POINT LOMA—
After 36 years of unparalleled service to the sportfishing industry, one-time sailor and reluctant general manager Phil Lobred is retiring at H&M Landing.
That Lobred’s exit comes on the 80th Anniversary of the fleet’s oldest and most iconic sportfishing landing is not lost on anyone at H&M’s corner of the San Diego waterfront. They might not have gotten here without Lobred’s leadership.
“We’re celebrating the 80th Anniversary, and it’s a big deal, but Phil took the landing in the right direction at a time when it was really needed,” said Catherine Miller, whose grandfather, Ralph “Barney” Miller Sr., was one of the pioneers who started H&M Landing, and the Miller family has been involved in the landing for most of the 80-year history. “Phil had the temperament and the foresight to carry the landing forward.”
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Frank Ursitti is the newest member of the H&M Landing team. Later this month he’ll bring his three sport boats – Ranger 85, Coral Sea and Constitution – down from Channel Islands Sportfishing and be part owner and general manager of H&M Landing. Ursitti bought William Ishibashi’s share of the landing.
Ursitti replaces Lobred, who will keep his ownership share of the landing along with Linda Palm-Halpain, who owns Lee Palm Sportfishers and the Red Rooster III, and Steve Kodota, son of former owner Frank Kodota.
“Everyone is confident that Frank will take the landing forward,” Catherine Miller said. “He’s a savvy guy. We’re looking forward to where he takes it next.”
Lobred says he would like to stay on and keep working, but health issues won’t allow it. He never intended to be a landing manager when he arrived here from Alaska in 1979 with his wife, Judy, aboard his 50-foot trimaran, Kashim. But that was his fate. His plan was to travel the world by sea and have a series of adventures on land and sea.
“I just wanted to get to different places like San Francisco Bay and then sail on,” Lobred said.
But when he moored in San Diego Bay, H&M Landing was looking for a carpenter, and Lobred filled that role. He went on to be dock supervisor and then general manager before buying a share in the landing. He never pulled anchor.
“We needed someone at the helm back then, and Phil was great for the job,” said Catherine Miller, who, along with her younger brother, Bob, helped restart the landing after her father, Ralph Miller Jr., bought it back from Ken Golden. Catherine was 23. Bob, a captain who had two boats, was 21. Lobred was the older voice the landing needed.
“I couldn’t spell sportfishing when I came here,” Lobred said. “I learned it all from Ralph Miller, just a brilliant man. I really didn’t need to stay in San Diego. I wanted to move.”
Lobred’s departure and Ursitti’s arrival is the latest chapter in the storied landing’s history that dates back to the mid-1930s.
On April 6, 1935, the Mascot No. 2 returned to the foot of Broadway and H&M Sport Fishing in Downtown San Diego to offload 136 yellowtail caught by 35 sport anglers at the Coronado Islands on an overnight trip.
Suddenly, water taxi captains became sportfishing captains. Instead of hauling Naval personnel to and from moored ships at North Island Naval Air Station, they took passengers fishing. Howard Minor and Ralph “Barney” Miller Sr., started it by taking their taxi out for marlin one day. They decided hauling people fishing was a lot sexier than shuttling them across the bay. They talked fellow taxi captains Bill and Tony Hoss into joining them to form H&M Sportfishing.
Today, the landing formed by four friends and rekindled by Ralph Miller Sr.’s son, Ralph, and grandchildren, Catherine and Bob, along with Lobred and Katrina Coleman, remains a going concern today.
On Friday night, almost 80 years to the day since that maiden run by that H&M Landing vessel, Capt. Chuck Taft took the Legend out to the Coronados to join in on a yellowtail bite that has been phenomenal this spring. Now based in Point Loma, H&M Landing and Lee Palm Sportfishers (Red Rooster III) form the only independent landing on the waterfront complex that includes two other landings.
The landing’s rich history is filled with legendary captains such as Mel Shears, Manny Silva and Lee Palm. Deals and mergers were done on paper napkins. There was an early merger in 1949 with Otto Kiessig, the son of sportfishing pioneer Frank Kiessig, the first captain to run long-range trips to Guadalupe Island and Cabo San Lucas in the 1930s Kiessig had Sportfishers, and the combined business became H&M Sportfishers. The landing moved to Point Loma after the merger with Kiessig. Helen Jackson bought Kiessig’s Sportfisher fleet in 1951, but sold it a year later to Lee Palm, a pioneer captain who developed year-round long-range trips to Guadalupe Island, San Benitos Island and Cedros Island.
Lobred believes the landing will be in good hands with Ursitti, who fits the H&M Landing tradition of being innovative, current and hard-working.
Lobred was 33 when he arrived from Alaska. He’s 71 now and has more than a sailboat full of memories.
He remembers how his wife, Judy, took to sportfishing and being on sport boats much more than he did. Judy earned her 100-ton captain’s license and helped out on H&M’s natural history voyages to whale-breeding grounds in Baja, another innovation started by the landing when Ralph Miller Jr., secured permission from the Mexican government.
“It’s just a lot different now than it was back when I came here,” Lobred said. “Boats are different. Back then we stacked people $50 a ticket when the fishing was really good. On Friday night one year, we had 99 on the Finalista and 99 on the Mascot. We were going around, high-fiving afterward. I remember we did that two or three times over the years.”
Lobred said all the bunks on the boats were taken, so Ralph Miller brought in sleeping bags for the anglers.
Lobred’s favorite captain was the late Gary LaMont, who was lost at sea when his boat, The Fish-n-Fool, was hit by a rogue wave and smashed into Ben’s Rock off San Martin on Feb. 5, 1987. Lamont and nine others were killed. A passenger, Jim Sims of Riverside, and cook, Cathy Compton of San Diego, survived.
“Judy cooked on the natural history trips that Gary ran into Baja, and every time Gary went by Ben’s Rock, he’d give Judy a recital of how dangerous it was,” Lobred said. ”Gary was a good friend of mine and probably the main reason I bought into this place. He called me ‘Emperor of H&M.’”
Lobred plans to spend more time with his passion, custom art knives. Every other year, Lobred hosts his San Diego Art Knife Invitational.
In an interview a few years back, Lobred summed up his life as an art and knife collector, mostly, but what he said could be said for his life at historic H&M Landing, too.
“I have many ‘things,’ as you might surmise,” Lobred said. “But as I get older, I think I covet my friendships the most. Without them, it would be a lonely, long life filled with things.”
