FIELDING A TOP TEAM - OF ONE.

Byline: Brett Pauly Daily News Staff Writer

One by one, the eight members of the Santa Barbara Sportfishing Club who had signed up for the East Cape trip began to pull out. When the wife of the last holdout took ill at the 11th hour, outing organizer Tom Ball was faced with a tough decision: whether or not to go alone.

There were major considerations, like bearing the cost of the hotel room and fishing charters by himself, and minor ones, like how to get the luggage from the car to the check-in line at the airport. He wouldn't have a buddy he could conveniently drop at the curb to wait with the tackle.

In the end, the verdict came easily for the Santa Barbara fisherman.

``I was not going to cancel. I had looked forward to it all year,'' said Ball, secretary of the 92-member club. ``To me, going on a trip alone can still be fun, what with the fishing, meeting new people and that camaraderie. Besides, Mexico's a great bargain vacation.

``You may come down alone and walk up to the front door as a stranger, but it's not very many minutes before you have a lot of new friends. And those friendships last a long time and create all sorts of new fishing experiences.''

Ball's story is encouraging for anyone who has considered a solo fishing furlough but wasn't sure how to execute it. There are dozens of excuses a buddy can use to bail out of that marlin trip you arranged in excruciating detail. Wasn't it singer-songwriter Paul Simon who composed ``50 Ways to Leave Your Fishing Partner?''

After Jack slips out the back, you have to make a new plan, Stan. Just listen to me and set yourself free - free to make your own call when the skipper pulls up on that frenzied school of dorado.

Do you toss live bait or a big, fat jig? A jig. Fine. You'll get no argument from Jack, because he's not there to haggle with you ad nauseam over every little presentation. Of course, you'll wind up missing that friendly bickering, and by day's end you'll undoubtedly find someone else with whom to argue the finer points of technique.

The key to a successful solo trip is coming prepared, and applying quick thinking in the thick of a bite.

``I spent a lot of time reading . . . planning . . . talking to some of the experts,'' Ball said.

He had to pack light - four rods, four reels in 30-, 40-, 50- and 60-pound setups. Normally he'd bring spare reels and several lighter outfits, but he didn't have the luxury of spreading out the load among two people.

At the same time Ball had to pack smart, especially considering he was entered in a two-day team fishing tournament in which every moment would count for a one-man entry. There would be no relying on a pal to bring the swivels, leaders and hooks.

He carried a top-of-the-line pair of binoculars, because there would be one less set of eyes to spot feeding frigate birds and pods of dolphins - telltale signs of tuna underneath. Since Ball knew he would be reeling in every fish - there would be no trading off cranking duties after each hookup - he planned to use a fighting harness even on smaller quarry to hasten the retrieval and preserve strength.

``Some people may ask, `A big-game harness for tuna that are about 50 pounds? That's designed for 200-plus-pound tuna. That's overkill,' '' Ball said. ``But it's not overkill when you've got less than an hour to bring in as many fish as you can. Instead of playing the fish, I cranked 'em up.''

Ball is referring to the first day of the ``Let's Talk Hook Up'' Tournament, when he was the first contender to spot the birds, the dolphins and the big school of tuna below them.

He had no live bait because his panga skipper was late picking him up and the bait haulers were out of sardinas, a local herring. ``I thought it was going to be a long day,'' Ball said. So he began trolling cedar plugs - primitive-looking lures of wood and weighted heads that mimic baitfish and snare tuna with deadly effectiveness - and got hit. An 88-pound yellowfin was boated in only about 20 minutes.

Still, it was a struggle. He couldn't communicate to the skipper that his fighting harness was in the bottom of his tackle bag. When finally found, it was put on upside down. There wouldn't have been a language barrier if Ball had been with a partner. (Tip to solo anglers: Always have your fighting belt on.)

Then more tuna began to strike, and Ball had to fish smart.

``I've fished here before and I know the first boat on the tuna has an opportunity to pull in the fish,'' he explained. ``Once the second and third and fourth boats come in, the bite is gone.''

So on a double hookup, he dropped the midsize outfit into the rod holder and reeled in the fish that was hooked on the heavier setup. The idea was to avoid using up his energy taking more time to boat the tuna snagged on the lighter gear. ``Why burn yourself out on the first shot?'' Ball said.

The strategy paid off. He took four more tuna - 40, 46, 52 and 56 pounds - in the next hour and 10 minutes. The sport-fishing fleet was called in - a regional custom in a hot bite - by his skipper after the third tuna was boated, but Ball's premise proved right; he was the only one to get bit and led the contest after Day 1.

The next morning - with sardinas in the baitwell - he gambled in a dorado bite in hopes of preserving his thin lead. Since Ball knew the spirited fighters almost always swim in pairs or greater numbers, he loosened the drag after hooking a first fish, placed the pole in the rod holder, pinned a sardina on a second outfit and cast. It was a bold move; any number of scenarios could have ended in losing the first dorado. But his luck held and he landed both specimens.

A released sailfish later in the day ensured victory for a single angler in a team contest.

``My mind went into overdrive out of necessity,'' Ball said of his actions. ``Extreme clarity.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--color) BALL

(2--color) Tom Ball has established that one angler can charter a panga and land five yellowfin tuna in 90 minutes.

William Boyce / Special to the Daily News