Raul Espinoza may think about Ernest Hemingway’s quote when he’s fishing for huge thresher shark on Oceanside Pier, but he never dreamed he’d catch something much larger.

“My big fish must be somewhere,” Hemingway wrote in “The Old Man and the Sea.”

Espinoza hoped his big fish would be a huge mako shark that he has caught and lost three times, but earlier this week he hooked into a monster black sea bass that took him more than three hours to bring in. Because the fish is protected, he also carefully handled it to make sure it revived and returned to the deep.

Espinoza, 36, has been fishing on Oceanside Pier since he was 5 years old. He loves to fish for shark, often during the wee hours, and headed out last Saturday with that in mind.


Earlier this year, Espinoza led an effort to keep the pier open to night fishing after the city council considered closure. He rallied more than 24,000 people on a Facebook page and after testifying at a city council meeting it was decided to leave the pier open.

On this night, he was out to catch mako shark.

He used a whole mackerel on 40-pound line and a 50-pound leader. Just before 3 a.m., he started getting a nibble.

“I know exactly what time it was because I had just looked at my watch at 2:50 a.m.,” Espinoza said.


He expected a shark to be nibbling lightly.

“I set the hook and it peeled out and started pulling line. I couldn’t stop it,” he said.

He was sure this was the large mako weighing about 450 pounds that he hooked three times before. Each time he lost it.

“I was taking my time, because this time I wanted to tire him out and not lose him,” Espinoza said.


After stripping about 400 yards of line, he slowed down and Espinoza was able to lock down his drag and start cranking.

“I was able to recover a couple hundred yards of line until he started running again. He did this seven times until I got him to the pier at 6 a.m.,” he said.

It was only then he realized he had hooked the protected fish. State law requires they be safely released.

Espinoza was also shocked.


“This was jaw dropping and I was in deep shock. This fish was over six feet long and its girth was larger than the pier pylons. It had to go over 500 pounds,” he said.

Once he realized this was a protected sea bass instead of a shark, it was a different ballgame.

“Things changed once I knew I had the bass. It was now survival mode,” Espinoza said. “I had to make sure it survived.”

The small crowd of night pier anglers had gathered to watch and was stunned by the size of the fish. They rooted Espinoza on.


The huge fish began pulling under the pier and Espinoza worried he would tangle or break off on the pilings. The fish was exhausted and Espinoza wanted to keep control so he could make sure the fish recovered safely.

To do this, he climbed down a ladder to water level, but large swells made it dangerous.

“I waited to see if it was OK. Eventually I could see it was revived and ready to go, so I cut the line,” he said.

The big fish turned and took off.


At that point, all Espinoza could do was sit down.

“I was exhausted, my muscles ached, my shoulder out of place, and it’s taken me five days to recover,” he said.

He got lots of high fives and congratulations after the successful release.

“No one realized there was a fish that big in the water around here,” he said.


The official California black sea bass record stands at 563.5 pounds set in 1968 before protections were put in place.

“I think this one was bigger,” Espinoza said.

He thinks the big fish came in to feed on a reef located off the end of Oceanside Pier.

After a few minutes, Espinoza baited his hook and was back in the water. He went to work that day and returned that evening. It was hardly an eventful fishing trip, however, only landing an 80- to 90-pound bat ray.