Saturday June 11, 2005
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Summary: 1 barred perch caught, on a new fly, and with a new line setup. Poked a hole in the waders with one of the flies.. maybe a new hole in the rainparka too. Rubber part of the fighting butt of the albright rod partially came off, and needs re-glueing. Beaches: Sunset and Manrisa. Had fun.
The water at sunset is definitely bigger than at Manresa. Bigger surf,
closer to shore. I went down there around 9:30 this morning, thinking that
it would be neat to go somewhere else. I think, though, that I need to
hit this place right around low tide. If the tide is up at all, I don't
see where any fish might be. Maybe the surf is less crazy at lowtide as
well.. time will tell.
I'm trying out a new line-setup today. 8wt rod, with a 250gr SA Wet Tip
Express, freshwater version with the floating running line. Sure feels
nice to cast a real fly line for a change. I have a new fly too..
a brown wooly bugger, really, but with hot orange body and some gold
flash in the tail, to make it resemble a molecrab, but more of an
attractor, as there are more realistic patterns out there. The other
fly was the #4 zen worm, a known working fly, though a bit on the big side..
However, Sunset beach was too crazy for me, so I put the rod in the car and drove to Manresa, keeping waders and raingear on while driving. The family wanted to come down to the beach too, so I'll meet them down there.
Surfpercher in the zone. Oommm... :). Actually I blinked.
Manresa was definitely calmer, but the tide was up here too, so not the
most ideal conditions for me. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to work
these beaches in high tide, but not today, apparently. Anyway, I was
casting over by the fave hole, right as a couple of spin-fishermen were
coming by and watching, when I get a tug on the line and land a nice little
perch, probably 8-9 inches. Cool. I'm still using the sinktip line, and
the perch took my new wooly-fly. Should have photographed the fish,
but I didn't.
I went and hung out with the family a little; they were building a really cool sand-castle. I got to explain the mole crabs to the kids. There were a lot of them on the beach, including a lot of dead ones.
Around 12:30 / 1pm the surf is getting higher. I switched to the T14 head + SA shooting line. This feels 'zippier' to cast, for sure, and the thin shooting line feels like it cuts through the water better. However, no more fish were felt during the short time I kept fishing. It was getting kinda late anyway. I managed to put a fly in the waders, on the right side. Bummer.. I'll learn about patching waders now. Also, while doing the spey-cast to redirect the line (quite a current to the left now), the rubber part of the fighting butt came partially off. I was using both hands and applying pressure to it. No big deal, it was a clean break. Bad cork-to-rubber glue job, I guess. I'll epoxy it back later.
Tides for today:
2005-06-11 00:43 PDT 4.77 feet High Tide
2005-06-11 05:47 PDT Sunrise
2005-06-11 08:07 PDT -0.26 feet Low Tide
2005-06-11 16:26 PDT 3.87 feet High Tide
2005-06-11 20:27 PDT Sunset