Tonight is the first tour I have made through this thread. Fascinating content!
Early on, that black sea bass is HUGE. These have been illegal to take for at least 40 years, since they were almost fished out along the California coast by the 1970s. The population is recovering, and once in a while someone catches one and releases it--assuming that the BIG FISH doesn't "arbor" your reel or snap your rod. Most tackle used these days is not up to managing a fish of this size and strength. Reels capable of this task (Penn Internationals) are expensive, as are the rods that match the reels' potential. Too rich for my blood--yellowtail and other middle-weight pelagics are my upper limit.
Fat poor people--most of the rest of the world cannot fathom that about the USA.
I have done a bit of fossicking around with my family's genealogy. Like Bret, I had a great grandfather Who Shall Be Unnamed. My question was simple--I am Allen Franklin Paine III, my dad was "II"--so who and when did "I" live? As a young man, questions along this line were met with deflections and discussions of the prevailing weather. My paternal grandmother--who, it turns out, knew right well "who/what/when/where/why", dissembled at length about family background, virtuously (it turned out) but truthlessly. The research to get straight answers took months and is worthy of an article in its own right, but for now I can confidently state that direct descendants on my dad's side have been in this country since at least 1725, and probably longer than that. They lived in the Virginia Colony at that time. 2nd-great-grandfather Herbert Murrell Paine (b. 1810) fought with the 2nd Texas Cavalry, and soon after being paroled at the Civil War's end he loaded up his much younger wife and kids in an oxcart and headed to San Bernardino in 1865. Allen "I" was born in San Bernardino in 1870, the 17th of 19 children (final score is a mite sketchy). This is a bare-bones version of the story, which would burn up a lot of bandwidth to detail here. Mom's side is better-known and -documented--her mom arrived at Ellis Island in 1911 from Freiburg, Germany. Mom's dad grew up in Dinuba, CA and his family has been in the USA since at least 1870.