Tuesday May 24, 2005. 9:45 - 12:30.
Skam den som ger sig! (shame on the one that gives up) Or.. hope springs eternal.
OK. I concede to the universe that catching those perch last week was pure luck, and not due to any particular skill of mine when it comes to finding fish! Now I'd like to catch some fish again. (please?!) Of course, I won't catch a thing without tossing a line in the water, so I'll keep at it.
Today, I drove down to Watsonville to check out Palm beach. Foggy
down there. This is a shallow sloping beach, with long sets of
breakers coming in. Beach looks pretty flat. Water doesn't ;).
OK, I'm a novice at this, but I'm not seeing any obvious structure.
I do see some areas with what appears less waves, so maybe the
structure is mostly on the Grand scale.
Big water. Constant roar of breaking waves in my ears. Impressive. Like the great sound of "OM". I feel my smallness, and a sense of wonder at the power of the ocean and the natural world. Beach is pretty, with lots of sand dollars littering it.
Eventually I got tired of not catching fish, and got in the car. Drove over to Sunset beach to check it out, as I was close anyway.
This looked better somehow.. the sun was coming out now and there were
a few fisherfolk down there. I saw what looked like a deeper section
of the surf, that might hold some fish. On with the waders, out with
the rod. I put a 'butt' section on the leader too, lengthening it
to about 8'. Still using the surf grub. I went down and for some
reason enjoyed the fishing here more.
No fish, but I did snag one
mole crab (poor thing). These guys are kindof big! I wonder how a
perch would eat one. Quite a number of sand crab remains at the
surf line, so there must be perch out there feeding on them. This
is definitely rough-n-tumble fishing. You have to keep a constant
eye on what the ocean is doing. I often end up with the line all
the way to my left, and slightly behind me. I reposition it
with a sort of spey-style roll cast . It's fun to use some of the
technique I was practicing at the pond a few weeks ago. Shooting
line is doing some tangling; looks like there is some twist in it that
I'll need to take out.
Talked to a couple of the other fisherfolk there.. they are using spinning & casting rods. One had seen no fish, the other said he had some nibbles, where the perch bit the tail off his grub. Apparently some other guy with bait gear had caught a striper earlier.
Eventually decided to pack it and head for work. Looks like I was fishing the incoming tide.
yesterday's forecast for today:
LIGHT WINDS...BECOMING W 5 TO 15 KT IN THE AFTERNOON.
WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT. NW SWELL 5 TO 11 FT AT 9 SECONDS.
AREAS OF MORNING FOG.
actual: TODAY
W WINDS 10 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT.
NW SWELL 4 TO 10 FT AT 9 SECONDS.
tides:
2005-05-24 05:25 PDT -1.52 feet Low Tide
2005-05-24 05:53 PDT Sunrise
2005-05-24 13:02 PDT 3.97 feet High Tide