Just Basking with Sharks

A story from Randy Randazzo.

Basking shark

Randy’s an old timer on Monterey Bay. Past owner of Randy’s Fishing Trips, he’s seen a lot. But it was his experience coming upon a basking shark that has stuck with him all these years. What do you do with such a beast? Well, in the old days it was worth no small change. You’ll have to read Randy’s story to find out what they did with that plankton-eating shark.

SALVATORE “RANDY” RANDAZZO was born and raised right here in Monterey. Born in 1923 to Italian immigrants who met in Monterey and started a family. Randy has been on the ocean his whole life. He started helping his dad on fishing boats when he was a young boy. He worked as a commercial fisherman, a party boat captain and even fought in the US Navy in World War 2. He only attended one day of high school before he enlisted and headed out to sea to fight for the United States.

When he got home he worked as a commercial fisherman during the sardine heyday. He paid $500 as a share of the boat and went to work on a purse seiner here in Monterey. In two years he had made his money back. In 1948 he bought a part of the Fisherman’s Wharf and piece-by-piece he built it in to Randy’s Fishing Trips.

The original pier he built was made of recycled materials from the scrap piles of the canneries being dismantled on Cannery Row. He owned a small mooring field, skiffs for rent and a little bait and tackle shop.

In 1957 he built his first boat, The Randy I, for his charter business. By 1961 he had enough income and enough demand to build a second vessel, The Randy 2. At the peak of his operation Randy had five party boats leaving from his shop on Fisherman’s Wharf.

In 1981 Randy decided to retire from owning his business on the wharf, and he sold the business to Peter Bruno and John Lupo. They continued Randy’s legacy until 2017 when Peter Bruno sold the business to John Mayer and Mat Arcoleo, who rebranded the business into J&M Sport Fishing and Discovery Whale Watch.

After his retirement, Randy still filled in as a party boat captain for the other fishing companies on the wharf for many years and commercially fished in his own small fishing vessel. Now Randy is in his 90’s and most days you can still find him down on the wharf looking at the day’s catches and chatting with all the owners and workers on the piers. Randy really is a piece of living history and has many amazing stories.

You can watch Randy’s story on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbc36KgfIdQ

JUST BASKING WITH SHARKS

The basking shark?  My brother and I we were fishing gill net. We had a gill net and we used to lay them out here, and we used to get halibut and sole and crab. There used to be a lot of crab down in here. I mean loads of crab. Every morning we’d go and we’d pull the net and take whatever was in there. Take it in and sell it. This was a fish market, a Japanese guy, and we would sell him all the stuff.

Anyway, we go out there one day, and there’s a basking shark that’s just as big as a whale. And there used to be a lot of them. You don’t see them no more. But we used to see them all the time, basking on the water. That’s why they call them basking sharks, just sleeping.

He was all tangled in the net, so with our little 30 footer, what were we gonna do? We untangled whatever we can. We cut out whatever we can. And he’s just floating. Big. You could almost walk on him.

So we tied his head on the front of the boat, and on the back we tied his tail, and we headed for Moss Landing, ‘cause we knew Moss Landing in those days was processing whales, basking sharks, anything you brought they’d process it. They cut it up and they made oil.

“What year was that?” Gee…. “After the war?” No, no. No, that was before the war, that was in the thirties. That was in maybe – how old was I? If I was born in ’23, say in ’38, I was what,12,14? At fifteen I was fishing sardines.

So we towed it. It took us seven hours.  I’ll never forget. Took it to Moss Landing, and we took it, and they had a big ramp at the cannery there, where they went into the water. They hooked it up. They pulled it up the ramp. Oooooh. About three or four guys came out with knives, and they start cutting it up. And then they gotta boil it. In those days they used to boil it to get the oil. And they gave us seventy dollars for it. $70. “Wow, that was big money then.”

“Was the shark bigger than the boat?” Oh yeah. The skiff was like a 30 footer, and the shark was bigger than that. Oh yeah. The boat was 30’. The shark was just, psshaw (gestures with hands). Good thing I remember, it was nice weather. We were just cruising along slow.

You don’t see em anymore. (basking sharks). We used to see em all the time. Years ago. Lotsa whales now, but no basking sharks. I don’t think you’ve seen them, do you? “I’ve never seen one. There’ve been two sightings since I’ve been here.” Wow. They were huge and I guess they call em basking sharks, because they bask on the surface. You’d usually see them, half of it, out of the water, like they’d just be kind of floating. He wasn’t dead, just basking.

Thank you for sharing your story with us Randy!