Welcome to B.A.R.F.
Bay Area Regional Fishermen


What is (was) B.A.R.F.

Way back in 1998 or so, I started a fishing web site. I wrote code that allowed users to leave fishing reports on the web site and later added a discussion area. Associated with the site was a group of fishermen called the Bay Area Regional Fishermen. We would meet for BARF-BQ's and share fishing info.

All was well until one day some guy got pissed off at someone else who said their boat was better blah blah. I was asked to kick the guy out of the group and refused. The pissed off guy left the group with his buddies and started another group. This other group claimed they did not need to share info with other fishermen anyway because they fish so much more than everyone else and knew more about fishing than anyone else.

Then another group was formed, the PC Sportsmen. Many of this group's members were also members of BARF which I thought was great! At one of the BARF BBQ's at Pillar Point one of these guys was smoking a joint out in the open. I later mentioned to someone in their group that it probably was not a great idea to be doing this in public. I said I had no problems with anyone wanting to do that, but not in public. Besides, I was hosting the BBQ and I always promoted the group as a family oriented group. If he wanted to do this he could go off somewhere and smoke his stuff. Later people on the PC Sportsmen email list were saying I was calling the entire group alcoholics and drug addicts. Supposedly someone in the group had an email from me calling the group alcoholics and drug addicts. I never sent any such email, but as before, no one cared about my side of the story. A bunch of these guys quit BARF.

I kept getting harrassing emails and people were making malicious postings on my web site. Certain charter boat owners would make exagerrated postings trying to get business (free advertising at my expense). I was spending most of my time deleting these postings before the public could view them. While all this was going on the DFG continued to restrict the sport fishermen while the large commercial guys raped the ocean unrestrained. People would get nasty with each other in the discussion boards. Arguments would break out because someone's boat was better, he caught more fish, or some other macho bullshit. Through all this I was financing the website out of my own pocket and putting up with all this crap. It was no longer fun and I was paying some huge monthly fees to keep the site up. I decided to shut it down.

I met a lot of really neat people through my web site and I really miss getting together with them at the BARF-BQ's and BARF lunches. As with many things in life, a few assholes ruined it for everyone else.

If BARF ever comes back it is going to be mostly automated. To prevent the chaos I had to deal with on a daily basis I will have to come up with a tighter registration scheme. I originally had welcomed anyone and everyone to my site and paid the price. As the owner of the site, any action I take is going to piss off somebody and I am not sure I want to go through any of that shit again.



One day my wife and I took a freind out fishing in our 24 foot boat "Bite Me." We met another B.A.R.F. member at the ramp who followed us out in his own boat. We launched out of Santa Cruz and headed north to do some shallow water rock fishing off Davenport. The water was a bit rough but not bad. We were fishing in shallow and the other boat was fishing out deeper. The boat was facing the shore so I did not see what was coming. I heard a crackling sound and turned around to see a huge wave heading for us. I just had time to yell for everyone to "REEL UP NOW!" and the wave was under us. Just as it passed the front of the boat the wave began to break. The B.A.R.F. member in the other boat, rather than getting on the radio and warning me, broke out his camera and started shooting. I believe this to be a small rogue wave, but it was pretty big as far as we were concerned. In the second shot you can really judge the size of the wave. Those are 9 foot antennas on my boat.