How many of you have seen a farm in person? Probably all of you. How many of you have been on a commercial fishing boat? Probably very few of you. Just like me.

Commercial fishing is invisible.

Because we haven't seen commercial fishing face-to-face, we have a tendency to fill the blank space with what we see in the media. Unfortunately, this doesn't always represent reality.

Mario and Romolo Ghio took me out on their boat from the dock at Mission Bay. We went 3 miles off the coast of La Jolla and set the net. I found it fascinating that this world that was so invisible to me before was right in front of my nose. I could practically see my condo in Pacific Beach, or at least the Sea World tower and fireworks at 9:45 that evening.

Once the nets were set and we all had dinner, I laid my sleeping bag out on the deck and watched the stars until I feel asleep. By 4 in the morning, Mario and Romolo were bringing in the net. Each sea bass that came in was worth about a hundred dollars. With a two person crew and a cost of about $60 in diesel, you can do the rest of the math.

Mario and Romolo's catch provides an alternative to Chilean sea bass and so many other kinds of seafood which have been over fished and transported half way around the world. We'll have this local alternative as long as we don't regulate our fishermen out of business.

Before this trip, I imagined this kind of fishing happening with a huge boat, a lot of people, and tons of fish being violently extracted from the ocean. I know that kind of fishing also exists, but what I've found out is that there is another kind of fishing that is much more, well, like a couple of guys out on a boat. In San Diego, almost all of the fishing is done on this smaller scale.