Good arguments can provide the healthiest form of entertainment; they stimulate adrenal glands, arouse governments and nurture change. The Spit ‘n’ Argue Club, later the University by the Sea, has done that through most of Long Beach’s history.

 The professor’s white beard fluttered in the sea breeze. Alone, he faced the empty benches. His right hand swung a gavel—whop!—against the rostrum. “We will come to order,” Professor Selah Brickman, 90, said into a dead microphone. “The University by the Sea is now in session!” Only one person watched and heard, a man with a camera, there to photograph the Professor.“It’s cold today,” the Professor said. “The members stay home.”

This is the story of the rise and fall of a debating society linked to Long Beach history. The society should not perish without obit; for there were times in the past 70 years when its voices fiercely claimed free speech for a clammed-up, anti-anything and at times scared stiff city.

Before Long Beach grew where it stands now, on hot summer weekends the farmers inland used to pile their families into wagons and drive down here to camp on the sand. There were breakers tall as a row of corn, in those days, and clean sea air blowing the smell of ocean—of kelp and salt and sunshine. While women and kids waded, the men grouped up to swap news and ideas over a chew of tobacco.

That was the start of it. That was before newspapers in the area, and long before radio and long, long before TV. Men wanted to know each other’s thinking. They wanted to speak up. They got together and talked—and in that era, among farmers especially, tobacco chewing was a social necessity.

Those were the years after the Civil War—the ‘70s, the ‘80s. The farmers threshed politics and they threshed religion. The sounds of anger and of laughing, of threats and cheers, startled sea gulls from their dozing on the warm wet sand. Beach camping is gritty stuff and fresh water had to be carried. By 1884 a three-story wooden hotel rose from the beach below the present Long Beach Civic Center. It offered comfort—and a broad veranda for open-air debate.

Worldly folk, real travelers, met the local folks there on the veranda. The forum pummeled rich topics. Listeners came from the growing hamlet—which in 1885 boasted 51 homes, 13 business buildings, three stables, the hotel and a church. When voices shrilled angrily, women folk shuddered. “All they do,” the women said bitterly of the debaters, “is spit and argue.” So the outfit got its name, away back there, long before it really organized. The group became the Spit ‘n’ Argue. Eventually the word “club” was tacked on.

The hotel—veranda and all—burned Nov. 8, 1888. The group resumed sessions on the sunny beach. That was the year the new city incorporated. Local politics could be dissected. Spit ‘n’ Argue tore every issue, every candidate for anything, into oratorical shreds. Plug tobacco sold hand over fist at the Lowe’s general store at Pine and Ocean. By 1890 the club was drawing talent from the town’s 564 residents.

Spit ‘n’ Argue on May 27, 1893, first got a pier to stand on. It was the first of three piers to rise and fall under the club’s innumerable feats. Soap-box type oratory flourished on the first pier until the pier was battered by waves, and condemned a few years later. Meanwhile a million words were shouted to the sunny sky by S & A members and guests. The War with Spain fed the club’s oratory through 1898. Six years later the group took its stand on a brand new pier at the foot of Pine Avenue, a wooden beauty with upper and lower decks, 1,296 feet long. It was there, on the wide landward end of the Pine Avenue Pier, that in 1910 Spit ‘n’ Argue reached the glorious stage of formal organizing.

Pine Avenue Pier

There had been a most stimulating decade—the first 10 years of 1900—which started with a Long Beach population of 2,254 and saw newcomers pouring in like a cascade of new-threshed wheat. On July 4, 1902 Pacific Electric had linked its Big Red Cars at last to Long Beach. On the same great day, the Long Beach Bath House opened its heated seawater plunge, the biggest on this or any other world. The Pike was looking more like the Atlantic City boardwalk every day.

“Let’s organize!” shouted the club’s guiding spirits, among them Charles Hamilton, who for two years had owned a beach shop—and who for many years later resided in Long Beach. So Spit ‘n’ Argue set up officers and a platform. Right-wingers in town were aghast.

Spit ‘n’ Argue came out flat-footed for municipal ownership of water and gas. It backed continuation of concerts by an expensive municipal band—which had played its first concert March 13, 1909, a year previous. And Spit ‘n’ Argue demanded a “free market” where farmers could see direct to consumers. “Socialism!” screamed the conservative voices of Republican Long Beach.

But Spit ‘n’ Argue backed the band, and the band has continued to this day 60 years later. In 1911 the city voters bought a municipal water supply. In March, 1913, the Public Market was created by ordinance, and to this day it continues as a picturesque open-air mart beside Lincoln Park. The fourth plank of the platform was nailed down much later—not till Aug. 14, 1923. But Long Beach then got municipal-owned gas.

No one could name a figure for the number of words screamed and bellowed in Spit ‘n’ Argue oratory back in the Pine Avenue Pier days; but ocean swells wrecked the pier on Aug. 6, 1934 ending a 30-year stand by the club. On Aug. 14, 1935, in mid-December, the Spit ‘n’ Argue Club renamed University by the Sea after a civic cleanup drive, attended the city’s formal dedication of a 40-by-76 foot platform on the new Rainbow Pier, on which, by tolerance of the City Council, soap-box type oratory would be permitted. “Gag!” screamed the club’s hotheads, after the dedication was over. “Censorship!”

The Spit ‘n’ Argue platform was at the shore end of the pier

The Rainbow and old Pine Avenue Pier were next to each other for a short period of time

From the first club organizing, back in 1910, to the Pine Avenue Pier collapse of 1934, Spit ‘n’ Argue had fought its way orally through World War I, the Russian Revolution, the end of Prohibition, the change from Hoover to FDR, the alphabet soup of the New Deal, the Townsend Pension Plan, and the March 10, 1933, earthquake. Religion came in in for a few licks too. Depression brought left-wingers, flapping and whooping to the S & A, alias University by the Sea. “Communism!” Against the pinkish threat the Peterson Post of the American Legion rose up in horror.

Battle lines were drawn, with the City Council in No Man’s Land. It became a war and it went on for years. Fed up with being in No Man’s Land, the Council handed the club supervision to the Recreation Department April 25, 1940.

The war between Legion and oratory was still rumbling like the over-the-mountain gunfire when groups of S & A oldsters were complaining that fascists had taken over the forum. “Fascism!” The whole war became confused. Both sides demanded free speech. S & A stalwarts held on longest and won, advocating free speech forever.

 In June, 1949, the city spent $5,000 to widen the club’s pier platform by 20 feet. Two months later, 299 signers petitioned the City Council to kill the club as anti-American. On record is a message informing the Council the club’s trouble was being caused by “inflammatory rhetoric by four psychopaths, two religious fanatics and a crackpot.

An editorial in the Press-Telegram Feb. 19, 1952, concluded: “So we say let the Commies bray. Let them discredit and entangle themselves. But don’t let them goad us into mutilating with our own hands the very rights which we cherish most.”

The Rainbow Pier and a rapidly growing Long Beach 

In May, 1953, the Rainbow Pier platform was lost to land-sinkage and a sand-fill project. The soap-boxers were ousted. Grumbling, they met in Lincoln Park, and elsewhere until Oct. 11, 1953, when they were permitted to return to the pier. Since the club wouldn’t die and stay dead, the city came up with a $6,900 sage-green 32-by-60 foot windbreak and rostrum on the beach west of the hallowed Pine Avenue Pier, and later Rainbow Pier sites, and the club moved in on Jan. 3, 1960. Beach redevelopment has turned the access area, to the east, into an impassable mess with signs warning all comers to keep out. Only old-timers know how to find the club now.

Where orators used to face audiences of 2,000 or more, now on best days only a handful of listeners can be found. The Recreation Department’s supervisor of senior citizen activities, Jack Dillon, sees to it that on the third Saturday of each November the club elects a five-man committee to run its affairs. The committee chairman—Brickman this year, who is called “The Professor”—presides from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. daily whether the members show up or nay.

Dillon says the “keep out” signs have hurt the club for certain, but that another factor has hurt it worse. “Television took its steam,” Dillon says, “The rebels who used to shout and draw a crowd to the old pier platforms are shouting on TV forums now. They’ve gone away; they’ve cut the controversy down.”

Alone at the beach rostrum, facing empty benches, the club’s chairman, Professor Brickman, says a few kind words for his absent members, to the visiting man with a camera. The Professor stands picket-pin straight, his white beard blowing, his Navy P-coat buttoned tight around him. “So many things are gone,” he says. “So many of our old members. The people walking around the pier. The breakers, the sound of them. In 1902, a teacher, I came from Live in the Russian Ukraine to get away from the Czar, to find freedom and free speech. Here, yes, they are here! “But our members are old now. When the wind blows, they get cold. They stay home. No, no one chews tobacco any more. No one spits, here at our club. On sunny days, we still talk of everything. A few of us. But the old times have gone.”

—Southland Sunday, Dick Emery, Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram, June 7, 1970

As said in the article, television may have brought about the end of the Spit ‘n’ Argue club. It was much easier to simply sit in front of a television watching debate. There seemed to be less need for honest and open, in-person debate. Today, with the advent of computers, cell phones and social media, we seem to see an even more drastic change in communication. Debate is alive but sitting behind a screen allows a more vitriolic and hateful form of communication and for some, little desire for free speech or debate.  A tremendous loss in my opinion.

A big run of five and six-pound albacore at Long Beach wharf kept the hand-liners busy at that point, and turned the outer end of the wharf into shambles, literally slippery with fish gore. These small albacore frequently come close inshore, but are of little use except upon the hook, like all the mackerel tribe they put up a tremendous fight, and give the man behind the rod a good time. —Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1905

This Crawfish A Grand-Dad — Mammoth Redjacket Taken At Long Beach — Huge Specimen is Taken by Veteran Fisherman With Line Thrown From The Pier

Long Beach, July 7.—Frank Deffley, a veteran fisherman who has a stall under the wharf, while hauling in a line last night, thought for a few moments that he was pulling up the bed of the ocean, but when the hook reached near the surface of the water concluded that it was an octopus and began figuring how he could let go without cutting the line, for he had no desire for an encounter with a devil fish. Fortunately it was not, but the monster is undoubtedly the patriarch and great-granddaddy of all the lobsters. It was safely landed and filled a tub made from a half barrel. From the tail to the head measures thirty inches, with a body twenty-four inches in circumference. The main feelers are each over eighteen inches in length and the feet, from which the claws are missing, over a foot long. Its weight is eighteen pounds and its age problematical, but the fishermen who observe lobsters at all, stages think it at least fifteen years old. The monster was presented to the aquarium where it is on exhibition. —Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1905

Gigantic Lobster Caught At Long Beach

Long Beach, July 7.—Frank Deffley, one of Long Beach’s oldest fishermen, made the prize catch of the season last night. He thought he had a young whale when he began to haul it in, but when his prize reached the surface he saw it was a giant lobster. He succeeded in landing it and placed it in a barrel. The crustacean weighed eighteen pounds. It measures thirty inches from head to tail, its body is twenty-four inches in circumference and the main feelers are eighteen inches long. The feet are over a foot long. Its age is probably about fifteen years.—Los Angeles Herald, July 8, 1905

Pine Avenue Pier — 1911

White Sea Bass Seen In Large Numbers Near Wharf In Long Beach

 Long Beach, May 29.—During the last four days there have been many schools of yellowtail about the outer wharf and anglers have had excitement-a-plenty. With numerous strikes, however, only a few of the fish have been landed on the pier. Those caught have weighed from ten to fourteen pounds… White sea bass have also been plentiful about the wharf. Pompano were caught during the week by the hundreds. A few halibut were taken this week.—Los Angeles Herald, May 30, 1908 

An oil shark 6 feet 4 inches long, caught on a small line by Charles Lisk, put up a long and game fight off the pier and was not landed for half an hour.—Los Angeles Herald, June 3, 1908

Pine Avenue Pier — 1913

Conditions for the past week… Long Beach—Good. Corbina, yellowfin, mackerel, trout, smelt, croaker, pompano. —Los Angeles Herald, June 14, 1908

Anglers Enjoy Immense Sport With Sea Trout— Every One Has Good Luck

Long Beach, Sept. 9—There was never a greater day for sea trout fishing than this. All day long anglers have lined the pier and the outer wharf, and for a while this morning trout were pulled out with astonishing frequency, every fisherman or fisher-woman getting from four to twenty fishes. Capt. E. B. Counts of the Pacific fish market sold nearly 500 sardines for bait. From the platform in the rear of the market eighty trout were caught before noon. —Los Angeles Herald, September 10, 1908

Pine Avenue Pier — 1916

Two Denizens Of Deep Captured In One Haul — Five Pound Sea Spider Clings To Nine Pound Lobster

Long Beach, Sept. 25.—One of the strangest catches ever made off the outer wharf was that of a nine-pound lobster to which clung a five-pound sea spider, with long, strong tentacles. The fight which the two denizens of the deep started before the lobster get the hook was continued on the platform of the Pacific market after fisherman Clarence Owen landed them. The spider made a number of passes at the lobster, and the latter made futile effort to thrash the enemy with its many pronged tail, the lobsters best weapon. The lobster was the largest caught here this year. —Los Angeles Herald, September 26, 1908

Long Beach improved wonderfully last week and yellowfin, corbina, pompano, mackerel, herring and perch rewarded all who cared to wet a line at this delightful resort. —Los Angeles Herald, June 26, 1909

Pine Avenue Pier — 1917

Many Fish Caught By Busy Anglers

Long Beach, Dec. 23—It would be difficult to exaggerate the excitement occasioned here today by the sudden and unexpected visit to these waters of immense schools of herring, croaker and pompano. Early visitors to the pier were surprised to find that their hooks remained idle for only a second after being thrown into the water. The good news spread and by 10 o’clock the west side of the lower deck of the pier and also the guard-rail around the outer wharf were crowded with anglers. From then on until tonight the fish continued to bite, and around the feet of each fisherman or fisherwoman a great pile grew at a remarkable rate. Visitors to the outer wharf had to step high and carefully if they went along the west promenade of the lower deck to avoid stepping upon the catches. Croaker and herring were the fish caught with rod and line. Big catches of pompano were made with nets.—Los Angeles Herald, December 24, 1909

Pine Avenue Pier — 1919

Angeleno Hooks Jewfish That Weighs 270 Pounds

Long Beach, Dec. 28.—A jewfish estimated to weigh 370 pounds was hooked this morning by John Miller, a Los Angeles man, while fishing off the end of the outer wharf. The monster made a threshing fight of it but was gaffed finally by Clarence Owen. Owen’s right hand was torn badly between the thumb and forefinger by the snap of the leader, when the fish made a sudden lunge, and medical attendance was necessary. —Los Angeles Herald, December 29, 1910

A horn shark, eighteen feet long, made himself at home around the outer end of the wharf this morning and created consternation among the owners of light tackle, who hastily reeled in their lines. After some time spent in the vicinity, most of the time moving on the surface of the water, the ugly fellow gave a flirt of his tail and headed for the southeast.—Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1911

Pine Avenue Pier — 1925

365-Pound Jewfish Is Landed at Long Beach

Long Beach, June 12.—John Leach, an employee of the Pine Avenue Fish Market, broke a Southern California record yesterday at the end of the Pine Avenue Pier by landing a jewfish weighing 365 pounds. —Santa Ana Register, June 12, 1914

Huge Stingrays Caught

Visitors on the end of the Pine Avenue pleasure pier were treated to the sight of two of the most unusual deep-sea monstrosities ever drawn out of the Pacific at this port today. Albert Jewell, night man in charge of the municipal fish market, set out his lines as usual last night for black sea bass and sharks. When he pulled them in this morning he brought to gaff what are believed to be two of the largest stingrays ever captured in the Southland. The ordinary weight of a stingray is five pounds, but these tipped the scales at fifty-nine and seventy-five pounds. respectively. Large crowds gathered during the day to view the big sea denizens. The sawtooth bones that makes the ray a most dangerous creature were more than five inches long on the big fish, while the average “business end” of these hostile salt water inhabitants is less than an inch. The two stingrays put up a game fight and it was only after an hour’s struggle and manipulation that they could be hauled to the surface. Even after being gaffed they lashed out viciously with their barbed tails.—Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1918

Pine Avenue Pier — 1930s

Mackerel, herring, pompano, bass, croakers and sea trout are being caught from the end of the municipal pier. —Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1916

Ken Jones — Fish Taco Chronicles —Summer 2015

As chronicled in the previous article there has been change to California’s piers and the fish from those piers during the past century. That article displayed the great changes that have taken place in the number and size of the larger species—yellowtail, white seabass, halibut, giant (black) sea bass,  and sharks. So too has been the change to some of the smaller species, especially the numbers of those fish. However, most of the favorites are still favorites with a couple of minor exceptions.

Not too different from today, both yellowfin croaker and corbina were favorites from both the piers and surf.  However, although the croakers  were almost always called by their normal name, corbina were as often as not given the alternative, interchangeable name—surf or surf fish. If an article referred to surf or surf fish, it meant corbina. Most of the stories detailing large numbers of croakers, and large-sized croakers, were from the resort of Balboa (today’s Newport Bay). Some of those numbers are truly amazing but even the piers took their fair share as seen below.

Croakers and Corbina — There were fewer fishermen at Peck’s wharf yesterday than usual, and the fishing was rather poor, although Robert Pottinger of Bakersfield, who is summering at the seashore, made a good catch. He caught three yellowfin which weighed three and one-quarter, three and three-quarters and four and one-half pounds. Three surf fish which he also caught weighed five and five-eighths, four and one-half and three and one-half pounds. —Los Angeles Herald, July 15, 1908

The passage by the legislature and the signing by the governor of the Southern California Rod and Reel club’s bill which prohibits the taking of surf fish, yellowfin and croaker except with rod and reel has been received with “glad acclaim” by every fisherman in the south except the market variety. The law becomes effective in May, a short time after the opening of the regular season. —Los Angeles Herald, April 3, 1909

• A five-pound corbina was caught at Huntington Beach Sunday and several were brought in which ran as high as three and a half pounds. Monday the largest corbina caught this season at Playa del Rey was taken off the beach below the new pier. The fish tipped the scales at six pounds eleven ounces, and with the exception of the eight-pound surf taken at Balboa two weeks ago is the largest caught this season at any resort. —Los Angeles Herald, June 6, 1909

For the first time this season the beneficent effects of the seining law passed by the legislature, forbidding the taking of corbina, yellowfin and croaker except with rod and line, was felt to its fullest extent, and because of the fact that these game fish are protected from the market fishermen the sportsmen anglers who fish for pleasure reaped a plentiful harvest of these beauties… At Peck’s wharf, where for two years the fishing has been nil, there were some splendid catches made. Both surf and yellowfin were running in numbers and in large size, and a catch there on Thursday is a sample of what happened all week. Frank Munser of Bakersfield, Prof. R. B. Emery, Edward Nelson, John Ward, S. J. McKenzie, John Hebbard, Oscar Baer and two or three others took forty-eight surf and thirty-four yellowfin on the incoming tide. The surf ranged from one pound in weight to six and a half pounds; the yellowfin from three-quarters to two pounds. On Monday Prof. Emery, Mr. Munser and Mr. Hebbard took fifty-eight yellowfin at sundown, ranging in size from one to four pounds. Smaller fish were thrown back into the ocean.—   Los Angeles Herald, July 31, 1909

• Takes Nice Catch—George Reynolds landed twenty-two surf yesterday from the motor pier at Huntington Beach, between the hours of 4 and 6 p.m. —Los Angeles Herald, September 29, 1909

• Lands Seven-Pound Surf Fish At Venice — Venice, July 17.—Louis Miller, a waiter at the Ship café, today exhibited a surf fish which he caught here weighing seven pounds. This is the largest of this species of fish caught in the bay this season. The surf fish caught in this section rarely weigh more than four or five pounds. Miller landed it with an ordinary surf fish hook and line. —Los Angeles Herald, July 18, 1910

• Long Beach fishermen are patiently awaiting the repair to the pier and confidently expect big hauls on account of the enforced rest. Mackerel and surf are the chief game from the wharf, —Los Angeles Herald, July 15, 1910

Pine Avenue Pier — Long Beach — 1908

Good Fishing Off Pier Is reported—Huntington Beach, May 8.—A five and one-half pound spotfin fish was landed from the end of the pier here yesterday and, according to E. L. Curtis, proprietor of the fishing tackle stand at the end of the pier, was the largest fish of the year. Between twenty and thirty large spot fin and yellow fin fish were caught Sunday and several large halibut were hooked. Fishing here has been improving during the past few days… Good catches of herring, spot fin, yellow fin, surf fish or corbina, perch, king fish, halibut have been reported with several good-sized sharks also landed. —Santa Ana Register, May 8, 1924

Butterfish — One of the interesting changes is the respect that was accorded a fish which, although not rare, is today only an occasional catch at most piers—Pacific Butterfish, Peprilus simillimus. It was, and still is, simply called a pompano   by most anglers. In those early years it was considered the best eating fish and for that reason was one of the favorite catches by pier fishermen.

Food Fishes—Of the small varieties of fish there are the smelt, herring, perch, sardine and pompano, together with quite a number of other varieties. The pompano is the rarest and most expensive fish caught on this coast, the market price being $1 per pound, and the fish is sold readily at that price as soon as put upon the market. —Los Angeles Herald, January 1, 1893

• Ocean Park—Pompano fishing from the piers along Santa Monica bay today equaled the best record, at least in regard to the quantity of fish caught. The number of large pompano was limited, but sizeable fish came in myriads, often chasing the bait to the surface as lines were drawn in. They were most commonly caught in pairs. F. S. Volk, at the end of the Horseshoe pier, alone caught seven pounds of the fish early in the morning. There was a second run later in the day and although the piers were so crowded that it was hazardous to swing a pole, no one went away empty handed. At one time the schools of pompano were broken up by a lot of yellowtail that came into feed on them. These made sport for the fishermen… Surf fish also are running freely. —Los Angeles Herald, May 25, 1908

• Playa del Rey—Hardly a foot of the wharf was unoccupied by some fisherman casting his line and reaping a harvest from the unusually fine run of pompano. Everybody on the pier joined in the sport, nearly, and good baskets were the result in every instance. —Los Angeles Herald, July 9, 1908

•  Pompano, the delicious little poppy fish, made Playa del Rey one of the most popular resorts during the week. —Los Angeles Herald, September 28, 1908

• Jacksmelt and pompano, corn-fed mackerel and yellow fin ran in great schools at Redondo and Playa del Rey during the week and great catches were made almost every day. – Los Angeles Herald, October 25, 1908

• Sea at Redondo Beach Swarms With Pompano—Redondo Beach, May 5.—This beach has been experiencing an unprecedented run of pompano during the last week. Sunday and Monday the local wharves were black with anglers, who came here for the purpose of enjoying the sport… Many fine specimens of other varieties have been caught, among them three sea bass which aggregated 1000 pounds. The largest of these is estimated to weigh nearly 500 pounds. —Los Angeles Herald, May 5, 1909

• Redondo Beach, May 14.—Large schools of pompano are running at wharf No. 1 during early hours of each day, and many large catches are reported… A curiosity in marine life was a double halibut taken on the banks this morning by Charles Johnson. The fish was identical on both upper and lower sides.n —Los Angeles Herald, May 15, 1909

•  Good Hauls Made At Crescent Bay — Santa Monica, June 11.—The whole Santa Monica bay from Port Los Angeles to Redondo has been alive with pompano for the last few days. Fishermen at all the piers along this stretch of the coast are daily carrying large baskets of these little fish… At the Marine Street pier, where a new concrete structure is being erected, as many pompano have been taken in the last two days that they are no longer looked on as worth catching. These fish, with herring and an occasional halibut, are furnishing great sport for the many followers of Isaac Walton who daily line the railings… At Playa del Rey fishermen are taking advantage of the extension of the new pier and large numbers visit the place daily, catching pompano, herring, yellowfin and some surf fish… At Redondo on Wharf No. 1 the pompano are greatly in evidence and with the exception of steamer days, when the sport necessarily ceases for a time, men, women and children constantly line the pier and dangle lines between the piling. At Number 3 Wharf yellowtail and trout are also taken occasionally. —Los Angeles Herald, June 12, 1909

•  Ocean Park, June 16.—Pompano are biting at the Marine Street Wharf in numbers, many record breaking catches being made. Hundreds of anglers are out daily after this game little fish and that their efforts are amply rewarded is shown by the large baskets which are being carried away. —Los Angeles Herald, June 17, 1909

• 18-Inch Pompano Caught At Laguna — A real find in the shape of a genuine gulf coast pompano, which measured 18 inches from tip to tip, fell to the lot of Oscar Farman of Laguna, who promptly enjoyed a pompano dinner. This is declared to be the largest fish of this variety ever caught along the southern coast. Pompano of five or six inches in length are not unknown, but even those are fairly scarce and few enjoy the distinction of annexing them. In San Francisco, according to Farman, pompano used to “sell” for one dollar ($1.00) a pound. —Santa Ana Register, July 10, 1919

Pancherodoes — A mysterious fish story is that of the pancherodoes. The story is from central California, Santa Cruz to be precise, and it’s a mystery still unresolved. What is known is that it was a type of smelt but to date no one has been able to verify an identity, even the people who oversee the fisheries at the Santa Cruz Wharf. The best guess is that the pancherodoes were night smelt and the smelt called silver smelt were day smelt. Today it’s rare to catch a smelt off a pier unless considering jacksmelt and topsmelt as smelt. Perhaps there’s been a change in numbers, habitat, or simply fishing technique by anglers.

•  SMELT OFF DAVENPORT—With smelt of the Pancherodo species still running, fishermen are now looking for their appearance off Davenport, at the cement plant. At certain seasons of the year smelt of this variety are caught in the breakers in large numbers during the night and day in homemade nets. Residents living at Davenport have been catching them in this manner for some years past and have made a practice of salting all the surplus supply down under a similar treatment that anchovies are subjected to. Prepared in this way these small smelt are said to excel anchovies in point of flavor and general tenderness. The smelt generally make their appearance off the little beach at Davenport just before their spawning season. —   Santa Cruz Evening News, December 23, 1920

•  School Fish Appear—School fish are coming closer to shore and good catches of smelt of the pancherodo variety are being made from the municipal pier. These fish are transparent in appearance when held up to the light and can easily be distinguished from other species of smelt of smaller size. Ordinary garden angle worms make the best bait to catch them with, providing fishermen use a No. 14 catgut hook attached to a light leader. —Santa Cruz Evening News, October 20, 1922

 •  Smelt Reappearing — While mackerel are seemingly more numerous than ever, wharf fishermen now and then manage to catch a few smelt of the Pancherodo variety. During the spawning season, this species of fish of the smelt family go up the larger fresh water streams to spawn. In the larger rivers of Oregon and Washington, when the fish begin to go upstream in countless schools they can be scooped out of the water by the hundreds with anything that resembles a receptacle or net of any description. There are occasions though when Pancherodoes remaining in the bay have been known to spawn up the coast close to the shoreline where the sand is of a coarse and pebbly nature. Proof of this has been furnished at Davenport on several occasions and whenever this happens the fish can be scooped up with buckets or nets right in the rolling breakers. —Santa Cruz Evening News, July 30, 1926

•  Big Run Of Smelt—Smelt of the pancherodo variety are being caught at Moss Landing, and pole fishermen are enjoying some rare sport. A. B. Shaw residing on Riverside avenue visits Moss Landing frequently with friends and they are making big enough catches to keep their friends supplied with plenty of these fine eating fish, which are regarded the equal of small trout as a table delicacy. As yet the winter run of pancherodoes have not made their appearance on this side of the bay, —Santa Cruz Evening News, January 6, 1927

•  Busy Day On Wharf—With the weather conditions ideal for travel over the highways, the municipal wharf was one of the main points of rendezvous for visitors yesterday and all available parking space for autos on the wharf was taken long before the noon hour. The big run of smelt now on was a magnet of attraction for many fishermen who put in an appearance at an early hour and most of whom remained all day. The fish evidently believing in keeping the Sabbath, did not bite any too eagerly during the morning hours but some good sport was enjoyed the latter part of the afternoon. The smelt being caught are of both the silver and pancherodo variety. Ordinary angle worms are proving the most alluring bait to bring results. —Santa Cruz Evening News, January 24, 1927

•  About the only excitement furnished on the wharf yesterday was the large number of fishermen that were bobbing their lines for smelt… All of the smelt caught were of the pancherodo variety. These fish migrate to Monterey Bay in immense schools every year, both during the summer and winter months. During certain stages of the spawning season they are caught close to the breaker line on the beach at Old Davenport. They are caught during the night and it is an easy matter to scoop them out of the breakers with almost any sort of a receptacle. When occurrences like this happen, it does not take the news long to spread among Davenport residents and cement company employees. —Santa Cruz Evening News, January 2, 1930