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Tom Gogola
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TheSea Forager Kirk Lombard is your guide to fishing off the beaten path BY TOM GOGOLA
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irk Lombard scans the shoreline and the surf, and says he hasn’t been to this spot in West Marin for a couple of years—but he has a knack for knowing just where the surfperch are and the best time for catching them.
It’s nearing the end of a flood tide in Bolinas, and I’m fishing with Lombard along the channel that leads into the Bolinas Lagoon. He whistles sharply in my direction and points to the spot, a cut in the shoreline where there’s a drop-off and the perch are hanging out, very close to shore. “The big ones are close in,” he says. “Don’t over-cast.” I keep catching little ones. The ubiquitous surfers of Bolinas paddle nearby as heavy surf washes across the channel and seals pop their heads up. We’re fishing with light-tackle spinning poles, perfect for these
small, scrappy panfish, with rigs consisting of three small hooks attached and baited with bits of rubber sandworms. We’ve got small pyramid sinkers that are supposed to grab the bottom; the tide’s still running a little strong but will ease off before too long. It’s a pitch-perfect, blue-skies day. Lombard is the author of the just-published Sea Forager’s Guide to the Northern California Coast (Heyday; $22), and the Half Moon Bay resident has driven up the coast and through the city for a late-morning outing in West Marin. For his effort, I’ve presented him with a hand-hewn wooden
gaff I plucked off a remote spot last year north of Agate Beach in Bolinas. He’s psyched (“I need a gaff! Thanks!”) and tells the story of a guy who lost a big halibut boatside just the other day— because Lombard’s boat didn’t have a gaff on it. The tide is just about right and the fish ought to be biting. Lombard is a little hoarse after the previous night’s outing—a publication party for his book that featured him and his wife, Camilla, singing sea shanties for a boisterous and appreciative crowd in Oakland. He’s a 50-year-old man with two young children and says
that his three-and-a-half-year-old boy already has the fishing bug— about the same age when Lombard got bit. Lombard’s guidebook is a lot of fun to read and a real standout from your typical fishing guides, which tend to be heavy on the “how to catch the big one” information but usually do not come with evocations of Marcel Proust or Tuvan throat singers (the latter are mentioned by way of comparison to croaking bottomdwellers). Lombard is a passionate angler who admits that he weeps for certain baitfish. And Lombard’s book also comes with a heavy