Fishing

The motley caravan of boats, their engines popping in staccato rhythm, headed out to sea sounding like a platoon of sputtering lawn mowers. Painted bright red, turquoise and orange, they carried a dozen men wearing baseball caps and T-shirts fashioned as turbans to block the equatorial sun. Johnny Aralaji perched on the pointed bow of one of the craft, his sun-creased face frowning in concentration. He was born on a boat like this. His family wandered, allowing the currents to lead them.

The "water buffaloes" like to frame their fight as farmers vs. fish. It is not. It's about farmers and fishermen. A California water buffalo is someone who instinctively battles to develop water -- so named, I'm told, after the beast that reputedly can smell water from 200 miles away. The fight isn't necessarily about "versus" either because farmers and fishermen often are in the same boat, dry-docked for lack of water. Up and down the San Joaquin Valley, farm fields have been fallowed and field hands can't find work because there isn't enough water to irrigate crops.

If you can hit, drive or pedal better than anyone else, you've probably been invited to the White House and had your photo taken with President Bush. To football players, race-car drivers and Lance Armstrong, add this: anglers. On Tuesday, Bush's Oval Office champions were two bass-fishing tournament winners. With Alton Jones, who won $500,000, on one side and Judy Wong, who won $60,000, on the other, the president sought the right words to sum up their achievements.

CROWLEY LAKE, Calif. -- David Buckman does not typically attend opening day of trout-fishing season at Crowley Lake. "There are just too many people," said the 69-year-old resident of the reservoir's namesake community, located just across the highway. "I haven't been to an opener in 10 years." Buckman made an exception Saturday, after friend Hudson DeCray informed him there was room for one more on his boat.

Ominous black clouds roil the heavens as the fishing boat New Del Mar plows ambitiously to the west, with 67 passengers crowding its rails. But spirits soar. Blue patches are widening and this half-day fishing excursion out of Marina del Rey, like all such outings, promises adventure, camaraderie, mysteries of the deep and a peacefulness only the ocean provides. "It's how I get away from my hectic life," explains Magdi Salib, a dentist from Culver City. "I spend my free time on this boat."

The SPOTTED bay bass strikes like lightning and pulls like a miniature tugboat. Which is essentially what it has become, what with me on a kayak grinning with disbelief as the 18-inch fish has towed my 12-foot vessel away from the bank and is spinning it in a large circle. I'm inside Huntington Harbor with Paul Quirk, who owns Pablojoe Kayak Fishing and specializes in hands-on instruction for those considering a plunge into this increasingly popular method of angling.

The colorful game fish, with its iridescent green and yellow hues, is called dorado, which roughly translates to "golden one." It's wildly acrobatic at the end of a line and wonderfully delicious off the grill. Tourists in southern Baja California can find it at many restaurants, usually listed under its other name, mahi mahi. But the difference between the fish served here and that in Hawaiian restaurants is that the Mexican variety, in some cases, is tainted gray ... as in gray area.

Frank Sabatino, one of the last commercial fishermen left in Brooklyn, is generally acknowledged to be a tough customer. He has survived two sinkings in chilly Atlantic waters, one of which put him in the hospital for three days, battling hypothermia. Two years ago, while he was out fishing alone about two hours from shore, he accidentally gouged one of his eyes with a fish pick, blinding himself. Instead of calling the Coast Guard, he sopped up the blood with a rag and steamed home.

They're a welcome change of pace, all slithery and grabby, squirting water and ink, providing boatloads of fun as well as delectable table fare. But then there's the aftermath. "The whole boat is black," says Capt. R.J. Hudson of the New Seaforth out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego. "It takes us an hour-and-a-half to scrub the boat once we get it back to the dock."

Two fishermen were presumed dead after the Coast Guard suspended its search for their vessel off the coast. Wood debris and a distress beacon spotted off the shoals of Cape Elizabeth were believed to be from the Lady Luck, a 52-foot fishing boat based in Newburyport that has been missing since Thursday.