Lars' fishing diary

Tuesday May 31, 2005. 9:15 - 11:00

I'm feeling short on time again, so naturally I go fishing.

Forgot my hat.

Anyway.. I went to the Current Favorite Spot this morning, around 9:15 or so. The tide is higher than last time, but the hole is still there, just not as obvious. 8wt rod today, with the 25' T14 head. I had a thought about trying it out at the park, but the fun of that pales next to actually going fishing. Better to test it in real conditions anyway. As it turns out, it works fine. Flies are the same as last time.. big #4 zen worm and #6 micro shrimp.

I geared up and went down to the hole and started casting on the left side. Almost immediately I have a fish on, and it turned out to be a beautiful barred perch. I cast here for a while, though with the feeling that I'm not quite getting out to where the fish are holding. The surf is wild and constant. This is a 'stay sharp' sort of fishing, where constant attention has to be kept on the environment. I'm also wishing I had eyes in the back of my head, to see if anyone has snuck up behind me while I'm retrieving. It is no fun hooking yourself, but much worse hooking someone else, even though they really should know to give me some room behind me. Further out, a bunch of pelicans were diving, pretty concentrated, so there must have been a good bait-ball out there.

Some tunes are going through my head during all this; Linda Arnold's "Dinosaurs at the park" and "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch". Not sure if it means anything..

I moved to the right side of the hole. Pretty soon I had a fish on.. a nice little walleye surfperch. I thought first that it was a bigger one, but turned out that it just had some help from the breaking, retreating surf while I was retrieving it. A few casts later, I whacked myself in the head with the fly, on the forecast. Rats. I'm glad these hooks are barbless. Hood on my rainjacket comes up. Visibility behind me goes down. A while later, I moved to the center of the hole and cast right into it, facing the surf. First cast, I have a fish on... for about 8 seconds. Cast some more, and got another walleye perch. This was a crazy, churny place to fish. I made some brilliant casts here, and some sloppy ones. I need to practice the brilliant ones. It seems that the best casts are ones where I get enough speed on the pickup to shoot line out the back, before the forward cast. The head seems to turn over better, and not too soon. I also managed to snag myself again, both flies puncturing my rainjacket, but not me. After that I found myself practicing 'chuck-n-duck' more than usual.

Back at the left side again, and here I landed yet another walleye. This one took the micro shrimp; all the others took the zen worm. I'll be tying up some smaller worms before the next trip, I think, as well as finding materials for Glenn's surf miki.

Done at around 11:00, and time to go to work. I like the State Beaches, where they have a freshwater shower to rinse gear off in immediately after fishing. A bunch of surfers were out today, though they didn't think it was the best surfing.

Fish: 1 barred, 3 walleye perch

Tides for today:
2005-05-31 00:12 PDT 1.90 feet Low Tide
2005-05-31 05:25 PDT 3.76 feet High Tide
2005-05-31 05:50 PDT Sunrise
2005-05-31 11:48 PDT 0.25 feet Low Tide
2005-05-31 19:00 PDT 4.96 feet High Tide
2005-05-31 20:21 PDT Sunset