CHECKING IN WITH ... BOBBY GOWIN:

The sun is shining and the anglers are out, so we thought it would be a good time to check in with Bobby Gowin, owner of Glenn’s Tackle Shop, 1145 Baker St., Unit A in Costa Mesa. Gowin has worked in the family-owned business, which is named after his father, since he was 12 — and after all those years, he knows his fishing.

How are they biting this year?

This year started off very slow. Our normal bite of white sea bass was off due to cold and green water around Catalina and San Clemente islands. Rock fishing was slow as well. As of late, however, the sea bass have started to chew quite well. There are a few yellowtail biting at the islands, as well. Calico and sand bass are now in the counts with good numbers from the Long Beach to Dana Point landings. The albacore and bluefin tuna have finally started to show in the overnight counts out of San Diego. This is the best news for a lot of local shops.

Do you have better results using a lure or live bait?

When the bite is slow, live bait is normally the best bet. But, when it’s on, lures such as iron jigs and swim baits will produce well for an angler who knows how to use them correctly. There are exceptions to this rule, though. For instance, I always do better fishing the harbor for spotted bay bass using swimbaits and curl-tail grubs.

In this area, what are some of the more popular fish to catch?

Target species are white sea bass, yellowtail, halibut, calico bass, sand bass, spotted bay bass, sculpin, barracuda, bonito and a variety of rockfish.

Which fish are good for eating, and which ones do you want to throw back?

All the fish mentioned before are great table fare. But I practice catch and release off all local species (except sea bass and sculpin). The fish that we always throw back are lizard fish, tom cod and mackerel (unless using them for bait).

Tell us your favorite personal fishing tale.

The year was 1998 while fishing the shogun out of Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego. It was a long-range charter of ours — a 10-day fly down/fly back from Cabo. The target species were wahoo and “cow”-size yellowfin tuna (YFT). The trip was very slow. There were only two [fish] caught [that weighed] over 200 pounds the whole trip. And my best up until the last day of fishing was nothing over 40 pounds.

With less than an hour left of fishing, I searched the bait wells for the heartiest bait I could find. I found a lively [piece of bait], nose-hooked him and chucked it out in the chum line. I was following my bait and noticed another angler coming the opposite direction toward me with a bent rod.

I did not want to tangle up with him so that he would not lose his catch. I started winding in, knowing that it was it for me on this long trip but, as our lines came together, I felt a tug. I instantly thought that we were tangled. I saw where our lines were and he went under me, I went over him and we separated. As I noticed we had not gotten mixed together, my reel started to scream with line ripping off the spool.

Twenty-five minutes later, I landed what would have been third-placed jackpot with a 94.6-pound YFT. If I had bought into the jackpot, the fish was worth over $500.

What is the funniest fishing story you’ve heard?

My dad decided to take my mom trout-fishing way back in the day. It was sometime in the ’60s. They were stream-fishing, and Dad gave her a bottle of salmon eggs, showed her how to cast and left to walk the stream by himself. So mom casts and casts and casts, while losing the salmon eggs on every cast.

She finally casts out lightly and the bait hits the water while still on the hook for once. And eureka! She gets bit, but her reel jammed and she could not wing it in. So she stands up and simply runs away from the river, dragging the trout up on shore. Sounds like a wild story — it gets better!

As she ran back to collect her catch, the fish flip-flopped its way back into the water. Well, the only thing left to do now is to jump in after it. And so she did. The only witness to this whole ordeal was a nice man who walked over to her after she climbed out of that cold water and said, “I haven’t seen bears that can catch fish as well as you…”

This was the last time she stream-fished for many years.