RED TIDE

Wood Spinner

Wood Spinner

Guest
From my history in California was, red tide, don't eat anything in the ocean.
In RP the general public says not to eat any of the clams etc. but the fish are ok.

Any educated thoughts. A week ago I fished and we ate the fish and no problem. Now with what I am hearing I am not so sure.
 
Jungle Jim

Jungle Jim

Guest
Yo Spinner.......

As Newport Beach Boy myself, as I recall and am fully convinced by REAL old time scientific studies that the Red Tide plankton dinoflagellates are only dangerous to humans when eaten in super concentrations. Those amounts can only be found in the gut of filter feeding bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters, scallops and mussels. Filter feeding fish such as Sardines and Anchovies never have the amounts in their gut to be of concern. I saw some typical stupid fake news media bullsheet last week about some whales and dolphins dead off of San Felipe BC beaches "killed" by the Red Tide. Do those animals eat bivalves? Duh! There is one whale that does, the California Grey Whale which by the way do not hang out in the Gulf. I wouldn't worry about any local fish, shrimp, crabs or anything else from the waters off of PP. I had two delicious slabs of Linguado at the Frog and shrimp at the Dolphin last weekend and I'm still here.

Also, I have noticed that a lot of people don't even have a clue as to what the Red Tide is. On my trips to and from PP I regularly see the upper Gulf waters colored brick red. This is usually during a time of big high tides and is the result of mud and silt being stirred up by the tidal flows.

JJ
 
Wood Spinner

Wood Spinner

Guest
Hey JJ
Thanks and that is the same info I have found. Also the molluscs restriction has been lifted and all is well again.
 
Wood Spinner

Wood Spinner

Guest
I aklso forgot to ask where you were from. I was raised in Anaheim and spent the summer in Newport. I wonder if you remember the very high bridge on the way to the back bay. When I was about 10 a girl who liveg in the same RV park I did would walk out to the center and jump off. One day after we came up out of the water her parents were in a boat a couple of feet away and as you would think we never did that again. We stayed on the West end on the North side of the bridge.
The time was about 1945 and for about 10 years.
What is your history ?
 
Jungle Jim

Jungle Jim

Guest
Hey Spinner.....

Keeping it short,

Born in San Diego when Dad was still in the recently post WWII Navy. We moved to Newport Beach and grew up till I was in the class of 66 at Newport Harbor High. We had one of the first high end tract homes near the bluffs of Upper Newport Bay. Those mud flats were my stompin' grounds, way before anything like it is today. At that time the Irvine Ranch was selling out to the new suburbia but cattle still roamed the fields and around the bay. The upper part of the bay was a slough were John Wayne Airport is today. We used to catch Bull Frogs, Crawdads and Pacific Pond Turtles around that swamp to sell to the seafood restaurants in Newport. Those days we would fish from the mudflats, a five minute walk from home, and get Bonefish, Leopard Sharks, Smooth Hound Sharks, Halibut, Spotted Croakers, Sting Rays and Bat Rays on cheap snelled hooks baited with salted Anchovies slung with a lug nut from my Penn Baymaster, which I still use trolling off of RP. Those mudflats were loaded with clams much like La Cholla is today. In the summer we waited for the "flatlander" girls from the Inland Empire to show up at the beach, get em drunk and high then give em what they came for. Went to Orange Coast College then UC Riverside and somehow ended up in the US Army Air Cavalry without my permission.

That is another story,

JJ
 
Wood Spinner

Wood Spinner

Guest
Boy are we close but you were a few years later than I was. When I was I was there the bluff was just dry grass and we played on the slope that faces the bridge. I tried to get my folks to buy the bluff area and told them that some day the back bay would be developed. They thought I was a crazy kid. As I got older we used to drive from Anaheim to go to Balboa island to get a suicide malt. If you could drink one the next was free. I don't remember the name of the place but I think it was something like the Buckner . Would go over the bridge a couple of blocks and it was on the right. Man what great memories ! I also remember one time I went duck hunting with my dad and got stuck in the mud. He was pissed that he had to wade out and get me.
When you are down give us a call. 520-251-0656
 
Jungle Jim

Jungle Jim

Guest
If my memory still suits me, I do believe in those days it was called the Bay Bridge on old Hwy 101. On the south side was a fish market that also sold fresh live Abalone dirt cheap. I always got the chore of beatin' em with a mallet till they were kinda tender. Not even lobster tastes as good as fresh fried Abalone steaks. I remember a mountain of Abalone shells behind the place. On the other side of that narrow part of the bay was the bluffs with a Eucalyptus forest that was loaded with Green Tree Frogs and Worm Salamanders under the piles of shedding bark. Jumping off that bridge was a dare-ya thing in my days too. Especially on hot summer days before everyone had AC.

Tied up next to the bridge was an old stern wheeler turned into a restaurant called the Ruben E. Lee. Now days the PC krap would never allow a name like that again, although the HMS Harvey Milk is totally acceptable. I worked there during HS as a Salad Boy then as the Grill Chefs Gopher. I learned how to age, judge, cut, then grill quality steaks there and still do today. I used to get a cut from the waitresses tips that allowed me to live a surfer boys dream world. At high tides I'd row a dinghy under the bridge and knock Pigeon chicks off of the beams with a pole and sell em to a high end eatery in Corona Del Mar to be prepared as Squabs. I got a buck each for them, they probably got twenty.

Your muddy duck hunting area was the old delta of the Santa Ana River before it was re-routed and concrete lined on the north edge of Newport and Tin Can Beach. In my days it was a private hunting club and I remember some of my neighbors coming home from there with Snow Geese and lots of smaller ducks. The club had dug out a series of ponds to encourage the waterfowl and that's where I collected the frogs, mudbugs and turtles that I mentioned above.

And that my friend was an American kids dream world. Too bad the millions of kids today can't even imagine such a life, if they even have an imagination.

JJ
 
Wood Spinner

Wood Spinner

Guest
Back to the Red Tide
It is still in affect for another couple of weeks I was told. Some folks in the park went out to get some oysters and were told no due to the closure.
 
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