"Hi, this is Brandon from Western Outdoor News. What's going on with fishing? (I already know the answers usually.) Any whoppers this week?" is how the typical call starts. The reports are only as good as the people giving them, and after calling the landings I move onto calling the skippers. A lot of the guys I've known for a long time, longer than I've worked at WON, so it's part bitching about fishing (on their end) and part catching up with a few laughs thrown in the mix. 

Then it's on to the surf reports. I always call Ginny Wylie at Wylie's Bait and Tackle first, and hearing her voice is a highlight of the day. She asks how Carin (my wife) is doing, how the dog is, when the baby is due, and always says thanks. She's still "old school" and calling Wylie's is just like it was, I'm sure, for guys like Chuck Garrison back in the day: good info and an appreciation for getting some ink. Every Christmas she sends a present. She makes me realize what it must have been like to report on the fishing before this little thing called the internet. 

Wylie's, Just Fishing (Pete Wilkowski is another great guy to talk to), Big Fish, Hogans and Pacific Coast Bait and Tackle round out the calls. Come prime season is about 40 calls and a half day of work before a word gets typed; this time of the year its around 30. 

Like anyone reading this I use the power of the internet to see what the counts were that day, so I don't do much writing until in the evening. It's like a split shift, one that I have found works out best for wrapping up the week. All it took was having a bite pop on a Sunday--after the reports had been written--to figure out that sacrificing the Sunday night is the best way to get the most accurate rundown. 

And that's my Sunday. Mondays are another story...