Jim Shannon was introduced to trolling in 1965 as a boat puller (deckhand) in Arena Cove, California. The following year he made a deal to buy the Hardtack, a 26-foot double-ender built in 1906. On his maiden voyage he lost power and drifted all weekend in gale-force winds. It ended in disaster at Fishermen's Wharf in San Francisco Bay. A 44-foot Coast Guard boat tied side-by-side, preparing to land the Hard Tack, misjudged the power of the ebbing 6-foot swell, and crashed the Hard Tack against the pier so hard she sank overnight. 

Jim and his wife worked and scrimped and soon bought the Peggy Jean, a 38-foot harbor tug/troller built in 1911. Jim survived 2 dismal seasons and a freak hurricane in Port Orford, then leased the boat and sold it in 1969.

As with several other bad habits like smoking, drinking, cursing, and brawling, Jim couldn’t kick life on the ocean. In 1970 he bought the 60-foot Lynn Dee, built in 1914, and rigged her for tuna. He moved his wife and two young sons aboard, fished winter red snapper and a couple of tuna seasons, one of which would record the worst West Coast albacore fleet landings ever. He thumbed his nose at the sorry Lower-48 fisheries and motored up to Ketchikan late in 1973, thus giving his California creditors the finger.

In Alaska Jim rigged the Lynn Dee with salmon gurdies just in time to be subdued by something new called ‘Limited Entry’. So, he skiff-fished out of Pelican with a rod and reel until his Juneau lawyer got him an Interim Use Power Troll Permit the following year. For the next decade salmon trolling was fairly prosperous, although his best day was only 74 kings. Jim mostly fished west of Cape Spencer out of Graves Harbor where he usually had the place to himself. His family pretty much grew up aboard the Lynn Dee, including their only daughter Colleen, who became Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Playmate.

Prior to acquiring the Tacora, Jim had been off the sea and away from trolling for 18 years. He thought he was cured. Yet, nearing retirement he found himself up and down the coast on weekends walking the docks with his camera. He lusted sadly standing near the occasional vintage troller whose owner had for whatever reasons neglected her. Gradually he became seduced by those pristine harbor sounds, that rumbling dragger, the screeching gulls, a sceaming jimmie, and that familiar morbid sound of a distant foghorn moaning through the briny morning mist. He engaged in countless conversations with this cult of fisherpeople of which he was once a proud member. Their spirit still seemed to rival the buffalo hunters a century ago. Buying the old Tacora was his last chance to join the traditional waterfront once again before it became gentrified with yacht basins and multi-story condominiums.                   Home