This is the first installment of Faces of the Sea, a new series about the people who work along Santa Barbara’s oceanfront.
Even after a childhood soaked in sea salt and six years of work as a commercial urchin diver, John Hoadley still considers himself a newbie fisherman with a lot to learn.
Fortunately, learning is an unavoidable part of the job, a natural consequence of the uncertainty tangled in the very meaning of fishing. As Hoadley sagely quips, “Sometimes you get them, sometimes you fail. That’s why it’s called fishing and not catching.”