taking the boat out to fish on the barge. I remember one trip around 1984 (I remember it because of all the LA olympic stuff going on) we took the bus with our rods and fishing gear from Wilmington down to Redondo. I remember us having to sit at the back of the bus because of all our stuff. We took the boat out to the barge and it was a wide open Bonito bite going and we filled up a few buckets full that day. For some reason I also remember eating a hamburger from the galley that day, the things you remember as a kid. The most vivid part of that day was the bus ride home, full of chovie scales and two buckets of bled out bonito on the bus. People were not happy, but my dad did not give a crap.
The other barge I remember well was the Annie B in Long Beach harbor. My dad and I would go out on it if he did not feel like going on the Matt Walsh (the photo shows it the old way I remember it before it had a refit with the galley enclosed AH!… outdoor fishing on a boat with no cover in the winter just a yellow slicker and sculpin, no better way…) or if we had friends of mine coming along.
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| From So Cal Barges and the Matt Walsh |
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| From So Cal Barges and the Matt Walsh |
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| From So Cal Barges and the Matt Walsh |
I remember one time going out on the boat from Belmont Shore pier to the barge overnight. Me and my friends fell asleep in the galley while my dad fished. He came in and took a nap and when the boat came in the morning to get us some one had emptied out our tackle box, left the box nothing in it. Learned a good lesson there…. don’t sleep, fish.
Good memories… wish they were still around to take my son out on.
UPDATE from the FNN Fishing Boards about the Annie B:
its now located at la berth 240, a company called socal ship services bought the annie b and converted it. now its where their boats tie up to and their maintenance crew does repairs to the boats they chopped the top off of it but you can still see where the bait well used to be. the inside where the galley was is now a locker room with two heads and a shower. its good to see she still serves a purpose on the water though!
