It's elementary, Watson

EXTRACTION REACTION: Allyn Watson, skipper of the Dreamer, leans on a white seabass caught up in the kelp. DAVE STREGE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

CATALINA ISLAND If the white seabass are biting at Catalina Island, chances are Allyn Watson is in the middle of them.

So adept is Watson at finding croaker, other anglers use him as their fish finder. They look for the Dreamer, his six-pack charter boat, and note his location.

Or try to squeeze into a spot next to him.

It's difficult to hide, but Watson tries. The wily skipper has been known to instruct his customers to put their hooked fish into free spool until a boat passes, so as not to advertise a wide-open bite.

"Catching them is the easy part," Watson said. "Keeping it quiet is the problem."

One spot can produce white seabass limits for several days if nobody else knows about it, hence the importance of secrecy. Too much boat traffic pushes the fish off to the next cove.

"The key is getting in and out before anybody sees you," Watson said.

Watson, 56, has been a captain for 35 years, the past 25 on six-pack charters and the past 10 on the Dreamer, a boat he co-owns with Raul Lopez and operates out of Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach.

Some 15 years ago, Watson said he was the only skipper targeting the white seabass at Catalina. He had the island virtually to himself for three or four years.

"One day they started figuring 'em out," Watson said, referring to other charter captains. "Now everybody is after them."

But nobody is as successful. Watson knows every nook and cranny of Catalina, and he has gained a reputation as the White Seabass King.

Such a title is deserved when you hear Don Ashley, owner of Pierpoint Landing, say that if Watson isn't catching any white seabass, then the rest of the fleet has no chance.

Or, when you learn that in a recent white seabass tournament at the island, 76 boats weighed in 18 fish and six of them were from Watson's boat.

"Al is a detective," Lopez said. "He finds them and puts you on them."

Watson plays down his reputation, saying it's probably because he's been around for so long. Yet it's the reason Jim Mickelson of Carlsbad and Van Smith of Costa Mesa chartered the Dreamer last Wednesday.

"This is the boat, it's pretty well known," Mickelson said. "He gets them, there's no doubt about it."

Eric Carpenter of Vista, Gene Wessel of Oceanside, Scott Evans of Glendale and Tim Marshall of Escondido also were on the overnight trip to the island in search of croaker.

Watson was one of many who predicted a banner year on white seabass at Catalina this season because of the volume of squid over the winter. Sketchy is how he described the season so far.

Scratchy is how this day started. Bay rays and yellowfin croaker were the first catches. Lack of current hindered the white seabass action. No current, no bites, Watson said.

"If conditions were right, we'd all be hooked up at the same time," he said.

Wind (for positioning the boat on anchor), water color (milky is best), water temperature (63 degrees or better) and current (for taking the bait to the structure where the fish are) are conditions Watson studies.

Finally, at 11 a.m., Evans landed a 23-pound yellowtail, doing so despite having had hernia surgery two weeks before. "I'm not even supposed to be doing this," he said.

Thirty minutes later, Marshall hooked into the right kind of fish, but it ran into the kelp and hid. No problem. The White Seabass King to the rescue.

"Hey Al, can you get this white seabass out of the weeds?" deckhand Bob Rombough called out.

Watson took the rod and leaned on the fish, then eased off. Meanwhile, Marshall grabbed another rod, then hooked and landed his first legal white seabass, a 12-pounder.

By the time the fish hit the deck, Watson had sawed through the kelp and gotten the other fish free. Marshall then reeled in the catch of the day: a 42-pounder.

"You the man, Allyn Watson," Marshall said. "That's a wall hanger right there."

Watson later saved a 32-pound white seabass from the kelp for Lopez, and Carpenter landed two white seabass in seemingly record time. They weighed 28 and 20 pounds.

So the six passengers and four crew totaled five white seabass, or five short of the boat limit. Watson said he would've liked to have had limits, "but at the same time, it was adverse conditions. We were lucky to get what we got."

Lucky? Lopez doesn't buy it.

"Every dog has his day," Watson had said of past successes. To which Lopez replied, "He has a lot of days."